Ever wonder how other organizations run their web projects so successfully? Learn through Talance Client Spotlights, where you can connect with peers to pick up inspiration and proven tips you can apply to your website or online course.

Caitlyn Slowe

Caitlyn Slowe is a master juggler. She’s the go-to person to manage what’s published and when on the Health Imperatives website, a health agency in Brockton, Mass. As her organization has discovered, the items that appear on the site receive a huge boost in traffic, so hers is a key position. Here’s how she manages the homepage and about 20 smaller sites on top of her other job duties. Hint: organization really matters.

What’s your title, and how does that fit in with managing the website?

I’m the Manager of Special Projects for Health Imperatives, and one of the “projects” that my title refers to is our new website. Health Imperatives has about 40 different program sites ranging from family planning programs to a domestic violence shelter to GLBT youth services and so on.

My title was created last year when we were preparing for the launch of the new website. In addition to managing the website, I still continue to do my previous responsibilities like grant writing, event coordination, budget tracking, report writing, etc., for several Health Imperatives programs.

What areas of the site are you primarily responsible for?

I manage all of the main page content for www.healthimperatives.org and about half of the program sub-sites (some programs manage their own). On the main page, I find and post content for “In the News,” create the Slides for the slideshow (and usually the pages that they link to) and post program updates under “Announcements.”

I also manage all of the main Health Imperatives social media sites, which currently include Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

How do you keep up on learning website manager skills?

I love NTEN’s (Nonprofit Technology Network) blogs and webinars on web design and management, and Mashable also has some excellent articles and tips on managing websites and social media. The Nonprofit Facebook Guy has great info geared specifically toward nonprofits. I’m fairly new to web management, so I basically try to read anything I can find relating to nonprofit web design or social media!

What does your day-to-day strategy look like for keeping the site updated?

One of the challenges I have with managing the website is that it is not my only job responsibility, so to make it more manageable for myself, I create a calendar for each month and map out how/when I’ll update the three sections of the main page (News, Slides, and Announcements).

A snapshot of Slowe's planning calendar

I seek out and write the News blurbs and design the Slides in advance so that I can spend a minimal amount of time dropping them onto the site when their day comes up on the calendar. It’s worked well so far!

I try to update at least two different main page sections per week to keep the info fresh, and I leave each item up for at least one-two weeks (unless it is time-sensitive) so frequent site visitors will see as much new content as possible.

For social media, I rely heavily on HootSuite to help me keep up to date. I aim to do at least one tweet per day, and I limit Facebook to three posts per week (usually Monday, Wednesday, Friday). HootSuite allows me to schedule a week or more worth of Twitter and Facebook updates in advance, which is a huge time-saver!

Hootsuite is a huge timesaver for Twitter campaigns

It’s been half a year since the new site launched. What trends do you see in usage?

We have seen an exciting increase in traffic to our website since the new page launched, and it seems that people are enjoying the new format. Google Analytics is a great tool to show results in real numbers – for instance:

In 2011 between 1/29-2/28 we saw 1,580 (unique) visitors

In 2012 during that same time month-long period we’ve had 4,123 (unique) visitors (yay!)

We’re also seeing an increase in new users (vs. returning users), which tells us that our website is reaching a broader audience than it has in the past.

We’re finding that events/trainings that are advertised on our main page slideshow are receiving drastic increases in attendance. For example, a recent recurring training saw a 150% increase in registration after we advertised it on the main page slideshow. Very exciting to see these results, and we’ll definitely continue to advertise this way!

What’s the most useful part of the site?

I’d say that the slideshow has been the most useful part of the site, because it’s the first thing visitors see and can help us direct them to certain program sub-sites that otherwise may not have gotten as much exposure.

The Shopping Cart has also been a very useful tool, as it allows people to make donations to specific programs and also lets them register for trainings or events online, which is definitely the preferred method for our web-savvy visitors!

We’re getting ready to launch a new website, and I want to know how it’s doing. What’s the best way to get honest feedback?

Thanks,
Roslyn Kruchten

The fact you’re asking that question already puts you on the road to a better website. A new online project doesn’t end when it launches. That’s just the ending of the development. Hopefully, you’ve done your homework into what your audience wants and needs before the launch, because then you can focus on how well you’ve delivered after that.

Here are a few good ways to get feedback on a new website, although it’s a good idea to check how well an established website is doing too.

Issue a survey – the same one you offered before beginning.

It’s always a good idea to put out a survey before you begin any web project to see how you might improve. Its results will tell you what you should build into the site, but it will also set benchmarks. Keep those results, and then after your new website has launched, you can issue the same survey and compare results.

Here’s a free user survey you can print out or e-mail to your audience.

Ask the people you know.

Simply send a message to the people in your contacts lists, though e-mail, on Twitter, Facebook or your other social media accounts. Ask people who have nothing to do with your industry, because they’ll give you insight and help point out jargon. You can ask them to simply respond to your message, or you can create a submission form for them to add anonymous comments.

