Lunch Series Session on Search Engine Optimization

It’s time for the first Public Policy Communicators NYC meeting of autumn and we’ve got it scheduled for Wednesday, November 2, 2011. Take off your Halloween costume and come see what tricks and treats we have for you on the topic of search engine optimization.

“Are you doing all you can with SEO?”

Communicators have been talking about the practice of search engine optimization (SEO) for nearly a decade now.  And yet to many of us, it seems like a murky, mysterious or even meaningless set of activities.  When we read The New York Times article “Web Words That Lure the Readers” about some of the rather questionable tactics employed by the Huffington Post, it got us wondering if there were some creative practices in this domain that nonprofits and foundations could be using to draw larger audiences to the content on their sites.

And so we got ourselves an expert to clue us in to the most effective SEO methods:

Daniel Murphy is the owner of Electric Orange Creative, a boutique marketing agency launched in 2008. Electric Orange provides businesses and nonprofits of varying sizes affordable online marketing campaigns. Prior to Electric Orange, Daniel was one of the first employees at YouCast Corp, one of the first social media agencies in NYC and now a division of IAC. While at YouCast he was the creative force behind marketing campaigns for Nike, Schick, Snapple, Twitter, and Kanye West. Daniel graduated with a degree in Media Studies from Hunter College.

And here are the specifics on the next PPC-NYC meeting:

What:              Brown-bag lunch (that means bring your own lunch!)

When:            Wednesday, November 2, 2011; 12:00 – 2:00 p.m. (informal networking from 12:00-12:30, program begins at 12:30)

Topic:             Search Engine Optimization. Electric Orange Creative’s Daniel Murphy will lead our group discussion.

RSVP:           WE ARE CURRENTLY RUNNING A WAIT LIST.  If you would like to be put on that wait list or be included in future invitations, send an email to mremaley [at] ppcnyc [dot] org

On Wednesday, July 27, Public Policy Communicators NYC members met to focus on the topic “Making the Most of Google Analytics.”  The session was billed as an opportunity to go beyond the basic mechanics of using this essential tool to how communicators can utilize its functions to better understand target audiences and the messages that appeal to them.  We definitely went beyond Analytics 101 to the next stage of learning, and many came away saying they had lots of new information with which to experiment.

Our discussion leader Greg Olson, an AdWords account manager at Google, working out of the Cambridge office and a member of the Google Analytics specialist team that trains and supports this office, was joined by Jai Sen, a digital media strategy consultant who has worked with several PPC-NYC members in developing their online strategies, to extend the scope of the conversation.

Olson started with a brief overview to make sure we were all on the same page.  In a show of hands, almost all in the room were using Google Analytics already, almost everyone in the room raised their hands to indicate that they were doing the analytics themselves (as opposed to being fed reports by I.T. staff), but only a small number had gone beyond the basic reports of number of page views for each URL on their site.

He said the Google Analytics platform can be used to:

-       Measure the engagement of users on the site

-       Make marketing campaigns more effective and accountable

-       Help determine if the content you’re creating is effective

-       Develop better awareness of when and why visitors are entering and leaving your site

-       Use Google Analytics to compare response to different versions of content, for example sending two different versions of an email and measuring which one got a better response

-       Improve audience interaction with your organization on the site

He started by encouraging nonprofits and foundations to take a step back and focus first on their organizations’ objectives and really question how the website is supposed to support the mission of the organization.  He used the example of PPC member Connecticut Health Foundation, which has the mission of improving the health status of everyone in the state by focusing on children’s mental health, health policy and advocacy, oral health and racial and ethnic health disparities.  CT Health Foundation’s Jenn Whinnem added that their primary audiences are grant seekers and health policy professionals in the state who work on those issues.  She said that her organization was happy with the numbers of grant seekers coming to the site and the information they were accessing, but wanted to bring more policy information seekers to the site and extend their time on site.  Olson said that there were many tools associated with Google Analytics that could help in better understanding how they are doing in reaching that objective and how effective the organization’s communications are in contributing to it.

Sen agreed with Olson’s point that the most important thing to do is make sure there is a clear discussion of overall communications strategy in order to get to a good plan for measurement. Strategy and measurement should function as a loop, with measurement leading to optimization and vice versa. An analytics snapshot can give an organization a sense of what users are actually consuming, providing insight into where the focus should be on content creation.

Olson said that an important step in that process is to really set key performance indicators for the organization’s objectives. Organizations should ask themselves what would be an actual measure of success.  For example with CT Health Foundation, what is the size and scope of the health policy professional community and what numbers or types of those coming to the site would constitute progress? And, since the organization is already happy with the number of grant applicants, the focus of the Google Analytics work would focus on URLs that were NOT associated with the  /grants/how-to-apply/ subdirectory where grant application information resides.

The next thing to do, Olson said, was to set defined targets, within a concrete timeframe, for example “to increase page views from ‘information seeker’ visits by X% in the third quarter of this year.” Once your organization has gained clarity about the types and number of visitors you aim to bring to your site and what you want them to do there, you can much better utilize Google Analytics to guide your work.

There are four basic categories of questions about visitors and related analytics measures to apply, he said. They are:

1. Where do they come from? — Traffic sources
2. Where do they spend their time? — Content reports
3. Are they taking the right actions? — Goal tracking
4. Is visitor behavior changing? — Alerts and intelligence

Olson showed two different reports that spoke to the “where do they come from?” question. The first showed an “All Traffic” report, the one which most of those just getting started with Google Analytics are familiar. This report shows the sources from which visitors came to a given page on your site. In the example shown, the most number of visitors came to a home page from Google, from a specific blog, from YouTube and direct (no referral – visitors may have typed URL or had it bookmarked, etc.). The “All Traffic” report gives you a sense of how visitors come to your site and, said Olson, may alert you to sources you may not have known about. For example, maybe a particular blogger has written about your work, which produced many visits. Perhaps that blogger should receive more attention from your organization and might be a good partner in communications. The second report he showed provided a different take on “where do they come from?” and might be less familiar to Analytics users. It is the “Location” report. The report Olson showed displayed a map of the United States with the states color-coded by number of visitors to the site. He said this report can be drilled down to the city level, or you can enlarge it to the international level. He said the location report can be especially useful in understanding where the people are who are really interested in what you have to say. You might find, for example, that an unusually large number of visitors are located in an unexpected small corner of the state, which might prompt some important questions about why that is.

