Making your blog or website more “accessible” can seem like a big job, but you don’t have to be an IT expert or do a website redesign to make a big difference. Accessibility is not an absolute but a continuum, says Glenda Watson Hyatt, and a few simple changes will allow more people to engage with your web content, regardless of their personal capabilities or the technology they’re using….(read more)
blogging
How Accessible is Your Blog?
10 Reasons to Use WordPress for Your Web site
Earlier this week a person who attended one of my recent speaking sessions on social media e-mailed to ask me a question about converting his organization’s Web site over to blogging software. As I was writing back, I realized that when I speak I always advocate using blogging software, but I haven’t really written much [...]
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September 24th, 2009 | Jeff Cobb | Comments | Continued
Non-profit Website or Non-profit Blog?
Think a blog is just another name for a online journal, not really suitable for a serious non-profit organization? Think again! A blog can be whatever you want it to be. In fact, the main differences between a website and a blog are in the technology behind the scenes, and how your visitors interact with your content….(read more)
Introduction to Blogging for Non-Profits: Free Webinar Recording
Is your organization looking at starting a blog, to help you connect more directly with your members and supporters, but you’re not quite sure how to go about it? Or maybe you’ve started a blog, but it doesn’t quite seem to be doing much yet? There’s a lot of “how to blog” information out there on the Internet, but you’ve probably already discovered that much of it is geared to business or personal blogs — not to nonprofit blogs — and some of the advice can be downright confusing if you’re not all…(read more)
Is Your Non-Profit Website Turning Off New Readers?
“Nobody cares about your website,” Gerry McGovern tells business folks: “Your customers couldn’t care less about your new look, your new design or whether your dog has just had kittens.” Focus on your audience: That’s the single most important piece of advice you’ll ever get about publishing a successful website or blog. But does this advice apply equally to non-profits? Yes, and no. …(read more)
What I’m Reading
- Salon.com on how blogs “changed everything.” The main problems I see with Diller et. al.’s theory that talent is a limited resource are the roles of access and practice. You know that old saying it’s not what you know, it’s who you know? Much as we’d like to pretend otherwise, we don’t operate in a pure meritocracy. Talent is one thing, but I don’t think anyone would argue that Usain Bolt, Alex Ovechkin, or Venus Williams would have achieved all they had without diligent practice. You have to work to develop any talent, including writing. So if I don’t, for instance, have the right background or the know the right people to be able to write a football column for The Philadelphia Inquirer, but I still want to write about the Iggles and improve what I write by practice, my football blog provides an outlet. Additionally, the web allows writers to be serve particular niches – you don’t have to appeal to everyone, which allows more diverse and specialized voices to be heard.
- Dave Fleet asks some thought-provoking questions about self-promotion, community building, creating a following, and engaging in a conversation.
- Mark Cuban (Dallas Mavericks owner) on Succeed By Free – Die By Free. Well, OK, but who says you should even aspire to be “king of the mountain” FOREVER?
- Jared Goralnick on filing, search, and efficiency. I’m generally a top-down person, but he may have convinced me to switch. If only MS’s desktop search was, you know, good.
- New study from the super-smart folks at Pew: Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987-2009. Among all sorts of interesting findings is this:
Moreover, over the past decade there has been erosion in the percentage of Americans holding conservative views on family, homosexuality and gender roles. The decline in social conservatism is a result of generational change. Younger age cohorts are less conservative than older ones: Both of the younger age cohorts, Generation Y and Generation X, are less conservative than the Baby Boomers. The Silent Generation is the most conservative of all.
Equal rights for ALL? We haz them (soon – I hope).
addthis_pub = ‘ewengel’;
On personal vs corporate branding
I was at BlogPotomac last week, and as you’d expect in a room full of bloggers, there were some great roundup posts. The speakers included Shel Holtz, Shireen Mitchell, Scott Monty, Liz Strauss, Shashi Bellamkonda and more.Read this one in particular …
June 17th, 2009 | Maddie Grant | Comments | Continued
BlogPotomac 2009
So I’m here at BlogPotomac, which is just as awesome as it was last year. As I’m in a room full of bloggers, I’ll be lazy and not live blog it myself – I’ll concentrate on Tweeting it. (Follow me @maddiegrant, the stream for the conference is #blog…
June 12th, 2009 | Maddie Grant | Comments | Continued
Blogging, web content, and marketing
So this is really only a half-formed idea. I read this great post about Kodak’s content marketing from @juntajoe and I’ve been chatting with some folks who have really great content, but can’t seem to get it to stick because it isn’t relevant to what’s trending right now. So, from a marketing standpoint, what can we do to get more buzz going around our websites?
