Virtual Personae

Your Non-Profit’s Strategy for Evaluating New Media

New and emergent media connect your organization with millions of internet users worldwide. These revolutionary tools give you access to people who can benefit from and help support your work—if you know how to reach them. Effectively managing your online presence is a big task, even for organizations with full time staff dedicated to managing it because there are hundreds of online services and concepts to grapple with. And since not all forms of new media are appropriate for everyone, it’s essential to have a strategy for defining the relevance of each tool to your organization. The simplest method is to classify any tools you’re considering into these two categories:

1. New media that helps to achieve your mission.
When considering any new medium, first evaluate its relevance in achieving your mission. This is an easy one for NPOs that are dedicated to education, or spreading knowledge about an issue. Organizations that support awareness can make great use of a plethora of options—like streaming video, wikis, and podcasts—as vehicles to inform the public about their mission.
Other services, like Facebook, might provide a new way to get in touch with those in need. Social networking sites allow users to see who their friends are connected with, which is almost as good as a word-of-mouth endorsement. Perhaps in part becuase the fastest growing demographic on social networking sites is the 25+ crowd, organizations like La Leche League now have a presence on Facebook. So ask yourself: does this medium provide an opportunity to achieve your mission?

2. New media that notifies the world of your presence.
In essence, new media in this category helps your organization connect better with existing and potential donors. Consider whether a new medium provides an opportunity to showcase your organization—how greatly your work is needed, and what a tremendous impact you have on your community. New media can be a fantastic way to meet your donors where they already are by keying into what they’re searching, what online media they’re using, or what kind of media they’re likely to prefer.
If you poll the donors you already have (there is a tool for that online, too), you can start identifying areas in which your organization can improve, and the tools that are applicable for that purpose. Say your donors report that they can’t find you online, or that they don’t know what difference their donations make: consider starting a weblog. Include key words that your donors identify with your organization, and use the blog to discuss your organization’s activity. Now, you’re searchable, your donors are reinforced, and you even have a forum for meeting new donors and collaborators.

Of course, there is crossover between these two categories, and there should be. Media that promotes your mission can also be a fabulous way to show interested donors how you operate, and the same content can be tweaked and used for both purposes. If you’ve found a few tools that fit into these categories, this is a great time to prioritize your needs and develop your ideas for using each new medium. But don’t dismiss the tools that didn’t make the cut—keep them in mind for the future.

How to Create a Blog that Actually Attracts Readers

Last week, I spent 45 minutes talking to a machine, and it taught me something vital about blogs, the human condition, and the limit of my patience. I’m moving—only about ten blocks—but arranging for everything to arrive on time with the power turned on has marked an epic struggle between myself and half a dozen digital recordings who can only comprehend what I’m saying on the fourth-go-round. When I finally heard the voice of an actual person, I felt the rush of victory—and I recognized something universal.

Humans crave interaction on a personal level. When something is wrong, we want to hear sincere sympathy; we want the person on the other end of the line to recognize us and the importance of addressing our situation immediately. We gravitate toward personalized interactions, even when the ‘interaction’ doesn’t actually occur; it’s enough for us to know that the person we see streaming online or on t.v. is at least pretending to speak to us. We listen to the spokesmodels peddling breakfast bars and household cleaners because they show that they’re just like us, except, maybe a little bit happier since they’ve switched to the superior brand.

Anthropologist Lee Drummond calls the development of a bond between an audience and the media persona a parasocial relationship, and he demonstrates that the allure of personality, even when that personality has no idea that the reader or viewer exists, keeps an audience invested. It sounds a little devious when employed by someone trying to sell you face cream, but creating common ground with visitors to your site is a great way to apply this age-old marketing strategy.

I’ve mentioned that the holy grail of your online presence is consistently updating content, and here is the addendum: assign that task to one person and allow their unique voice to come through. Not all web-publications need to be attributed to the Executive Director; give a voice to someone who can provide ground level information, like a case worker, volunteer, or development staffer—someone who has a panache for creative writing.

Blogging can be a fantastic strategy for achieving your new content protocal, and although it can be scary to produce content outside of the carefully cultivated image of your organization—try it. Chances are, your readers will enjoy connecting to your organization through the eyes of a charismatic insider. And your stats will love you for it.