BlogWritingCourse

Nonprofits, especially ones with smaller budgets, often don’t put a lot of time and effort into their online communications.  Their website, if they have one, usually consists of just a few pages dedicated to the mission of the organization, the services they perform, and instructions for volunteering, or sending in donations.  While this no-frills type of website is certainly better than having no online presence at all, it is far from ideal in providing adequate communication between you and your supporters.

Technology can be a valuable tool to keep donors, supporters, and volunteers engaged with the daily operations of a nonprofit organization.  Unfortunately, many worthy causes have settled for one-sided communication with their donors in the form of monthly newsletters and occasional fundraising appeals.  This method may have sufficed years ago, but in today’s world-wide-web culture, people expect more.  They want to know they have a voice, and that the causes they support are willing to listen to their ideas and suggestions.   An active internet presence can provide this two-way communication.  Your nonprofit could use any or all of the following methods to encourage interactivity with your supporters:

• Email Updates – You can easily create a section on your website where supporters can sign up with their email addresses to receive current status reports or news items.  Occasional email “bulletins” sent out to these addresses might include a particular victory your agency has experienced, an urgent call for help with a specific task, or a reminder about an important upcoming event.  Because a sign up for this type of mailing is voluntary, you can count on these updates to be read and attended to.
• Electronic Newsletter For Volunteers – volunteers give selflessly of their time and effort, but that doesn’t mean they don’t need to be told how much they are appreciated.  A special email “newsletter” for volunteers could be sent out monthly or quarterly, and could include special “inside” information about the agency, highlights of a particular volunteers contributions, notices about upcoming volunteer needs, and of course, generous appreciation for  their efforts.
• Dedicated Information Email Address – this would be located in a prominent place on your website,usually in the “Contact Us” section, and would be checked daily by someone in your organization who is talented at answering inquiries and taking feedback.  By providing an information email address, you are saying to your supporters and potential supporters that you have nothing to hide and are eager to answer any questions, concerns, or suggestions they may have
• Interactive Calendar – this would be a website feature that would allow the nonprofit to update as often as needed with current data on activities and events, and would allow the user to click on items on the calendar to receive more details and information
• Blog – Blogging is becoming one of the fastest growing methods of communication.  A blog, or web log, is an ongoing journal of information related to your cause.  It is almost limitless in its type of content, but could include news about your nonprofit, pictures of recent events and activities, editorials on the issues surrounding your cause, or spotlights on people who have made important humanitarian or financial contributions.  Blogging can be an uniquely effective tool, in that it allows readers to comment and interact with the content. This creates a sense of active participation for supporters, and gives them a way to express their ideas and to vent their feelings.  If your organization is interested in adding a blog to your website, but aren’t sure how to begin, you might want to sign up for a blog writing course, that will guide you through all the steps of designing, writing, and promoting your new blog.

There are many other ways to use your nonprofit website to encourage participation and involvement from your supporters, but hopefully these ideas will get you started on creating a two-way communication that will benefit your cause for years to come.

Change is difficult. Change is usually incremental. Change is sometimes necessary. But if you are a non-profit organization operating in the 21^st century, change is CRUCIAL. The way today’s non-profits communicate with their potential donors, their consistent supporters, and their volunteers is radically different than the way they communicated even ten years ago. Newsletters and mail-outs, while still in use, are not usually the preferred means of receiving information for most supporters under the age of forty…and that demographic must be reached in order to continue to grow a foundation of ongoing support and continued fundraising.

Today’s grass roots boosters aren’t satisfied to sit back and be spoon fed information about the causes and organizations they support – - they want to interact with their chosen movements. They want to feel like they are not only aware of the problems of the world, but are a part of the solution.