Ask the people you don’t know.

Set up a quick test with a user testing tool like FiveSecondTest. This service lets you create two designs of a website and test it on a random sampling of people. People who see it vote with their gut for the version they like better. Anonymous testing can reveal preferences and problems that you can’t discover from asking your friends.

Set up a usability test.

If you’ve got the time and budget, the best thing to do is set up a usability test. Ideally, you’d have a focus group with subjects and interviewers, seriously studying how they do on your site. The W3C has some excellent test scripts and interview questions you can use to model your own session.

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We never expected to spend as much time as we do building widgets. Increasingly more often, our clients come to us for Twitter stream sidebars, custom Facebook pages and Facebook Like buttons. We’ve known anecdotally that there’s a growing demand for these social media hooks, and now there’s justification.

Lijit, a provider of search, content delivery, and analytics tools for online publishers and networks, has just released a report that reflects how many publishing organizations rely on social tools blended into their sites. Many, many sites have widgets installed, implying that websites are not stand-alone and serve as a hub for more wide-reaching campaigns. Over the past two years, they found:

• 2010: 735,834 sites surveyed, 84.8% with widgets installed (13,541,022 widgets)
• 2009: 744,848 sites surveyed, 84.7% with widgets installed (13,826,562 widgets)

Why the huge numbers?

“To either make their sites better, or to give them more understanding about the readers that visit their site, or to make money,” says Lijit CEO Walter Knapp in an article in EContent Magazine, which featured the study.

The article outlines the wealth of social tools available for augmenting the site and also extracts key date from the study. A helpful benchmark in case you’re deciding whether you want to add a widget to your site.

Check out the top 50.

Top 50 widgets and tools implemented on publisher websites

Undeniably, social tools like Twitter and Facebook can help your congregation. But which is better? Take two nanoseconds and give us some feedback on our poll. We’ll report our findings.

[Photo credit: Megaphone. by Mal Cubed, on Flickr]

Twitter messages (aka tweets) may be limited to 140 characters, but have an impact greater than your typical sentence. Follow these tips to make sure your efforts aren’t the equivalent of online mumbling. (Curious about what Talance is saying? Follow us @talance.)

Make sure people are listening.

Just because you’re tweeting doesn’t mean anybody knows about it. Make sure to tell them. Announce it in your bulletin. Mention it during meetings or services. Upload your contact lists to see who in your network is using Twitter. Take steps to make sure people know about your Twitter initiative.

Say something worth saying.

Even if everyone in the world is listening, they’ll tune out if you don’t say anything worthwhile. Plan what you’re going to say, and make sure it’s worth saying. This doesn’t mean you need a daily Twitter script, but it does mean you should think about what topics you’ll be covering. I keep a sticky note on my monitor that has a list of the topics I want to make sure to cover in Talance’s communications.

Repeat your tweets on your website.

Your website should be the central hub for all your communication. This means that any Twitter, Facebook, e-newsletter, etc., project you have should lead back to your site. Since you can keep deep stores of information on your site, this is your opportunity to point people there for more details. In terms of Twitter, this means showing your most recent tweets show up in a Twitter feed, and also providing a link back to your Twitter account on the homepage.

Repeat your tweets everywhere else.

Most social networking services, including Facebook, Delicious, LinkedIn, MySpace, WordPress blogs, all have Twitter plug-ins, which allow your most recent tweets to show up on those services. Use them!

Energized?

Start bragging about your tweets by telling us about it in the comments box below.

Too many of the non-profits and religious organizations that come to us think of their communications strategies as one-way streets that never intersect. While they may send messages through their website, Twitter account or Facebook Page, many never ask for feedback or take steps to build a conversation. Instead, they’re focused on one-way announcements of ticket sales or special initiatives.

Usually, those messages never intersect with a blended communications strategy. You may see that a church has a Facebook account – but only if you happen to come across it on Facebook.

The important thing to remember is that someone who might be really interested in what you do might not be a Facebook or Twitter user. So that means that if you put all your energy into Facebook or Twitter or any other singular thing, they’ll never find you. Spread it around.

Here are a few good examples of how to blend different communications initiative:

Detailed Twitter Background

Add a custom background on your Twitter page that has information on how to find your website or subscribe to your blog. Check out ours.

Double-Duty Tweets

Send messages on Twitter that point people to useful information on your website or blog. Rather than, “Did you know we have a blog?” try something compelling like a snippet from a recent blog post or initiative, “We’ve placed a bounty on Michael Vick. You read that right. Get details.”

Use Facebook Connect

This plug-in, which works with Drupal and WordPress, in addition to other websites, lets members log onto your website using their Facebook login and share information in both places at once.

