I spotted an interesting post by Shiv Singh at interactive agency Avenue A|Razorfish the other day, about the seven key attributes they have defined as characterising ‘digital brands’ (meaning brands best equipped for our new digital consumer world), and it occurred to me that the same criteria could be handy when examining charity brands and the way they engage online:
FRESH - does it inspire a feeling or emotion?
ADAPTIVE - does it respond to your involvement?
RELEVANT - Is it useful or appealing to you, specifically?
TRANSFORMATIVE - Does it raise expectations of the brand or the web?
SOCIAL - Is it worth borrowing, sharing, or contributing to?
IMMERSIVE - Do you lose track of time?
AUTHENTIC - Does it seem genuine?
The presentation above provides some examples of this as well as comparing top scoring ‘digital brands’ to Interbrand’s traditional top brands list. While in Shiv’s post he provides a handy interactive Excel ‘Brand Gene Scorecard’ with which you can have a go at comparing how your own online brand presence rates against your competitors in terms of digital engagement.
Contrary to the countdown on the Finerday holding page - which when I took the screen shot above seemed to suggest that it won’t be live for over 106 years (they’ve since fixed it) - this new social networking site aimed at ‘older people and their families’ is apparently all set to launch next Friday, 4th July.
Endorsed by the charity Age Concern, Finerday will be a free to use site and, rather than simply following in the footsteps of the UK’s other over 50s social network site SagaZone, its focus is clearly stated as “linking all of your family, whatever their age”. This ‘linking’ is supported through easy uploading and sharing of family photos (which seems likely to be a key function) plus integration with Facebook, Bebo, Skype, GMail, and Yahoo! - and seems like a sensible move, as it offers older users a reason to engage with social media that they may not have had before.
From the sneak preview of the site (developed by social website specialists Kwiqq) it looks to have a nicely designed, simple interface with enlarged icons to help less frequent users of keyboards and mice keep up with their more computer-savvy younger family members.
Added to this, post-launch Finerday are apparently intending to market the site bundled with a broadband service and a low cost computer adapted for older people - which illustrates a real commitment to their vision of engaging older consumers with social media.
Welcome to this week’s Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants, a weekly blog carnival drawing together some of the best nonprofit news, advice and resources on offer across the blogosphere.
Each week a different host blogger sets a topic for this carnival and other bloggers submit posts on that theme - with the best seven being highlighted on the host’s blog. This week it’s my turn to host and the topic I chose was ‘Insights, tips and tricks for online fundraising’.
So, without further ado, here are seven online fundraising insight, tip and trick posts for you…
3. And still on websites, for anyone at the early stages of website planning Jason King has posted the handy presentation he gave at the Connecting Up conference in Brisbane on Planning your non-profit’s website.
4. The Care2 folks over at Frogloop have reported on a recent survey that suggests that ‘51% of donors are not at all interested in Social Networks. However, apparently around a third of donors are somewhat or very interested in keeping-up with nonprofits through Social Media - rising to 40% for high level donors. Handy insight for social network fundraisers.
That’s it for this week. You can keep track of the Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants as it travels around from site to site by subscribing to the Carnival feed.
Another end of month round-up of assorted bits and pieces I spotted during the last few weeks and thought were interesting/handy, but haven’t had time to mention. Hope you find them useful…
Right at the start of the month, UK charity Arthritis Care went live with a new member recruitment campaign using email, direct mail, press, online advertising and an online video diary site. Great to see an organisation with a primarily older audience recognising the potential to engage with them online - and doing so in such an engaging way.
A handy post on Michael Stein’s Nonprofit Internet Strategy blog reminds us of the vital importance of online thank you pages and provides some tips to help make the most of them.
More great hints and tips, this time from Wild Apricot, relating to building a better blog.