This is where blogging comes in. Almost 30% of internet subscribers read blogs on a daily basis. For many of these, blogs are their top source for news and information. This is partly because the blogging format, like no other medium, provides a dialogue beween the author and the reader. A blog is almost never one-sided. Non-profit agencies who incorporate a well-written blog into their communication strategy, are likely to achieve several worthy goals:

• Drawing interest from people formerly unfamiliar with the organization and its goals
• Keeping their supporters and potential supporters up-to-date on issues and news stories relevant to the mission of the organization
• Keeping constituents aware of upcoming events, immediate needs, or current fundraising drives
• Highlighting the selfless efforts of volunteers who give of themselves daily
• Providing a platform for supporters to interact with the organization and other supporters via blog comments and feedback
• Increasing a sense of overall connection and immediacy between the non-profit and its base of supporters through timely informational posts
• Putting a personal face on an impersonal fundraising entity, and makes supporters feel personally invested in the ups and downs of its daily operation

If you are interested in finding out how to quickly and easily integrate a blog into your communication efforts, click here to find out more about taking our Blogging 101 course.

Until next time,

Immediacy.  Technically, it is defined as “the quickness of an action or occurrence.”  But on an emotional level, immediacy can be incredibly important.  If someone we loves is injured or in need of help, we want to know immediately.  When we have good news to share, we can hardly wait to find a listening ear.  Births, marriages, deaths – - they all appear as soon as possible in the local newspaper.  Finding out news when it happens makes us feel connected in a real way to those it is happening to.

For nonprofit agencies, this can be an important truth to digest.  Donors almost always feel emotionally connected to the causes they support.  For any myriad of reasons, they believe that their chosen cause deserves attention and funding, and they are willing to put their own hard earned time and money into it.  But just like any investment, donors deserve a return.  And, rightfully, this return ought to somehow involve timely news on how the agency or organization is managing its resources.

One way that nonprofits are successfully handling this in recent years is by creating their own blog.  The whole premise behind blogging is bringing up-to-date information to the public, and that is exactly what savvy nonprofit agencies are doing.  They are nurturing the emotional connection of their donor public by bringing them up-to-date news on the ups and downs of the issues involving their organization.  When supporters get current information about the cause they support, they feel emotionally linked with its successes and failures.

Large nonprofits such as the One Campaign, are utilizing this tactic successfully.  The One blog is not only featured prominently on the agency’s website, but is updated several times daily.  To donors, this says that the organization has its eye on the ball, and is keenly involved in its own agenda, and in keeping others informed with its progress.  These are key ingredients to getting and keeping support.

The Greenpeace organization goes even one step further, and encourages its supporters to blog about subjects relating to environmental concerns.  They then link the contributing blogs to their own blog site, Making Waves, thereby increasing attention to their cause and creating a community of like-minded bloggers who feel passionately connected to the nonprofit and its issues.

If you are involved in a nonprofit organization, and would like to learn more about blogging, and how it could benefit your cause and your supporters, why not sign up for our free Introductory Blogging Course and discover the basics and the vocabulary of the world of blogging.  And if you decide that your nonprofit might truly benefit from an ongoing blog, then you will definitely want to take the Blogging 101 course where you will be guided every step of the way through designing and setting up your blog, writing quality content, and building your audience.  Then you will be well on your way to delivering the timely information and creating the immediacy that your organization’s supporters want and deserve.

Until next time,

My recent interview with Christine Moers got me thinking.  She talked about using blogging as free therapy, and I think maybe she may have stumbled upon something.  Writing is incredibly therapeutic.  In fact, other than getting my fingers in the dirt, I can’t think of many other things that calm me as much as putting words together into sentences.  I’ve probably been writing for therapy for as long as I can remember.  I know I kept a diary all the way back in the third grade, and I was writing whole stories in junior high.

When I am emotional, I write about it.  When I need to work something through, I write about it.  When I just want to blow off some steam, I write about it.  Not everyone uses writing to deal with their issues, but for me, it is a sort of lifeline to sanity.  So, I suppose I was destined to discover blogging.  Blogging is basically just “public venting,” if you think about it.  Instead of keeping all those thoughts inside, or just writing them down in a notebook, a blogger makes himself or herself vulnerable and lets the blogosphere have a window into their mind.