Olson and the group next spent a good chunk of time exploring a tool called the Google Analytics URL Builder.  This is a tool that you can use to get a better handle on how effective certain planned communications mechanisms are in driving people to your site and – importantly and different from other tools – how they proceed through the site once there. The URL builder works by adding additional data (called a “query string”) to the end of a normal link that is tracked specially by Google Analytics. He showed how you can use the tool to create a specific URL, say for an eNewsletter, to see if that communication tool gets people to click on a particular story and then moves them toward donating, clicking a link to contact a congressmen, reading other reports or whatever actions you would ideally like your visitors to take. The URL created through the URL Builder allows the Google Analytics system to track how many visitors come to the site through specific links and associate those visitors with all of the other types of information reports.

He then moved on to the topic of “Where do they spend their time?” and content reports.  He showed an Analytics report of a landing page that displayed for each source (what previous site the visitor came from) the number of visits, the number of bounces and the bounce rate (see here for a discussion of bounce rate versus exit rate). This report helps you better understand what sources tend to bring you visitors that immediately leave the site or proceed through to take the actions you desire. Because this report also shows the bounce rate over a period that you specify, you can better understand if certain communications you sent out produced visits that resulted in immediate bounces or longer stays with concrete actions on the site. Sen and Olson were careful to mention that, for specific types of pages, a high bounce rate is not necessarily a bad thing—some sites, for example, surface essential content on the home page, so if the user enters and leaves on that page, it does not necessarily mean that the page was not “successful.” The time the user spends on a single page, however, cannot be measured by Google Analytics (which calculates the time spent on a page by the next click on that page), so the “time on page” metric is complicated by a high bounce rate.

Next, Olson looked at a report that could be immensely helpful in answering, “Where are they spending their time?” For a given page on the site (say, a blog post), the report displayed the total number of page views, unique page views, average time on the page, bounce rate and exit rate. It also displayed the page views over a given period and the bounce rate for various sources from which the visitors came. He then showed a different way of answering the “Where are they spending their time?” question with an Analytics report on search terms.  This report showed what visitors are looking for on the site. It showed the total number of searches, the percentage of times visitors had to refine their search, the time they spent on the site after the search, and the depth of their action after the search.  The report also shows the top search terms, the number of times those terms were searched, the percentage of those who left the site immediately after the search, etc. Olson noted that the site’s search mechanism does not have to be Google-based to be able to do run this analysis.

To get at the question “Are they taking the right actions?” Olson strongly encouraged users to take advantage of the “Goals” function in Google Analytics. A “goal” is a website page that serves as conversions for your site. Some examples of good conversion goals are:

• A ‘thank you’ page after a user has submitted information through a form. This can track newsletter signups, donation receipts, email list subscriptions, job application forms, or contact forms.
• An ‘About us’ page
• A particular report, press release, news article or blog post.
• A page that leads visitor to a “contact your congressman” function

(With some extra code, goals can even be file downloads or on-page actions).

Using the goals function allows you to track how far visitors move toward the actions you want them to take on your site – and let’s you know a lot about the characteristics of those visitors in terms of where they came from, how they proceeded through the site, etc.  Goals do not need to be static, in fact, they should change over time.

He then showed an example of a Goal Overview Report that displayed the goal conversions over a given period, the total number of goal conversions, the value of those conversions (for example the total dollar value of tickets sold or donations made), the goal conversion rate and the abandonment rate.  This report also showed the top sources from which visitors came and the total conversions and conversion rates for each.

Olson then moved to the question of “How do I identify traffic trends on my site?” He showed a “Daily Events” report. Event tracking is a relatively new (2009) function in Google Analytics.  Any significant marketing event should be tracked so you can identify correlating traffic trends. You might do this with, say, a new press release, a newly launched campaign, the beginning of utilizing online advertising, an important eNewsletter or a major capital campaign. You may have these dates noted elsewhere, but Google Analytics annotations makes it quick and easy to see how communications events overlap trends in your site metrics. You can even create annotations of key external condition. For example, a major debate in the media about your issue or a disaster in your service area. These external events could be just as important to explaining trends over time as your own marketing and web efforts.

In summarizing, Olson said that making all of these tools useful hinges upon proper tracking, advanced segmentation and micro-conversions.  He showed the “advanced segments” tab in Google Analytics and talked briefly about the choices you can make to designate key groups and what you want them to do, which can be a big help in better understanding how those groups are using your site.

A discussion of filters followed. It was noted that you might want, for example, to look at site traffic without employees’ usage of the site.  This is best accomplished using the filter feature. Click this link to learn more about using filters in Google Analytics. Olson also briefly touched on the difference between filters and advanced segments in Google Analytics. Advanced Segments provides a way for historical data to be grouped by your criteria to investigate differences between groups. Filters in Google Analytics, on the other hand, provide a way to process the raw data coming into your account before you even see it. This can be used to look at site traffic without employees’ usage. Filters are applied at the profile level. The data cannot be re-processed, and any information filtered out in this way cannot be recovered, and so it is important to maintain one unfiltered ‘master’ profile for your site.

You can also use Google analytics to better understand what types of platform users are accessing your site and what they’re doing on it. For example, are people who come to the site through iPhones and Blackberry phones exiting the site immediately because they have a hard time viewing it? Click on this link to learn more about what can be learned about various mobile platforms through Google Analytics.

Sen pointed out that Google Analytics is the best analytics tool out there and recommends it to all clients. However, because of the way it works, it does have one important limitation that he wanted the group to be aware of. Because Google Analytics tracking code is contained in web pages, it does not track downloads of files, for example PDFs. Properly configured, it can track clicks to download links or buttons, but often PDFs are linked from outside sites, and Google Analytics would not capture this data. Sen recommends using Google Analytics in tandem with a logs analysis tool (such as Webalizer or AWStats) that analyze the server’s record of downloads. Sen and Olson cautioned that logs analysis tools yield much less accurate metrics on all other data (like vista, visitors, and page views), so Google Analytics is the better tool for all metrics other than downloads.

Lastly, Olson made several recommendations for links to more information on various aspects of Google Analytics usage.  These included:

• Google Analytics main page: www.google.com/analytics
• Google Analytics blog: www.analytics.blogspot.com
• Google Conversion University: http://www.google.com/support/conversionuniversity/
• Google Analytics in 60 Seconds: YouTube video series with 60-second videos focusing on different applications of Google Analytics. http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=85CE2D27BC6FD84B

For me, one key take-away from the session was that getting your organization deeper into analytics can be a very productive way of clarifying what exactly you want your target audiences to do on your site and how your site should really function to move those visitors to specific actions that support your organizational mission.  In the past, many of us have just settled for basic numbers about how many site visitors we had and couldn’t really, or didn’t bother to, ask fundamental questions about how our constituencies were actually using the site.  Optimal utilization of Google Analytics will force your organization to confront challenging questions about what its priorities are for how visitors should move through the site and what should be the end result.

