Posts tagged with ‘online tools’
Current Project: Topeka Subways
Buying a sandwich from Subway isn’t really something you make big plans to do. I’m hungry, I want to eat healthy, I see a Subway…I go get a sandwich.
I like the way you can see the ingredients, the way the people there…The Sandwich Artists…care about what they make for me.
Brain Bucket is currently working with the great folks at Topeka Subways, Emporia Subways, and Junction City Subways.
The Big Idea:
The Subway customer is very tech savvy. They are particular about what they want. And, there are “regulars.” I suggested that these franchises need a way to engage with their 
customers without doing empty, repetitive and ineffective “campaigns.”
The Approach:
A) Engage people on a very local level by studying community relationships the franchisee already has, and use a few social media tools to broaden the reach / visibility. Thus, Topeka Subways will be a sponsor at Heartland Park this summer in a number of ways…more on that later!
B) Time the launch of online properties with efforts already happening during the Subway National advertising windows. For example: timing the launch of the launch of a new local website with the national advertising push for breakfast offerings.
C) My customer also wanted to create an email list, in order to time email marketing with the advertising windows. Thus, we created a give us your email for a cookie push in his Topeka locations. This has resulted in collecting approximately 500 emails in less than two weeks.
Online Properties:
How Facebook Community Pages Undermine Nonprofit’s Official Pages in Facebook Searches « Nonprofit Tech 2.0
If you maintain a facebook page for a company or a non profit…you need to take a look at this article. You need to know that Facebook is reshaping how it ranks and displays search results. You need to know that ANYONE can set up a “community page” with some variation of your company’s name in it. I will post more strategies and possible solutions as I find them. For now, please read this article and reply here if you have encountered an issue like this.
See How Far Your Twitter Efforts Reach
Here’s a cool little tool I have been using recently.
Type in your account name, a url, a keyword or phrase, and it will show you how far the last 50 tweets with your search term in it have “travelled”
Who cares? What does this tell you? Why would you do that?
You should care, because Twitter isn’t about the number of people you follow…or the number who follow you. Twitter is about the effectiveness of your network. You may think you are generating traffic, clicks and even page rank through your Twitter efforts, but the reality may be very different.
It is easy for you to hire someone to goose your follower/following numbers. It is altogether more challenging to build an online reputation and ‘reach’ that looks like this:
Type in your twitter handle and see how you compare to Jeremiah! Realize that he has worked for years to gain this. It takes time, authentic interaction, sharing valuable and useful information to do this.
When you have the Tweet Reach report up, be sure to click on the “how to read this report” link in the upper left hand corner…good stuff.
Got any questions or comments? Please share!
Why Facebook, Twitter and Google Are Your Non-Profit’s New Home Page | Powered by John Haydon
Until now the prevailing thought among non-profit marketing folks is that your website’s homepage is the primary target in most campaigns. Hence the focus on design, call to action and content. That was then, when the web was all push – all about destination sites.
What is your homepage?
When was the last time you went to the home page of a non-profit you were interested in supporting? Maybe the first place you went was Facebook, after a friend shared something with you from the non-profit’s Facebook Page. Or maybe you googled the name of the non-profit after hearing about it at a party. Or maybe you clicked a link someone shared on Twitter. In all cases, your first visit was not the non-profit’s home page.
Frank Reed, of Hubspot writes: “So many factors go into the creation of that perfect ‘front door’ to your site that many companies forget that visitors don’t always enter through the front. Search engines have given your prospect the power to find your site based on what keywords you’re optimized for or based on what social channels you take part in.”
Building more home pages
Take a look at your web stats and Google Analytics. What words are people using to find your site? What pages are being visited the most? If you’re not happy with what you find, start optimizing each page on your site with the words you want to people use to find your organization. And if you want to get even better rankings, start blogging!
Google loves blogs
A blog does two things that helps your non-profit’s rankings on Google:
- Google prefers fresh over stale. A blog enables you to regularly create fresh content for search engines.
- Google lets links decide what’s valuable. The more inbound links from reputable sites a web-page has, the better chances it will rank high in google. And blogs tend to receive more inbound links than traditional websites. Especially when the content is fresh, remarkable and highly relevant.
- Google loves specificity. A blog allows you to quickly create a single web-page (also called a post) around a specific subtopic. Think about these two search terms: “1952 Red Ferrari” and “Cars made in Italy”. Which one will have the least amount of competition of Google and have higher relevance to the user?
Read more about WordPress SEO in @remarkablogger’s post called “ SEO for Beginners“.
Referring Traffic
After search traffic, look at referring traffic. What sites are referring the most traffic? And are you happy with the amount of traffic you’re getting? Inbound links, Facebook and Twitter give me the most referral traffic. What about you?
Your homepage on Facebook
There are 350 million people now using Facebook. If don’t have a Faceobook Page that’s optimized for search and social media, now is the time to get one ( I can do that for you if you don’t have the expertise or time).
Your homepage on Twitter
Your homepage on Twitter is the conversations people have about your non-profit. They share links to various sites – sometimes yours. Are you part of these conversations?
Your homepage on smart phones
Finally, make sure your site is optimized for smart phones. If you are using a WordPress blog, check out the Wapple plug-in. This makes your website more easily consumed and shared on mobile phones. The last thing you want is a potential donor at an event who can’t read your site on their iPhone.
Now over to you. What’s your homepage?
Sharing creates good karma! You’ll finally be the cool kid in your next life…
holey moley John Haydon rocks! He puts together tools and strategy focused stuff every day. Here’s a great take on why YOU as a non-profit should kill your website … well, you should at least kill the thinking that “everybody comes through the front door.”
This simple change in you or your organization’s mindset can impact so many things.
There’s a follow up post coming on this one!
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