blogging and storytelling

Blogging and Storytelling

Britt Bravo

WeAreMedia Webinar: September 23, 2009

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Blogging & Storytelling

• 11 ways nonprofits can use blogs to tell their story

• What should we write about?

• How do we find readers?

• How do we track impact?

• Most important tip . . .

11 Ways Nonprofits Can Use Blogs to Tell Their Story

1. Share Your Expertise

2. Share breaking news in your field

3. Share the story behind your brand

4. Share your readers' opinions & content

5. Share notes, photos & presentations from events

6. Share notes & photos from the field

7. Interview Experts

8. Share Organizational News as It Happens

9. Share Your Press

10. Ask for Feedback

11. Call Your Readers to Action

What should we write about?

Questions to ask when choosing topics

• What goal are we trying to achieve?• What audience are we trying to reach?• Who else is writing about these topics?• What is our “niche”?• What tone will we use?• Who will write the posts?• How much time do we have to blog?• What are we excited to write about?

How do we find readers?

Find Blogs

• Google Blog Search• http://blogsearch.google.com/

• Technorati• http://technorati.com/

• Alltop• http://alltop.com/

• Blogrolls• (i.e. http://philanthropy.com/giveandtake/)

• Twitter Search• http://search.twitter.com/

Read & Comment

• Read Blogs– Google Reader

• http://www.google.com/reader– Bloglines

• http://www.bloglines.com

• Comment

• Buy an egg timer

Make it Easy to Share & Subscribe

• Place a “subscribe” prompt in the top right corner

• Allow subscription via rss and email using Feedburner

• Put the blog’s URL in your email signature

• Place AddThis or ShareThis buttons on each post

• Share posts on Twitter with bit.ly

• Add to your Facebook feed with the Notes application

• Add to your Facebook feed with the Twitter application

Participate & Engage

• Link to other bloggers in your posts

• Have a blogroll

• Ask questions

• Ask for feedback

• Ask for content (i.e. ideas, photos, video)

• Be opinionated

• Make it easy to comment

• Hold contests and giveaways

• Participate in memes and blog carnivals

Write Useful Content

• How to

• Lists (10 Ways to . . .)

• Roundups of blogs posts about your topic

• Title posts with words people are searching for

• Write short posts (200-300 words)

• Include images with every post

• Use white space, bolding and bulleted lists

• Mix personal and professional tone

How do we track impact?

Impact Metrics

____Subscribers____Visits____Page views____Links and referrals____Comments____Content contributed by the community (i.e. videos)____New donors, or members____Donations____Press____Relationships

Tools to Measure Impact

Google Analyticshttp://www.google.com/analytics/

Site Meterhttp://www.sitemeter.com/

Twitter Searchhttp://search.twitter.com/

PostRankhttp://www.postrank.com/

WhosTalkinhttp://www.whostalkin.com/

Social Mentionhttp://www.socialmention.com/

Technoratihttp://technorati.com/

Most important tip . . .

Have Fun! It’s not called social media for nothin’

Questions?

Britt Bravo

www.brittbravo.com

britt@brittbravo.com

(510) 757-9684

Twitter: @bbravo

Skype: bebravo

http://www.facebook.com/britt.bravo

http://www.slideshare.net/Bbravo