Of course, this can be a precious gift, or a disastrous decision, based on your mood at the moment of posting.  If you are centered, and feeling secure about yourself, an insightful blog post can be incredibly beneficial for everyone who reads it.  If you are overly emotional, and out of sync with your true self, you can say some things on your blog that you might seriously regret later (thank goodness for that terrific edit/delete functionality!).

But overall, blogging really can be therapeutic.  Even if you are writing a purely informational blog, you are still exercising your talent of expression when you post.  The words, phraseology, and tone of the information is all right from the core of who you are.   Even business blogs can have a positive effect on your psyche if you are able to talk openly and honestly about your product or service.  If you feel strongly about the item you are blogging about, then there is no better therapy than letting others know how important it is to you, and why it could be important for them.  Personal blogs are probably the most expressive type of blog, because your readers are getting all-you-all-the-time.  There are no filters, no editors, and no censor between your mind and your audience – - just your words coming through loud and clear.

So, if you have considered finding an outlet for your thoughts, dreams, or insights, you might just be the next big thing in blogging!  You will never know unless you give it a try…so why not sign up for our free Introductory Blogging Course today?  If you discover that blogging is something you want to pursue, you will definitely want to take our Blogging 101 course, which will help you set up a new blog, start the writing process, and build your blog audience.  What can you lose…except some overpriced therapy bills??  Why not blog instead?

Until next time,

So you have your first blog up and running.  You’ve written several posts, and you might have even gotten a comment or two.  So how do you know that things are going the way they are supposed to?  Is there a magic blogging fairy that lets you know that you are on track, and that your blog traffic is growing?  Well, yes and no.

Although there may or may not be magic wands and pink tutus involved, there are definitely some magical fairy-like tools out there that can help you keep up with the facts and figures of your blog on a daily basis.  Tools such as Statcounter and Google Analytics can seem almost supernatural in their ability to help you understand who your readers are and how they are interacting with your content.

I was quite a novice to web tracking software before I began my blog.  I’ll never forget the feeling of awe that came over me when I realized that I could actually see a virtual “map” of where my visitors were from.  In the first few weeks of monitoring my blog, I saw that I had readers all the way from Punxsutawney, PA to Dublin, Ireland, and many places in between.  That was incredibly cool, but not terribly useful.  I soon realized that it was much more helpful to find out not where they were physically when they dropped by my blog, but virtually.  What sites had sent them my way?  And why did they choose to click on over?

By understanding the “why” behind your traffic, you can begin to tweak your strategy, and appeal to your demographic.  This is very similar to any advertising strategy.  Take the candy company Mars, Inc. for instance.  For years they had marketed their popular M&M confection to children everywhere with their popular slogan, “Melts in Your Mouth, Not In Your Hands.”  Their TV commercials were filled with doe-eyed cuties holding out their hands after chowing down on some of the multicolored treats, to prove that they hadn’t gotten a handful of melty chocolate goo in the process.  But Mars got wise to something after several years of this advertising.  The fact was, that the majority of M&M connoisseurs weren’t actually kids, after all.  Adults were the true core of their market share for the candy.  So naturally, along with this new wisdom came a completely different marketing strategy – - the M&M guys.  These characters were aimed at entertaining the more grown-up set with their tongue-in-cheek humor.  And it has worked incredibly well for Mars, Inc.

It is that ability to take information, and make it work for you that sets you apart as an advertiser – - and as a blogger.  Knowing the stats of your blog is interesting, (and sometimes discouraging!), but it is what you do with those stats that will help you grow your blog audience.  And for most bloggers, that is what it’s all about!

If you are interested in blogging, but just haven’t been sure where to start, you should definitely sign up for our free blogging course that will give you an introduction and a foundation to the world of blogging.  Once you are familiar with the vocabulary and background of blogging, though, you will want to take our Blogging 101 course.  This subscription based course is taught by a successful seasoned blogger who will guide you through all of the steps of designing and setting up your blog, writing quality content, and growing your audience.