The March 2011 meeting of Public Policy Communicators NYC focused on Website Impact Without Redesign – What are some of the most important functional elements you need to have on your website to drive traffic and increase audience interaction, but that don’t require an expensive, all-consuming site make-over?

Jai Sen led our discussion.  He is a digital communications consultant with deep experience in interactive media, website and application development, and user experience design. He has led a wide variety of projects in the commercial and nonprofit sectors, including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation site redesign, and has most recently been an integral part of the team that relaunched the Atlantic Philanthropies website. He is currently working on the digital presence for the D5 coalition, an organization formed by grantmakers promoting diversity and inclusion in philanthropy.

Add-ons Not a Substitute for Design

Sen began by differentiating the elements we would be talking about from an actual redesign, saying that a redesign constitutes a total re-think of how you present and structure information online, it is usually time-consuming and budget-intensive and it addresses goals larger than simply driving traffic and increasing user interaction.

I have to admit that I thought the assembled participants would largely comprise communicators who simply didn’t have the money to do a redesign and were looking for some low-cost methods of sprucing sites up a bit.  But when Sen polled the room to ask how many had recently or were currently involved in total redesign, almost all hands went up.  So clearly folks interested in this topic aren’t looking to avoid a redesign, but are really looking for the latest tools and extra functionality to build upon existing sites.

Three Ways to Add Impact

Sen next listed three categories of add-ons that he would be helping the group to explore:

1. “Basics” that build on content already on a site or assets (like images) owned by an organization but not in use
2. Functional elements that can be “embedded” from outside sources
3. Plug-ins and APIs (Application Programming Interfaces, a way of bringing outside sites’ feature sets into one’s own site)

Before getting into the first area of add-ons, Sen made the case that it is important for nonprofits and foundations to have a clear understanding of who is currently coming to the site, what they are coming for and what types of elements appeal to them.  He strongly advocated using Google Analytics and other measurement tools available on Facebook and YouTube to get a snapshot of existing traffic and an accurate starting point to build your add-on plans and then to measure the results of your experiments in adding functionality.

In the “Basics” area, Sen focused on blog functionality, which he made clear is not necessarily about producing lots of editorial content, but really about serialized and timely presentation of content of many varieties. He said the blog function is “easy publishing with lots of impact.” Serialized publishing (blogs functions) are easily installed at little cost. They also vastly improve organizations’ abilities to optimize social networking capacity. Any timely content can be presented in blog format, from events to news, and users are familiar and comfortable with it.

Sen showed an example of the Japan Society, whose home page appears to be based on a serial publishing (blog) function.  He noted how the page, despite its unusually large number of navigation options, appears visually dynamic and always fresh.  He said it also nicely demonstrates the next area of “basics” that he intended to discuss: adding lots of big-impact pictures.

While he didn’t put forth the platitude that a picture tells a thousand words, he certainly demonstrated that this is an eternal truth as he showed examples of the Robert Wood Johnson home page that makes good use of pictures that show the implications of its work to help draw in visitors and navigate the vast array of information on the site. Sen discussed how the Robert Wood Johnson redesign project was about moving from a text-heavy, dry look and feel to one that made the foundation’s work and mission immediately clear and apparent through the use of compelling photos of the organization’s work.

Sen says that images are easy to manage and insert into online content and instantly enhance the “reading” experience.  You can use free services like Flickr and Picassa to host images, but such services can provide many other tools that he would discuss later. He then showed a screen shot of the Rainforest Alliance home page, which, like the Robert Wood Johnson site, makes good use of high-impact photos to make the experience of using the site not only more appealing, but also easier to relate to. Audience members added from their own experience that you can obtain images through your own work or through sites like iStockPhoto and Creative Commons licenses. Sen commented that Creative Commons licenses (which allow anyone to use copyrighted material, as long ans the owner or creator of the material is acknowledged) can be a great way to raise awareness about your organization and even drive traffic. Just make sure that you do indeed get permission to use any image you use on your site and clearly indicate ownership of images you put online by using a copyright notice or Creative Commons statement.

Sen moved next to the category of “embeddables.” Among the most common and essential for nonprofits and foundations are “social shares” that create easy links to Facebook, Twitter and other social media, and allow users to easily share your content through those mechanisms.  He said these embeddables are very easy to add to a site and are really just image links.  He showed an example on The Atlantic Philanthropies site that has prominent embedded social media icons and talked about some of the successes that organization has had with them.

The next type of “embeddable” he discussed was video.  He made the case that using a service like YouTube or Vimeo is better than hosting video on your site for a number of reasons, mostly because you don’t have to worry about hosting considerations like bandwidth since the videos are housed on (and streamed from) the outside service. Audience members raised questions about whether YouTube or Vimeo is preferable. Sen has recommended YouTube to most of his clients because it allows you to customize the video playing page to look like your own branded site and has more users that may find your organization through keyword searches.  Still, he said, Vimeo is a good option that many nonprofits are finding useful.  Either is very easy to incorporate into your organization’s site.  They also allow for statistical analysis of traffic and easy sharing.

Slide shows are also increasingly popular and easy-to-deploy tools that lots of nonprofits are using.  And, users are much more likely to click on a link to a slide show than to view a video.  Sen said that Flickr and PictoBrowser provide two excellent, easily embeddable tools to create and display slide shows.  The shows can be simple pictures with captions, or they can be created with timed advancement and voiceover and music. It just depends on how much time and effort you want to put in.

He showed another example from The Atlantic Philanthropies site where a slideshow was seamlessly integrated into the site.  He also showed an example of a YouTube video embedded on The Atlantic Philanthropies website, which uses YouTube to house all its video. He said that, because Atlantic used YouTube to host the video and had tagged the video with lots of keywords, it had driven traffic to the organization’s website, thanks to YouTube’s large user base.

There are other embeddables that allow organizations to give site visitors audio and podcasts.  The group talked a bit about embeddables that allow a site to display publications in a magazine format with flipping pages and stunning graphics.  One of the best, and easiest to use formats for doing that is Issuu. Like YouTube, Issuu hosts the publication and can drive more users to your site when people search its site on keywords.

Sen then moved our discussion into the third category of add-on: Plug-ins and APIs.  Many are familiar with APIs like Twitter feeds that show up-to-the-second display of how your organization or key topics are being discussed on Twitter. Also in the API category are Facebook Connect features like showing on your site Facebook members who have “liked” your organization so that viewers can see their friends that also follow you on Facebook, or allowing visitors to sign in to your site with their Facebook logins.