It helps to see what other organizations are doing right to guide your own Web strategy. Here are six stand-out examples from non-profits that have a presence with websites, Twitter and Facebook.

Websites

10ThousandDoors.org is a gutsy move by the United Methodist Church to be a truly interactive experience. The whole site is innovative, but the Talk page is a new breed of discussion boards that has really opened up sharing and communication.

Take the Walk has a great counter on its homepage. They tally the number of miles supporters have walked to support fighting AIDS in Africa. The placement is perfect: front and center. This ensures the site is geared toward pulling in new supporters.

Twitter

Ashoka started promoting their e-book through Twitter and quickly built up a following. This multi-tasking post is smart, because they thank their followers, help everyone feel included and continue the promotion all in one Tweet.

The town of Richmond, VA, had a double-header of a good idea. First, they started a city wiki (others here), and then they set up an automatic Twitter feed that publishes any updates to the wiki. It gives you a real-time, accessible view of any changes that happen at the town level.

Facebook

Peta launched a Facebook Cause to raise funds and donations to protect animals. They’ve raised nearly $60,000 and have enabled others to recruit more supporters and raise funds on their behalf.

Synagogue 3000 claimed a great web address so they’d be easy to find on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/synagogue3000) rather than the ugly and hard to remember stream of numbers that Facebook adds to the end of your URL when it assigns one to you. Click here to set yours.

Twitter updates come as fast as you can draw a sharp breath, but they may not be as spontaneous as they seem. Thanks to a selection of scheduling services, you can create tweets ahead of time and post them in the future, while you’re busy with something else.

Delayed tweeting isn’t the best strategy for building relationships with your followers (can you imagine having your half of a conversation an hour before you meet a friend for lunch?), but it can help when you want to deliver a message but aren’t able to.

For instance, if you want to notify everyone about a new project you’re launching on a set day. You can schedule the announcement to go out while you’re busy setting up said project. Or say you’re at a conference getting ready to speak. You want to tell your followers you’re about to step on stage so they’d better bustle down to the conference room, but you need to give the live audience your full attention.

Here are some tools you can use to set your tweets into the future:

• Hootsuite
• FutureTweets
• TweetLater
• Twuffer
• Calendar Tweet

[Have a question you’d like answered? Use the comments form at the bottom of this page to submit it. We’ll review your question before posting (don’t be shy about asking!) and get back to you with a response.]

[Photo credit: A blue lock for George by Darwin Bell, on Flickr]

E-mail lets you send a message to one person or a list of people you select. A discussion board lets you post a message to a group of members (usually). Twitter, on the other hand, lets you post a message to anybody in the world who wants to read it.

This got a participant in our recent presentation Does Twitter Matter for Nonprofits? asking:

When you broadcast, can you broadcast only to people who are following you?

It’s a great question, and one that we’re frequently asked. The short answer is yes.

Twitter explains best with this passage (which I shortened a bit. You can read the whole explanation here):

When you sign up for Twitter, you have the option of keeping your account public (the default account setting) or protecting the account to keep your updates private. Public accounts are visible to everyone. Protected accounts aren’t. Only approved followers are able to see these profile pages.

To protect your profile:

1. Log in to Twitter
2. Click Settings
3. Scroll down and check the box next to “Protect my Updates”
4. SAVE your changes.

When you navigate to your home page after protecting your profile, you’ll see a notice reminding you that your profile is now protected.

If you have a public account and you protect it, all updates after the time of protection will be protected.

Congregations have been wild to know what Twitter can do for them, proven by the powerful turnout at two presentations I’ve given on the topic.

The uses are many, but here’s a quick run-down of what I’ve found in my work with churches and synagogues, divided into clergy members (rabbis, preachers), administrators and youth group leaders. Find more tips by following Talance on Twitter, and of course, send your own.

Clergy

1. Inspirational thoughts – quotes from scripture or elsewhere
2. Motivational thoughts – calls to action and service
3. Be available to those who need you, when they need you
4. Learn more about your congregants
5. Reach out to people who aren’t able to attend your services
6. Network with other clergy members
7. Gather ideas for sermons
8. Send prayer requests
9. Identify needs for support in your community
10. Get feedback on sermons and programs

Administrators

1. Call for volunteers
2. Notifications of schedule changes
3. Event notifications
4. Event follow-ups
5. Promote newsletter
6. Promote blog
7. Promote website
8. Find out about successful events at other churches or synagogues
9. Organize events by communicating with volunteers and staff
10. Poll members on success of programs and services

Youth Group Leaders

1. Reach out to texting-addicted membership
2. Drive people to your Facebook group or MySpace page
3. Send reports to parents while on youth trips
4. Send reminders to forgetful youth
5. Make it easy for teens and kids to tell friends about events
6. Tell kids about programs
7. Send congratulations and kudos to members
8. Make it easy for shy kids to communicate with the group
9. Share camp stories and pictures
10. Send birthday wishes