Until next time,

So we are smack dab in the middle of the information age.  Some might say that we are drowning in information.  No one company, organization, or individual has control over how information is dispersed…we are living in an information free-for-all.  So why not get in on it??

Blogs provide an easy outlet for content creation.  You have something to say?  Say it in a blog.  Do you have access to interesting data or information on a specific subject?  Why not blog about it?  Have a business that you would like to promote?  A blog is a cost-effective way to advertise, and also to share your vision with your current and future customers.  What about personal updates?  Families are finding blogs to be the perfect venue for keeping friends and family abreast of all that is going on in their lives.  It is also a great way to share pics and videos.

If you use the internet on a regular basis, chances are you are getting at least some portion of your information from a blog.  Interestingly, sometimes blogs are even the preferred medium for info.  Whereas the monopoly of daily newspapers gave way to up-to-the-minute news web sites years ago, even those have had to take a backseat to immediate news from the front lines – - bloggers who see the stories up close and tell about them first hand.  Company marketers and advertisers have lost their influence compared to multiple product review bloggers who can make or break a new mp3 player or a new restaurant in town.  These user-based reviews tend to have much more impact on the consumer than the biased descriptions written by distributors.  And blogging can have an incredible impact.  Grass root movements have been known to blossom overnight after one well-written blog post.

Now is the time to be part of the information age in a real way.  Bloggers have the opportunity to express themselves, to promote themselves or their causes, and to deliver information like never before.  We all want to be heard.  We want to matter.  And starting a blog is such a simple way to get in on the action.  If you are new to the world of blogging, you would probably want to take our free introductory blogging course, Get Ready To Blog.  Once you understand what blogging is all about, it is time to build your blog, and grow your readership.  Our subscription based course, Blogging 101 is designed to help you write a blog that others will want to read.

There is no better time to get in on the blogging revolution!  Sign up today!

Until next time,

I’ve read my fair share of bad blogs lately.  I’m not sure why, but it feels like the blogiverse in general is going through a dry spell, of sorts.  I’m experiencing it myself.  Usually, I can feel the blog material welling up like magma fairly bursting to get out, but the past few days have been uninspiring to say the least.  But like I say, I don’t think I’m the only one.  Even my all-time fave bloggers seem to be “dialing it in” in the blog department this week.  I keep looking to other blogs for inspiration, and coming up hollow.

So what do we do when we’ve sat at Starbucks for two hours, laptop at the ready, and all we have to show for it is a case of the Double-shot-on-ice jitters??

**Get back to your roots – - take a few minutes to ponder why it was you started your blog in the first place.  What was your goal?  What is your unique take on life, and how does your blog convey it?

**Check the driver’s seat – - has your blog been hijacked and sidetracked?  Have you headed in a direction that you didn’t intend?  If so, remember that this is your blog, and only you can get it back on track.

**Ride the wave – - it’s okay to be honest, and let your readers know you are struggling.  Let them hop on the surfboard of blogging wipeouts with you and ride them out.  Be genuine.  Be vulnerable.  Be you.

**Get some feedback – - choose a regular reader that you trust, and ask them to give you an honest appraisal of your latest posts.  What did they like about them?  What made them want to pull the plug on their subscription to your feed?  Be open to their criticism, both good and bad, and use it to help bring you out of your slump.

**Be thankful for your Mom – - don’t wait till next Mother’s Day to send her a bouquet of daisies.  She is your rock.  Your number one fan.  The person who will read your blog even when it stinks like day old skunk.  Everyone else may abandon you during your blogging dry spell, but not dear old Mom.

** Take a blogging course.  What better way to fight blogger’s block?!  Check out our Blogging 101 course, which will give you all the building blocks you need to create a successful blog.  You will learn to write a blog that will attract readers – - not just your mom!  Sign up today!