The group spent a generous amount of time talking the many great attributes of Google Maps and the related APIs that nonprofits and foundations can use with it to display information in geographic form – for example showing where projects are located, the reach of an organization’s membership, or the prevalence of certain social conditions.

Sen also touched upon the Google Charts API, which generates charts and graphs instantly and can be used to dynamically display data.

He said the main plug-in features nonprofits and foundations should be aware of are those that facilitate community and social features for popular content management systems like Drupal and WordPress, two platforms that are extremely popular with foundations and nonprofits.

As is nearly always the case with PPC, the conversation continued on past the conversation leader’s presentation and brought up specific challenges and questions from assembled members.  A good deal of the conversation looped back to the idea of doing good analytics to know what your audience uses and likes and providing more of it.  Sen said, “you want to give the audience more of what they want, make it useful, accessible and shareable.”

Sen’s presentation is available online in pdf format at: www.sen-associates.com/ppc

Additionally, The Communications Network’s Bruce Trachtenberg later shared this very helpful and extensive list of “57 Things You Can Do Right Now to Improve Your Website” http://www.dhcommunications.com/2011/03/57-things-you-can-do-right-now-to-improve-your-website/ Check it out.  It has lots of great ideas.

Website Impact Without Redesign – How can you introduce functional elements that drive traffic to your website and increase audience interaction  without an expensive, time-consuming redesign?

We’ll be going beyond obvious enhancements like video, links to social media presences and recordings of webinars, and think creatively about functionality that enhances the unique mission of each of our organizations.

We have a great discussion leader who will help kick our thinking into high gear:

Jai Sen is a digital communications consultant with deep experience in interactive media, website and application development, and user experience design. He has led a wide variety of projects in the commercial and nonprofit sectors, including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation site redesign, and has most recently been an integral part of the team that relaunched the Atlantic Philanthropies website. He is currently working on the digital presence for the D5 coalition, an organization formed by grantmakers promoting diversity in philanthropy.

Here are the specifics on the next PPC-NYC meeting:

What:  Brown-bag lunch (that means bring your own lunch!)

When:  Wednesday, March 23, 2011; 12:00 – 2:00 p.m. (informal networking from 12:00-12:30, program begins at 12:30)

Where:  Ford Foundation, 320 East 43^rd Street (between 1^st & 2^nd Ave), New York, NY

Topic:  Website Impact Without Redesign. Jai Sen will lead our group discussion.

RSVP:  Space is limited and our last several sessions had waiting lists, so please let me know that you are coming by emailing me at mremaley [at] ppcnyc [dot] org

The January 2011 meeting of Public Policy Communicators NYC focused on Evaluating New Media Effectiveness – What are the best ways to measure and track the impact of new media efforts?

PPC-NYC member and Fenton Chief Strategy Officer Lisa Witter is a widely recognized leader in helping nonprofit and foundation communicators think through how to take full advantage of social media and systematically collect data providing guideposts to this largely uncharted territory.  She and her Fenton colleagues John Gordon, Hugh McMullen and Julie Leung lead our discussion.

A quick show of hands indicated that almost everyone in the crowd of 50 communications professionals was on Facebook, Twitter and/or YouTube (not surprising given the topic at hand).  But then Witter showed a slide featuring the logos of dozens of other social media that one could be using, some of which are gaining considerable traction in key segments of the general public.  So the first set of questions was, “Why are you using the social media you are? Are you using certain tools because you think you should? Or are you using the tools to achieve specific goals?”

GOALS SHOULD DRIVE TACTICS, not the other way around.

In traditional media relations efforts you don’t send out a stream of press releases every month with nothing particularly insightful to say or any specific audience in mind to say it to. So it is with new media.  Communicators need to start by establishing clarity about the audiences they are trying to reach and what mechanisms those audiences use to get their information.  But the big difference with social media is, of course, that it is not a one-way broadcast mechanism.  These tools are equally, and perhaps more valuably, about listening to audiences and involving them in fulfilling your organizational mission.

One of the main early points of the Fenton team’s presentation was this: Whereas in the past nonprofits were looked to as the “hero” who would save the day in solving social problems and communications reflected that position, now social media is shifting the “hero” status to normal people – and nonprofits must show leadership by engaging followers, fans and friends to participate in addressing societal challenges. Our social media communications and the metrics we use to assess those efforts must reflect the new reality. Therefore, the depth of social media assessment metrics should equal the depth of engagement with your audiences though these channels.

The New Metrics: See, Say, Feel, Do

In traditional media relations efforts we are starting to talk less about the number of reports we print and the number of “media hits” we get as authentic indicators of effectiveness. Instead, thoughtful communications pros are focusing on how effective we are at changing the direction of public conversation. This is also true for new media metrics.

“See” Metrics. The Fenton team first talked about a kind of metrics that I tend to think of as new “old school” ways of measuring social media effectiveness.  “See” metrics track how many followers, friends, fans and subscribers you have, how many page views you get, etc. These measures, like traditional impression and circulation figures in media relations, are all about potential. “See” metrics, say the Fenton team, are a measure of reach, but they are not a measure of success.

“Say” Metrics. This second level of measuring social media focuses on message acceptance.  It looks at things like how many Re-Tweets your messages get, how many “likes” you get, how many of your advocacy emails get forwarded, etc. “Say” metrics are a good indication of messaging success and affinity for your organization or cause.  They are critical to extending your reach and influence.  However, they are still not a true measure of influence.

“Feel” Metrics. This level of metrics gets at the degree to which your messages are being picked up and “remixed” by the public with their own thoughts and feelings.  These include things like Re-Tweets with personalization, posting of your information on Facebook pages with personalized messages, blog posts that pick up your information and comment on it and forwarded advocacy emails that add to your original message. The Fenton team says that “Feel” metrics are a true indication of influence and affinity, and a goldmine for insights on messaging development and identification.  However, “Feel” metrics require significant research and human interpretation – they’re not simplistic numbers.

“Do” Metrics. This is really the ultimate level of measuring new media impact, and certainly the ones that have proven the most elusive for most nonprofits and foundations. These measure how many people have been driven by social media interactions to do things like volunteer, donate, take action, sign up, attend events, send letters, etc. These metrics really indicate the degree to which your social media efforts have helped bring people into the public conversation.  Most of your social media efforts, say the Fenton team, should be focused on serving the Doers. You should use social media tools to be useful, to be relevant and to be social.  But “Do” metrics are not the end of the line.

How do you use social media to serve Doers?

Influence is the holy grail of social media. Influence determines whether people say and feel and do the things you want them to.

