The power of the internet and social media can change lives forever. All it takes is a single social post without fully thinking the consequences. What may seem like a trivial and innocent post can escalate into an enormous globally famous incident.

You have most likely heard the recent story of an Applebee’s employee, Chelsea Welch, who posted a copy of a receipt to Reddit that has gained significant attention over the past week. After a customer crossed out a mandatory 18% tip on her bill and wrote “I Give God 10% Why do you Get 18″

After this photo (with Signature intact) made its rounds on Reddit it had quickly generated thousands of comments as users tried to track down the customer. Pastor Alois Bell ultimately came forward after seeing the receipt complete with her signature online and complained to Applebee’s. Welch was ultimately fired for the incident. Read more…

There are a lot of different methods out there for driving down your costs of advertising on Facebook and to increase the efficiency of your page and your overall marketing campaign. From beginner guides to expert expositions, there’s information out there for all stripes. For the marketer on Facebook already privy to ad formats and how the system works, you can skip the rookie camp and look for something with more meat on the bones.

For instance, you can skip over the tips dealing with how to draw people to your page and instead focus on how to get more of those visitors to actually engage with your brand.

If you’re looking to increase your sales, it’s all about increasing your engagement. The tips listed below should help you to post more engaging material. Read more…

Last week I wrote an article called “The Ideal Startup Social Media Strategy for Non-Profits.” This evolved as a result of a phone call I had with a small non-profit called Urunji Child Care Trust. They were looking for the ultimate plan to implement through social media to raise awareness of their initiatives and ultimately raise funds. I decided to create a plan for them by following these steps:

• Research similar organizations that have been highly successful using social media
• Choose which platforms you are going to utilize
• Communicate your non-profit’s objective through the platform (s)
• Connect with the people that share your mission
• Create a campaign to raise funds

Research similar organizations that have been highly successful using social media. After a little digging, the non-profits I decided to research were African Promise, A Glimmer of Hope and Ripple Africa. All three have a very strong presence in social and are performing tactics Urunji could benefit from if they followed some of the same practices. (Please note: for the purpose of this article I’ve focused on one social platform per organization).

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/africanpromise

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/aglimmerofhope

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/rippleafrica

Choose which platforms you are going to utilize. Urunji currently has a Facebook and Twitter account although they are not very active to date. I recommend they begin Read more…

Recently we had a non-profit organization contact us for help with their Social Media. They are relatively new and wanted some tips on how they can utilize their social platforms to raise money for their organization. The organization, Urunji Child Care Trust, works to combat malnutrition and illiteracy by providing free meals and educational materials to underprivileged children in Malawi. They currently have a Facebook and Twitter account but have not done much beyond setup.

What do you think is the best social media strategy for fundraising? I can hear it in my head already, people saying “Social Media is about RELATIONSHIPS not a means to an end to raise money.” But through building those relationships, aren’t you setting the stage for those that want to help you?

Below is my ideal strategy for a non-profit starting social media from scratch with the objective to raise funds for their organization.

Research similar organizations that have been highly successful using social media. You won’t be able to tell how much money they have raised strictly through their social efforts but getting an idea of who their followers are and how they communicate their message will be highly beneficial to you in creating a strategy. Ensure you don’t stick to 1 or 2 platforms in this research stage.  You never know which may be the most receptive. Read more…

Recently I was trying to add a Paypal donate button to a Facebook page for a film project I’ve been working on called Elephants Never Forget. I haven’t done this since Facebook changed from using FBML to iFrames and found it extremely difficult to find an up to date tutorial. After a little frustration, I figured out a simple way to do it completely FREE.

1) Start by adding Static HTML: iframe tabs to your page:

• Type “static html iframe tabs” into the search bar
• Select app
• Click the blue button “Add Static HML to a Page”
• Select the page that you’d like to add this app to

Read more…

Social media marketing is a must-have facet in any business nowadays; it helps your company stay connected with its audience, create a wider networking circle, and keeps you relevant. By implementing a web video into your social media platform, you will be able to stand out amongst your competitors and more easily connect with your audience. This process doesn’t always come easily though, and many times people will miss the mark with their video. Here are the top five mistakes people make when video content:

Video is Too Long

One very important thing to remember about social media is that it is constantly being updated. People want the newest information as quickly as possible and social media platforms cater to that mindset. To create successful videos on social media – you have to keep it concise and interesting. Yes, you may have a lot of information you want to convey to your audience but be sure to not pack it all into one video. Cut it up into short, easily digested snippets where your audience can be in and out in less the four minutes.

No Plan of Action

Producing videos for social media is a great idea. Producing videos for social media without any plan of action is a bad one. You have to be sure that your video fits into you social media marketing plan. Be sure to have a well thought-out concept, an appealing script, and a smart planning process to be sure that what you produce is entertaining, enjoyable, and of professional quality. Read more…

Crowdfunding is growing in popularity. There are always stories in the news lately about a campaign that struck it big and raised a ton of money. However what you don’t hear about are the campaigns that weren’t successful, the ones that completely failed to reach an audience and their funding goal. Kickstarter, the largest crowdfunding platform online, has launched 70,850 projects to date and only 43.88% of successfully reached their funding goal. So what distinguishes the successful projects from the ones that flop? There are many factors that lead to an unsuccessful campaign, however below outlines the top 5 that arise again and again. So before you start your campaign, take these into consideration: Read more…

StumbleUpon is so rarely thought of when it comes to marketing that it seemed perfect to write about the advantages it offers in an article for the Fall Edition of the Search Marketing Standard which is available in print at marketing events around the world or online.

The article is called “Thumbs Up For StumbleUpon’s Marketing Platform”

Here is an excerpt from the article available online or in the latest print magazine:

StumbleUpon  (SU) is my favourite tool for creative inspiration and web discovery but from a marketing perspective the site is not necessarily a good fit for all companies looking to increase targeted traffic to their website. The key to knowing if StumbleUpon is right for you is to intimately know your target market which I have to assume you do for the purposes of this article.

A Short History Lesson & Some Metrics

Founded in Calgary, Canada in 2001, StumbleUpon  is considered a “discovery engine (a form of web search engine) that finds and recommends web content to its users” according to Wikipedia.

Read more…

Are you looking to start a crowdfunding campaign for a project? With traditional funding hard to come by these days, crowdfunding is a great alternative to raising money. There have been many success stories of projects exceeding their funding goals and as a result generating an online buzz for their project. If you want your campaign to be the next success story, ensure you follow these tips in the pre campaign, launch and post campaign. Read more…

I recently worked with a team to launch World Elephant Day (WED) on August  12th, 2012. In the lead up to WED our Facebook campaign was going well; however, we wanted to increase our overall engagement. To do so we implemented 3 key tactics to increase the campaign’s Facebook engagement.  As a result our total reach boosted from 1500 to over 200,000 people in the days leading up to and right after the campaign.  Below outlines the 3 most successful tactics used to generate this increase.

Read more…