Until next time,

Your cabinets are almost bare, your meal choices these day are PB&J vs Beanie-Weanies, and you are eyeing the cat rather suspiciously.  Well, I hope times haven’t gotten quite that desperate for you, but you are probably having to live a little on the “thrifty” side these days.  Everyone seems to be pinching pennies, praying for gas prices to go down, and looking for ways to earn an extra buck or two.  But what if that extra income were as close as your home computer?  Have you ever considered blogging as a business?

Bloggers have many opportunities to make a profit on their writing efforts.  Some blogs are even designed for the sole purpose of making an income.  If you are new to blogging, and have been wondering if there is any money in it, you might want to consider a few possibilities.

• Hosting ads on your blog Programs like Google’s Adsense and Bidvertiser offer pay-per-click ads designed to match your blog content. BlogHerAds are geared at blogs written by women, and use quality advertising females can relate to.  Even new blogs can benefit from these type ads.
• Using Affiliate Programs Giving product reviews and link-throughs to products or services you evaluate and recommend to your readers.  These usually work best with established blogs getting regular traffic.
• Selling A Product Or Service With A Blog If you have a personal product or service that you sell or are associated with, you can use your blog as a virtual billboard to promote and market it

If you decide to try to make some additional income from any of the above methods, however, you need to remember that none of these will turn a profit unless your blog content is meaningful.  Good writing is still the key to drawing traffic to your blog.  Just as companies don’t gain by advertising their products on a floundering television show, neither will they gain by advertising on a blog that people don’t read.

To find out how to write a blog that others will want to read, I highly recommend one of the blog writing courses offered by BlogWritingCourse.com.  Our free course will introduce you to the world of blogging, and our subscription course will guide you through the ins and outs of building your blog and growing your audience.  And perhaps, putting something besides peanut butter and beanie-weenies in your cabinet…

Until next time,

Have you ever wasted valuable time reading a poorly written blog?  Maybe the title was catchy, or had a tag word that pulled you in, and you took time from your very busy life to read what was essentially virtual birdcage liner.  I’m thinking that there should be an official complaint service for that.   When people get gypped out of their money, they have recourse.  But time is money, right?  So if I put my hard-earned time into reading a boring blog, I want to be able to protest my loss.

I mean, what if there really were a “Better Bloggers Bureau?”  Don’t you think people would put a little more thought into what they blogged about?   If they knew that they could be reported for a dull business dinner story, a useless list of links, a regurgitated TV show review…would they write it?  Probably not.

Unfortunately, as bloggers, we’ve all had posts that could probably get us on the BBB radar, but there are specific things we can do to help us not waste our reader’s precious time:

• Know our audience.  Who is your blog aimed at?  Although we may envision the whole world wide web as our oyster, realistically our scope has to be narrower, especially in the beginning.  By understanding our target reader, we are able to cater our writing to their interests, and keep them around for the long haul.
• Know what makes good writing.  Doesn’t matter the medium – - books, magazines, newspapers, or blogs – - good writing is good writing.  We all recognize it, but we don’t all exercise it. But the good news is you don’t have to have a Ph.D in literature to be a successful blogger.  You just have to read a lot of blogs, and find out which ones you enjoy, and which ones made you fall asleep on your keyboard.  What is it about each of the interesting blogs that brings you back for more?  What do they have in common?  Those common threads of interest are the keys to helping you keep your blog off the BBB list.
• Know your limits.  If you haven’t taken a single course in botany, you probably aren’t the key candidate for an informational blog about gardening.  The blogiverse is savvy…they know an imposter when they see one.  Even if you adore Japanese culture, you probably shouldn’t dedicate a whole blog to it if you’ve never even set foot in Japan.  It’s cliche, but true – - WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW.

One of they key ways to keep yourself off the Better Bloggers Bureau database is to find out everything you can about blogging.  Do your research, and avail yourself of the wonderful courses Getting Ready To Blog and Blogging 101. Your blog doesn’t ever have to be a waste of anyone’s time – - especially yours!

Until next time,