You want to build influence with staff, members, volunteers, media and policy makers as well as target audiences within the public. The key to influence: BE USEFUL. Useful is not just having a worthy mission, but giving the audience the information, tools and resources that allow them to carry your mission forward.

According to the Fenton team, content drives influence.  That’s why your expertise (and I would add your opinion), stories and data are more important than ever.  But that’s not to say you should be yelling all you know all day and expect to get traction in social media.

The Fenton team made the good point that social media is sort of like a party. Who do you want a party?  A person who stands up and screams his opinion and makes everyone miserable?  Or a “cool DJ,” who is knowledgeable to start with, but listens to what people want to hear, responds to the feelings of the crowd and gives their audience what they can really groove to. To be a cool DJ, your organization has to establish a system for creating an authentic loop that starts with listening, then sharing what you have, creating new works based on what you have and what you’re hearing, promoting the thinking and products of fellow creatives, and feeding back into the loop by listening to what your hear.

These are the specifics they provided on the “Cool DJ” loop approach:

LISTEN to what people are talking about on blogs, social media, and Old Media
SHARE interesting and useful content you find with your audiences
CREATE something interesting – an opinionated blog post, video, or graphic
PROMOTE content appropriately to bloggers or websites

Fenton then used a brief case study on American Jewish World Service to show just how this “Cool DJ” approach can play out for a nonprofit. They detailed exactly how AJWS listened to a controversial discussion involving Monsanto occurring online, then simply added to the conversation by taking what they knew and adding some pointed questions to Monsanto.  Their “creation” was essentially a simple remix, but they used AJWS’s expertise on the subject to enter the conversation and followed it through on a variety of channels, eventually resulting in their contribution to the discussion being widely disseminated and editorialized on a diverse array of sites, and forced Monsanto to issue an official response.  This single piece of content led to an increase in Twitter followers up by 100, retweets and mentions up from 11 to 63 from the previous month, Facebook fans increased by 60, engagement up 50% from previous month, increased ‘footprint’ – at least 27 more AJWS blog posts outside the site than before, and at least 1,000 clicks to AJWS advocacy forums from blog posts and social media engagement. See more details on the case study in the Fenton presentation, click here.

The Fenton team then gave some additional tips, like using very specific hashtags on Twitter, responding quickly to posts and queries from followers with useful information, and making sure that you’re not treating Facebook and Twitter audiences the same and posting monotonous information.

The Importance of Monitoring

One of the key points during the conversation was the importance of daily monitoring of what is being said about your organization, the topics of concern to your organization and what other key thought leaders on your topic are saying.  “You need to be listening to the conversation before you jump in and start talking.” On Twitter especially you need to weave your messages into the existing conversations to maximize influence. It was noted that Google Reader is one of the most important and powerful tools for monitoring what is going on across the internet/social media. The Fenton team provided an exceedingly valuable list* of listening and tracking sites that I am sure many PPC members will be checking out if they haven’t already.

Questions had been asked by the group throughout the presentation, but as the Q&A took off, it became clear that there were many questions about how to staff this kind of effort and what, if anything, could be moved down on the workload priority list to do this kind of measurement and social media monitoring.

Witter had noted early on that a recent Pew report indicates that social media is changing the way people live their lives, interact with others and receive information, and that our new communication practice simply needs to reflect that.

Some of the other practical tips that came out during the Q&A included:

-Don’t have a bunch of “logos” talking on behalf of your organization. It’s better to have just one “logo”/organizational Twitter feed and then empower many individuals in your organization to Tweet what they know and care about.

-Social media is the crisis communications professional’s best friend – but you have to be in it and active in conversation before crisis hits.

-If you are still doing lots of press releases, it may not be the best use of your time.  Sure, the process of honing a message and creating a short, effective headline continues to be extremely valuable, but actual press releases are antiquated and annoy many journalists.

-Look for ways to use social media to reward and reinforce your audience’s actions.

-Even though you get 140 characters on Twitter, it’s best to aim for 90 characters and a shortened URL so that followers have room to Re-Tweet with personalized additions.

-Blog posts are in some ways more effective in social media than video because followers really can’t chop up and talk through video as they can with your blog posts.

-It is very important to follow the reporters who cover your issues.

As is usually the case with PPC sessions, the conversation could have spilled over into several more hours and many were left wanting more.  Alas, we’ll have to pick up the conversation another day (or on Twitter, Facebook and other new media!)

*Fenton’s recommended sites for Listening & Tracking:

Google Alerts: Collects the daily, weekly or monthly mentions of particular keywords. You can receive these alerts in your email inbox or through your Google Reader.

Social Mention: Measures the social media traction of a topic or keyword.

Compete.com: Provides ballpark estimates on the traffic of popular sites.

Google Adwords/Keyword: Tests the popularity of your keywords, finds alternative keywords that may be more popular and make your content more SEO-friendly.

WTHashtag: Provides definitions for and measures the tracking of a hashtag.

Google Trends: Tracks trending topics by country, city and language and finds the articles that are driving interest. Searches for relative popularity of your issue or organization and compares it to other issues or organizations.

YourOpenBook.org: Searches Facebook for conversations on any topic.

Blekko: A search engine that helps you cut through the noise and find the most relevant information.

Netvibes: Collects the feeds of multiple blogs/sites and displays them in a dashboard format for easy reading.

Topsy: Tracks the flow of content across the Twitterverse.  Good way to find influentials.

Bit.ly [or J.mp]: A URL shortener site that also measures number of clicks, where people are clicking through and conversations around the site.

Google Analytics: Tracks traffic levels, its increase, traffic sources, trafficked key terms and/or phrases.

Feedburner: Measures the number of RSS and e-mail subscribers.

Tweetburner: Tracks the number of clicks on the links that you send out via Twitter, also shows how active your Twitter followers are with your content.

The subject that edged out the others and will be the focus of our January 24, 2001 meeting will be:

Evaluating New Media Effectiveness – What are the best ways to measure and track the impact of new media efforts?

Like many of you, I ventured into worlds of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube a few years ago to advance my organization’s voice.  Since then, we’ve learned that social media isn’t just a new way to distribute press releases, but an immensely valuable set of tools for listening to multiple audiences and potentially advancing programmatic goals. But while everyone seems to agree that communicators need to be using new media, few seem to have a handle on what constitutes success and how to figure out if you’re doing it well.

PPC-NYC member and Fenton Communications Chief Strategy Officer Lisa Witter is a widely recognized leader in helping nonprofit and foundation communicators think through how to take full advantage of social media and systematically collect data providing guideposts to this largely uncharted territory.  She an her Fenton colleague John Gordon will walk as through a discussion that I expect will help us all bring more clarity, confidence and efficiency to our new media efforts.