Great content is no longer the marketing tool it once was. There. I said it. Not to say that you can publish a bunch of fluff and expect people to pay attention. But there is a huge advantage to frequency for the sake of experimentation. As Clay Shirky said at NTEN, “Fail informatively. Fail like crazy.”(hat tip @chadnorman) Except failure isn’t the only possible outcome here. You will also succeed informatively. Succeed like crazy.
The new web editors will have the skill to publish frequent, snack-sized updates that advance the hottest topics of the day. They’ll be able to connect those pieces of content with the conversations going on around them on other sites and in social spaces. They’ll be able to measure the results of their work, all the while improving their publishing skills, their connectedness, and their ability to identify the hottest topics.
Am I describing a blogger? Yup. Pretty much. Look at some of the most successful blogs out there–Mashable, Gawker, Huffington Post–the publishing frequency is outrageous. But they know better than any of us what their readers want. And they can use that knowledge to give their readers more of what they want.
The new marketers will be able to use the huge amount of data their web editors are gathering (admittedly through frequent trial and error) to select the topics that need deeper coverage, design content–whether it’s education, a publication, or premium web content–and make that content available at the exact tipping point when it will be best received.
So what’s the next step? I’m not suggesting we all start blogs…I’m not sure I know what I’m suggesting. Maybe we all just need to think more like bloggers and let the experimentation begin.
Would love to hear your thoughts.
Blogging, web content, and marketing
So this is really only a half-formed idea. I read this great post about Kodak’s content marketing from @juntajoe and I’ve been chatting with some folks who have really great content, but can’t seem to get it to stick because it isn’t relevant to what’s trending right now. So, from a marketing standpoint, what can [...]
May 20th, 2009 | Lindy Dreyer | Comments | Continued
31 Days to Build A Better Blog – Part 2
Someone I know teaches us to understand, choose, do, learn – so here we go. I am now at the end of my 31 Days to Build a Better Blog personal challenge from Problogger. I listed the tasks for the first 15 days here; this is the second half of that pr…
May 9th, 2009 | Maddie Grant | Comments | Continued
Marketing and Growing Your Blog, Part III
This is the third and final part of a three part series. In Part I of Marketing and Growing Your Blog, I discussed the importance of content and making it easy for visitors to engage. In Part II, I talked about connecting with other bloggers. In this installment, I’ll cover spreading the word about your [...]
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May 7th, 2009 | Jeff Cobb | Comments | Continued
Is Blogging Right for Your Organization?
Have you been wondering if your organization needs a blog? In this guest post, Michael Faye of AssociaDirect talks about how blogging can help you to connect more effectively with your community of members, and outlines 5 basic considerations in planning a non-profit blog. Is Blogging Right for Your Organization? Practically every customer and potential customer I speak with inevitably brings up social media. “Should we be twittering?” “Should we set up a facebook group?” “Should we be blogging?”…(read more)
Marketing and Growing Your Blog: Part II
This is the second part of a series (inspired by a recent speaking engagement) to help new bloggers take the most essential steps for marketing their blogs effectively. For seasoned bloggers, these are also good points to review.
As noted in my previous post, I don’t typically write these sorts of “how-to” posts, but I am [...]
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- Marketing and Growing Your Blog, Part III This is the third and final part of a three…
- Marketing and Growing Your Blog: Part I This is part of a three-part series. See also…
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April 30th, 2009 | Jeff Cobb | Comments | Continued
A True Confession
Will you respect me in the morning?
For the last couple of years, I’ve been seduced by social media.
I needed to know what was going on.
Had to stay on top.
Wanted to be some sort of player.
I joined communities, blogged, tweeted and more.
There was pressure to be active seven days/week.
What if I missed something?
My online reputation [...]
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