Nonprofit Performance 360 Magazine Vol 5 No 1

has held numerous leadership positions in Washington, DC and is passionate about education and empowering people to take action to make this world better. x@phone2action.com Gilbert , continued from page 18 5. Am I over-focusing on my cell phone or other devices?

engage in advocacy. That way, you can see what percentage of visitors connect with lawmakers or otherwise further your cause. Then you can create lookalike audiences based on these advocates to continually increase your conversion rate. Twitter uses tags to track conversions. There are universal website tags which track all traffic to your website from ads, and single- event website tags that measure specific ads or conversion events (e.g., emailing Congress). You can also optimize your targeted audience based on who converts. When to post The final consideration for social ads is timing. There are best times to post on certain platforms. Facebook’s ideal ad times are off-peak, when your ad can thrive without competing for space on newsfeeds. We’ve found that Thursdays and Fridays between 1 and 3 pm (in a given time zone) are prime times to post content. For Twitter, post on-peak when the most people are scrolling through and will see your ad. On-peak periods occur all days of the week between noon and 6 pm. If you’re looking for retweets, your ideal post time is 5 pm. These are guidelines and good starting points. Experiment with different time slots. Your core audience might have job responsibilities (e.g., driving or patient care) that make social media use during working hours unlikely. A/B tests might show that your Facebook ad converts more advocates at 8 pm on Mondays than at 2 pm on Thursdays. Closing the gap Social media ads are powerful tools for closing the gap between acquisition and action in nonprofit advocacy campaigns. Nonprofits face restrictions in how much time they can dedicate to lobbying. In the interim, social media can raise awareness and get people excited about your campaign. The best practice in social advertising is curiosity. Test what makes a campaign more or less successful by measuring how different audiences, ad formats, and timing influence conversion rates. And don’t be afraid of authenticity, quirkiness, and humor.The most important tactics will be those you discover independently. Go explore. Dr. Ximena Hartsock, co-founder and president, handles innovation and operations at Phone2Action. Involved in social advocacy campaigns since she was 11, she makes the impossible happen on a routine basis. She

Let’s not forget: sometimes one just needs to hit the Delete button!

to begin and maintain a relationship with a new friend: time, understanding, and contributing to the other person’s life based on his or her interests. Give the relationship time to develop and listen to the audience. Get to know their needs and develop content that matches them. 4. Promote social platforms. A popular sports-related movie included the line, “If you build it, he will come.” You can have great social presence, but not accomplish communication goals if potential followers do not know your organization exists. Spread the news about how to access your different social media sites. Place social media icons on your websites and blogs. Cross-promote one social platform on others by teasing content and including links. Encourage sharing among followers by featuring content that offers value. Include social addresses on other forms of marketing materials, such as direct mail, newsletters, and email blasts. The adage that nothing stays the same when it comes to communication technologies is an understatement in social media. Spend time getting to know your target audience, their media uses and interests, and stay on top of changes in communication technologies. Think and act like a pro to get the most mileage from your digital tactics. Clark Greer, PhD, is a communication professor and a member of the Lynchburg (Virginia) Symphony Orchestra board of directors. He has worked in organizational communication, advertising, public relations, and radio news. He is the founder of Clark Greer Communications, a consulting firm focusing on helping nonprofit organizations research and strategize their communication efforts. www.ClarkGreer.com Dr. Roberta Gilbert is the author of a trilogy of books on leadership: Extraordinary Leadership, The Eight Concepts, and The Cornerstone Concept. She is the founding director of The Extraordinary Leadership Seminar. rgoffice136@gmail.com Not every organization has these types of advocates readily available. With or without them, you can use well known people as conduits for your messaging. For example, tennis superstar Serena Williams shared a story about a post-pregnancy scare in which she was off her anticoagulant medicine and had a pulmonary embolism. She knew her Setterlund , continued from page 22 Greer , continued from page 19

Managing self online To deal with questions 1 and 2, we need to give time to important issues. None of us likes to live with uncertainty. This fact can sometimes lead us to shoot off an ill-advised email or tweet. Are we simply spewing anxiety into cyberspace, hoping to get rid of it? That’s an emotionally immature way of trying to deal with anxiety. It doesn’t work because the anxiety will circle around the organization, growing in intensity. It will come back to bite us. Ability to live with uncertainty is a sign of maturity. The more mature leader can sit with issues, not indefinitely, but as long as it takes to come to a level of confidence based on guiding principles of self and the organization. Better thinking and better decisions are reached in this way. Question 3 deals with writing. It is certainly possible to spread anxiety through the written word, so, before we go on email with any intense issue, we need to think it through a bit. We all need to get into the habit of editing what we write before shooting it off - yes, even on email. Questions 4 and 5 deal with our over- infatuation with phones, pads, and other devices. Are we becoming addicted? What is being left out in their favor? If the answers to any of these questions reveal shortcomings, more time, thinking, and editing will improve the situation for self and for the organization. A calm thought-through email or tweet can calm troubled waters. With calmer emotions, better thinking and relationships and more productive work become the order of the day, at work or at home.

38 I Nonprofit Performance Magazine