Here are the specifics on the next meeting:

What:                         Brown-bag lunch (that means bring your own lunch!)

When:              Monday, January 24, 2011; 12:00 – 2:00 p.m. (informal networking from 12:00-12:30, program begins at 12:30)

Where:              Ford Foundation, 320 East 43^rd Street (between 1^st & 2^nd Ave), New York, NY

Topic:              Evaluating New Media Effectiveness. Lisa Witter and John Gordon of Fenton Communications will lead off the discussion.

RSVP:            Space is limited and our last several sessions had waiting lists, so please let me know that you are coming by emailing me at mremaley [at] ppcnyc [dot] org

Lisa Witter is a social entrepreneur, communications strategist, author, blogger and social commentator with deep expertise in the not-for-profit field, philanthropy, politics, women’s issues, health, social marketing, new media, international development, corporate social responsibility, and leveraging pop culture for social change. In 2010 she was named one the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders. As chief strategy officer of Fenton, the largest public interest communications firm in the country, she heads-up the firm’s work in innovation and co-leads the practices in women’s issues, health, social entrepreneurship and global affairs.

John Gordon is Fenton’s Vice President of Digital and has been an innovator in online engagement for over 15 years, with extensive experience developing integrated communications and marketing strategies for not-for-profits, political candidates and socially-minded businesses. Gordon was formerly the director of new media at Spitfire Strategies, where he helped clients such as the Hewlett Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Joint Ocean Commission use new media to drive supporters, win campaigns and build capacity. While at Spitfire, Gordon worked with the President of the firm to develop a comprehensive step-by-step guidebook to help non-profits plan public policy, advocacy, and social marketing campaigns.

We would like to again thank all of the wonderful folks at the Ford Foundation – and especially PPC-NYC regular attendees Fiona Guthrie and Alfred Ironside – for helping make this learning series happen.  They’ve been exceptionally supportive and we are extremely grateful. Also, the Communications Network’s Bruce Trachtenberg has been essential to this organization’s success from the very beginning.

I hope to see you on January 24.

The November 2010 meeting of Public Policy Communicators NYC was all about how to develop effective communications plans.  We set out to examine:

- How to produce realistic, focused communications goals and objectives.

- How to gain clarity and agreement on the specific target audiences and the modes of communication best suited to reaching them.

- How to get REALLY REAL about time allocation with both staff and organizational leadership on trade-offs, opportunism and sticking to a plan.

Edith Asibey – who has been a consultant to many foundations and international nonprofits on this topic, is a board member of our partner The Communications Network and is currently doing just this kind of work on a daily basis at The Atlantic Philanthropies – led our discussion.  And, of course, the PPC members in attendance contributed lots of great thinking about how the concepts we were discussing played out in their work.

Edith began by stating her position that communications planning is a prerequisite for effectiveness.  “How do you know if your communications are effective?” she asked.  You simply can’t know if you haven’t taken the time to create a real plan against which to measure success.  Further, while large-budget organizations may have the luxury of spending in a way that throws lots of resources onto the wall to see what sticks, those with limited resources face an even greater imperative to plan in ways that directs resources only to the efforts that are most likely to have the greatest impact.

She asked the group to consider two questions: First, how would you rate the quality of your existing plan? It became clear that very few in the room considered their plans particularly good, let alone excellent, and quite a few had no plan at all. Second, she asked the group whether or not their organizations actually stick to the plans that they create. The commonalities in the responses showed that many of us are in the same boat – one that leaks.

That second question also produced a line of conversation among participants that became one of the strongest themes of the day: How do you create a plan that is targeted and strategic, but also allows for flexibility and responsiveness to opportunities within the news hole?  Some said that you can create a plan that actually allows for that kind of flexibility – one which has a limited number of deliverables but which also has more loosely defined areas where new opportunities will be pursued. Others said you simply had to live with knowing that you will never fulfill your plan in its entirety. “If you stick to a plan exactly, then you probably won’t really be that successful,” one person asserted. Edith said that planning for flexibility can actually help deal with unpredictability and challenges by defining priority areas, so that those opportunities that fall outside the priorities don’t become distractions.  But, she said, sticking to the plan and pursuing other opportunities will always be a balancing act.

Steering the conversation toward specific ways of making more productive communications plans, Edith presented an example from a media campaign she led in Paraguay several years ago. She talked about the ambitions of the campaign and showed the goal statement that the campaign organizers had developed in the planning process: “Raise awareness of the Paraguayan population about the major environmental problems facing the country: deforestation, soil degradation, water pollution, loss of biodiversity.”

To many of us in the room, it seemed like a decent goal.  Edith said that, in fact, this was an example of a “monster goal,” one so broad and ill-defined that it could not adequately focus the work or lead to any understanding of how well one had moved toward achieving the goal.  Several people in the room commiserated, saying that they had all seen communications plans that sought to “raise awareness” among a general population, among “media,” “thought leaders,” “within the community” or other hugely general audiences that provided little guidance in how to really target and reach key people within those populations.

In developing more meaningful goals that drive good plans, it is essential to gain clarity and SPECIFICITY about:

-       Goals (these are the ways in which you want the world to be different within 3, 5 or 10 years, and which your communications efforts will have contributed to making happen)

-       Objectives (while we did not cover it in detail during the meeting, I would like to include here an excerpt from Asibey’s “Are We There Yet?”: Objectives are different from goals: they are more specific and have a shorter time frame, typically one to two years. Think of objectives as a series of benchmarks on the way to your goal. Most likely, you will have a few intermediate objectives that will progressively lead to your goal. A good objective should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Result-focused and Time-specific.

-       Audiences

-       Messages

-       Messengers

-       Tactics

-       Measurements

The process of gaining clarity and specificity about these elements will lead organically to an effective and focused communications plan.  In fact, Edith said, specifying audiences is the only way to create good strategy. In the Paraguay example, she suggested, as an alternative to working with such a broad goal, to instead create a series of concrete, incremental objectives that would anchor a much better communications plan.  As an example, she suggested an objective that looks like this:  “Secure support of 30 mayors in the most affected provinces to protect water sources.” This objective not only focused on mayors—a well defined target audience – but also honed in on the environmental element that had the greatest potential impact on the whole system.

This led to a discussion of one of the other major themes of the day: the often delicate relationship of communications to “program.”  Clearly, when communications become central to the organizational discussion about how to achieve goals, some tensions arise about the right mix of communications efforts that are integrating “program objectives” and efforts aimed at heightening general awareness of the organization, improving its reputation.  Some in the group expressed some anxiety about asserting themselves too strongly into the work of “program,” and said that their charge within the organization was to stick with media relations aimed at improving general awareness of the organization.  Others embraced the idea of stepping back from the frequent task of trying to place OpEds from the President of their organization and helping the organization think through how communications could really help achieve program goals.

Asibey noted that the ability to play the role of internal consultant on how communications can produce program results may depend on how long you’ve been at the organization and how much trust has been established. She said it helps to sit down with program folks and really understand what they want to accomplish and learn more about their target audiences so that you can figure out how communications can help reach them.  Those discussions with program people will also help flesh out the messages and messengers that will resonate with target audiences.

She said that, if your plan includes audiences described simply as “policy makers,” “funders” or “the media,” it is not specific enough.  She cited an example of an organization she worked with that, instead of laying out categories of people they wanted to reach, went through an extensive process that resulted in exactly 450 named individuals that they wanted to influence.  Once they identified those exact individuals who they believed could advance their objectives, they developed messages and modes of communications tailored to how those individuals receive information.

The remainder of the discussion ranged over participants’ experiences trying to force greater specificity to how the imperative to focus on core audiences squares with the new pressures many of us are feeling to spend more of our time and resources on social media, the effects of which seem to be diffuse at best.

Edith conceded that even good planning won’t solve all of these challenges, still “Specificity is very satisfying!”

Many in the group expressed a desire to talk more about this subject and delve more deeply into the planning process, which lead to a discussion of planning resources. One attendee said that PPC-NYC member Nancy Schwartz, who runs the Getting Attention! blog, is a great resource and an effective consultant helping communicators develop good communications plans.

Other PPC-NYC members who do consulting in this area include:

Douglas Gould, Douglas Gould & Co.
Rochelle Lefkowitz, Pro-Media Communications
Amy Sutnick Plotch, Amy Sutnick Plotch Consulting
Michael Remaley, HAMILL REMALEY breakthrough communications
Farra Trompeter, Big Duck Communications
Lisa Witter, Fenton Communications

Asibey’s communications evaluation report “Are We There Yet?” also provides great insights into communications planning and how to go about it.  Those seeking communications planning literature should also check out the Knowledge section of The Communications Network’s website at: http://comnetwork.org/knowledge_research

The September 2010 meeting of Public Policy Communicators NYC focused on “Communications Integration.” We examined what are some of the best methods and technologies to coordinate communications efforts so that work flow and content for websites, e-newsletters and social media are seamless and but not repetitive.  We had thoughtful presentations from systems experts representing Convio, Blackbaud and Network for Good, on streamlining marketing and communications efforts, which was followed by 45 minutes of Q&A that brought forth many great inquiries from PPC attendees.

In preparing for the session, we had asked each of the presenters to cover the same basic territory but from their own perspectives.  We asked them to:

-       Define the key terms that are often thrown around (i.e. CRM)
-       Talk generally about the range of options that are out there for bringing more efficiency and effectiveness to communications efforts (not just “donate now” functions, but online community building, functions that assist in advocacy and guide constituencies to action, ticketing/events management online, etc.)
-       Talk about how new technologies and services can help organizations better coordinate their social networking efforts and help save time
-       Quickly note the services their companies offer that can help get the job done

First up, Blackbaud’s Brooks Matthews and his colleague Jeff O’Toole.
(Contact Brooks at: 843.343.9442 or brooks.matthews@blackbaud.com)

The Blackbuad team emphasized something they called “TrueCRM” v. basic CRM.  There are lots of Customer Relationship Management systems out there, but TrueCRM is a system like Blackbaud’s that provides real-time data flow between your organization’s website and your CRM system so that there are seamless connections that thread your online information exchanges, email marketing, web content management and web strategy. This kind of “TrueCRM” system should ideally also be woven together with the organization’s utilization of data analytics, fundraising, relationship cultivation, membership development, events management, donor cultivation, advocacy and direct mail.

From Blackbaud’s perspective, there are 5 Key Components of Effective Communications:

1. Integrating online and offline communications systems
2. Learning about your supporters’ communications preferences
3. Targeting and personalizing all communications
4. Reporting on communications outcomes, which is key to determining future strategy
5. Diversifying communications methods.

Many organizations have their information in separate silos, Matthews said, and this is a big challenge for them.  In talking about the first point, O’Toole showed a screen-shot of a Blackbaud client’s database interface.  It showed over a dozen tabs that allowed the user to slice and dice data about an individual’s interactions with the nonprofit.  These tabs included: bio, addresses, salutations/affiliations (etc.), relationships, appeals, notes, gifts, attributes, media, actions, honor/memorial, prospect and NetCommunity. As O’Toole talked about a typical communicator’s needs around information integration, he showed how the system allowed the user to see in real-time exactly what kind of information the individual had received, how they had responded to the information (if at all) and how the individual was interacting with the organization through a variety of media.

As Blackbaud proceeded through its presentation, they showed how their system could be used to personalize messages to targeted audiences and to develop a better understanding of how messages are received.  They emphasized the importance of having a system that allows the organization to easily create reports on data flow and constituent response – not just whether or not certain pieces of communications had moved individuals to make donations, but whether or not they had shared information with others or taken other actions that are important to organizations trying to spread their messages beyond their established constituencies.  They finished their presentation with a short discussion of how their system could be used to track and utilize information about the organization’s social network viewers on sites like Facebook and YouTube.

Next up, Convio’s Christian Varano.
(Contact Christian at: 570.573.4659 or cvarano@convio.com)

In Convio’s presentation Christian first talked about how most organizations maintain several systems for tracking information, but which aren’t integrated.  These include a basic CRM or other donor management database, a direct mail database, a CMS system for managing website information, an email point tool, separate online fundraising tools, a system for managing an online store, an ERP/Finance/GL system, and an events tool.  An integrated system, such as one that could be provided by Convio, can tie all of those systems together to help build relationships and drive response rates higher. An integrated communications system recognizes key linkages with fundraising and other functions. It helps the organizations segment by demographics, by issue or by other chosen variables. And this ability to easily manage data is key to crafting and sending communications messages that build relationships.

One Convio slide showed a quote that many nonprofits may have heard on more than one occasion: “I only hear from them when they want money,” said the annoyed donor.  Convio’s presentation emphasized that an integrated communications system pulls information from online marketing elements (such as online fundraising, advocacy, e-commerce, peer-to-peer networks and special events) as well as offline marketing elements (such as campaigns, traditional fundraising, volunteer management, contact management and events) to form a fuller picture that can be viewed from many angles, as well as from either 1,000 feet up or the microscopic level.

Varano said that most clients come to Convio with a scattered set of existing systems that have grown up as technology evolved. He said Convio strives to create “holistic platform” solutions that help organizations personalize communications and establish ongoing dialogue with constituencies. These platforms also help organizations avoid spamming their audiences, which is the frequent result of messages coming out of an organization’s many communications silos.

He finished by noting that Convio’s platforms are based on open technology systems, which is important in a technology environment where the popular modes of communications are always changing.  Facebook, Twitter and YouTube may be popular today, he said, but who knows how folks will be communicating in the future and Convio’s open systems will allow for greater flexibility and change in the future.

Our third presenter was Network for Good’s Rebecca Higman
(Contact Rebecca at: 240.223.2648 or rebecca.higman@networkforgood.org)

Rebecca started by noting that Network for Good has a particularly rich understanding of the needs of nonprofits because it is one itself.  She then moved to the core of her presentation that emphasized that the point of communications integration is not to play with fancy software, but to bring greater efficiency AND effectiveness to one’s efforts.  She said that there are lots of new ways to communicate that some might not even know are options that can be integrated, such as tell-a-friend tools, share links (through social media) and online tools for tracking, reporting, “receipting,” donation pages, email outreach, online events, donor databases and more.  All of which can be coordinated with Network for Good systems. NFG has three systems – DonateNow, EmailNow powered by Emma and EventNow powered by givezooks – which can be used together or separately.

From Network for Good’s perspective, the bare essentials of an effective communications effort include:

-       A well-branded, easy to use website
-       The ability to process secure donations
-       An email campaign tool that complies with federal anti-spam laws (this was necessity that Higman emphasized as particularly important)
-       A website analytics tool
-       Great follow-up for online donors and supporters
-       Smooth integration of online and offline efforts
-       Regular reporting on all communications efforts so you can learn and correct as you go.

She said that it was possible for an organization to cobble all those things together, but a system like Network for Good’s makes it very easy and less likely that any of the pieces will fall through the cracks.

Higman moved beyond talking about just the systems, which were not dissimilar to those of the other presenters, to provide several helpful hints for communications and marketing efforts.  One that many meeting participants seemed to jot down was this: Donation appeals should go out at a 1:3 ratio. To avoid sounding like you’re always asking for money, your nonprofit should send at least 3 messages providing news, updates and program information for every one email that asks for a donation.

The Network for Good PowerPoint presentation also included “10 Ways to Amp Up Your Website,” “11 Ways to Amp Up Your Donate Page” and “9 Ways to Amp Up your Email Outreach.”  She also talked about ways of focusing on “superstars” within your constituencies – the 5 percent or so who are the most engaged and active – to help make your organizations case.  Higman gave several examples of how Network for Good’s services can help in that regard, including a brief overview of how it is helping organizations integrate its social network efforts with their other methods of communicating and developing stronger relationships.

The three presenters fielded questions for the next 45 minutes, which yielded rich insights.  One question was about whether or not any of the systems allowed users to integrate information from external media databases nonprofits and foundations commonly use such as Cision, Vocus and Burrelles/Luce. The general consensus from the presenters was that one could download information from those systems and import the information into the organization’s central CRM system, but keeping that information current would be a challenge. And, the nature of communications to media people is generally so different and separate that it didn’t seem to warrant the effort to integrate that information.

Several questions revolved around whether or not organizations subscribing to these integrated systems were expected to ditch all of their existing databases and move all of their information into new systems.  The presenters generally agreed that, while having all data under one unified system might be ideal, it is quite common for organizations to be attached to certain components of their existing systems, but that the new functionality can often be brought in piece by piece to work with existing systems.  Convio’s Varano said, “real integration in one system, that’s the nirvana, but it’s not the reality for most organizations.”

A strong attachment to existing systems and a desire to not “waste” resources that had already been spent on them was a strong undercurrent.  The presenters emphasized that it need not be an all-or-nothing scenario. For most organizations, the presenters seemed to agree, integrating donor databases with a high-functioning email program is the absolute barest necessity. If an organization were to embark on a truly comprehensive effort to work with a firm to design an optimally functioning system that integrates all of the functions discussed over the course of the presentations, it would probably take about nine months from beginning to end. There are a lot of questions to be asked over the course of such a project, but in the end, those answers and the process can dramatically sharpen the organization’s communications efforts.

We promised to make the speakers’ PowerPoint presentations available online.  However, our WordPress-based website won’t allow that much data on a page. So, if you would like to view any of the 3 presentation, please email mremaley [at] ppcnyc [dot] org to request a copy.  Sorry for the inconvenience.

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We usually end our PPC sessions by distributing a short survey on possible topics for future meetings.  Since previous surveys indicated a strong interest in the topic of “What Goes Into an Effective Annual Communications Plan?” that will be the topic for our November meeting. I ended the meeting by soliciting recommendations from the group on any potential discussion leaders for that topic. More recommendations are welcome.

We again live-tweeted the session from our official Twitter account: @PPCNYC.  If you can’t make it out of the office to the next PPC, follow along via Twitter!

Thanks again to all of our presenters for providing a GPS for this challenging communications integration terrain and to all the great PPC members who came and made the discussion so worthwhile.

-       Is your contacts database a mess or just not as good at segmenting target audiences as you’d like?

-       Do you feel like you spend too much time cutting and pasting information and formatting across different communications tools and wish there were a better way to manage your eNewsletters, direct email communications and social media efforts?

-       Are you interested in learning about ways your peers are using new technologies to move their constituencies to action?

PPC members told us that they wanted the next learning session to focus on Communications Integration: What are the best methods and technologies to coordinate communications efforts so that work flow and content for website, e-newsletters and social media are seamless but not repetitive?

PPC is gathering representatives from the most prominent companies offering services in this area – Convio, Blackbaud and Network for Good – to answer your questions and get you thinking concretely about how to streamline your communications and marketing efforts.  Many of you are already using some of the services offered by these companies, so we hope you will bring your insights and experiences to share with the group.

Here is the summary information on the next PPC-NYC meeting:

What: Brown-bag lunch (that means bring your own lunch!)

When: Thursday, September 16, 2010; 12:00 – 2:00 p.m. (informal networking from 12:00-12:30, program begins at 12:30)

Where: Ford Foundation, 320 East 43^rd Street (between 1^st & 2^nd Ave), New York, NY

Topic: Communications Integration. What are the latest methods and technologies for coordinating communications efforts so that work flow and content for website, e-newsletters and social media are seamless but not repetitive?

RSVP: Space is limited.  Please let me know that you are coming by emailing me at mremaley [at] ppcnyc [dot] org