Adape Engaging Your Community

Design Guidelines Engaging your community Clive Lam Managing Consultant 19 October, 2009 THIS MATERIAL IS STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL. The information contained in this document, and any attachments thereto, is owned by Blackbaud and is strictly confidential. Unauthorized use, disclosure, or copying of such information is strictly prohibited. If the reader of this document is not the intended recipient, please notify Blackbaud immediately by calling (800) 443-9441 and destroy all copies of this document and any attachments.

Content is King  Content is what people come to your website for  Content can be generated either by your school or by your alumni  Content is about quality: Quality Information: authentic information Quality presentation: unique and user-friendly presentation Quality Writing: Proper grammar, concise and comprehensive style  Content is the best search engine optimisation tool (this will help you rank better in search engine results)  Content generates links and referrals Blackbaud Professional Services | Page #2 © 2008 Strictly Confidential Material and Property of Blackbaud

What is a Blog “A blog is a web page (usually) written in a programming language, where the content of the site is stored in a metadata- rich format, and the presentation of the content is (usually) in a reverse chronological order. Each piece of content is (usually) the product of a single author, and the content is updated regularly. The page in question (usually) has some form of social component, whether through comments, trackback, or other mechanism of communicating content or feedback.” -- Library Blogging Blackbaud Professional Services | Page #3 © 2008 Strictly Confidential Material and Property of Blackbaud

Why a blog?  Direct communications with your audience  You can tell your story with YOUR voice  Easy and cost-effective way to share latest news, tell your story, solicit feedback and foster discussion.  Build your brand  Deliver fresh information to your home page (a great way to keep it fresh!)  RSS (Really Simple Syndication) automatically delivers updates to your audience Blackbaud Professional Services | Page #4 © 2008 Strictly Confidential Material and Property of Blackbaud

What to blog about?  Journal type entries about organisational events  Build awareness and generate buzz  Educate the general public, parents, students and supporters  Organisational news and follow ups  Provide ways for people to engage  Success stories  Successful alumni profiles  Topics for discussion  Upcoming events  Demonstrate progress and success of projects Blackbaud Professional Services | Page #5 © 2008 Strictly Confidential Material and Property of Blackbaud

Flickr Flickr is an online photo management and sharing application. Its primary goals are to help people make photos available to those who matter to them, and to enable new ways of organising pictures. You can join Flicker for free and begin sharing images immediately. Pro accounts are available for those who want to add and display high volumes of photos. Flickr is much more than a place to store photos or make prints, however. Members can join and create groups and participate in discussions on literally any topic. Flickr also offers social networking features that connect people and can help widen your organisation's online connections through photo-sharing. Blackbaud Professional Services | Page #6 © 2008 Strictly Confidential Material and Property of Blackbaud

The why and the what-for of flickr?  Great way to manage your photos  What distinguishes flickr from other online galleries? Flickr allows users to share their interests around photos Immediacy of photo streams means that users can see your updated photos similar to a news feed for blogs Tagging photos allows you to have a larger gallery than you might be able to create for yourself  What sort of things can you post up on flickr? Post events photos end of year speech nights sports days Fetes reunions Blackbaud Professional Services | Page #7 © 2008 Strictly Confidential Material and Property of Blackbaud

YouTube YouTube is an online public communications site. The site allows for registered users to upload and have available for the public their videos for viewing. Anyone who goes to the site can view the videos that are posted on this site. The videos are anything from beginner videos to more professional videos. You can put just about anything you want on the YouTube site. You can also watch just about anything on YouTube. There are some great videos out there on YouTube that are very interesting and entertaining and will never be seen anywhere else. Blackbaud Professional Services | Page #9 © 2008 Strictly Confidential Material and Property of Blackbaud

The why and the what-for of YouTube?  Incredibly easy to contribute and upload videos  Video allows you to speak to your audience in a way that compels, inspires and motivates unlike traditional web content  You can now harness the popularity of YouTube to drive traffic to your web site like never before  Ability to embed the information almost anywhere within your website  Connectivity with all your other Social web tools  Some ideas around content: Promotional videos Interviews with Staff, students, profiled alumni Message from headmaster or other senior staff Student productions Blackbaud Professional Services | Page #10 © 2008 Strictly Confidential Material and Property of Blackbaud

Are you providing benefits of being a member?  Do you have a members only area for just your community?  What reasons are you giving alumni to come back?  What are you doing to build relationship?  What benefits and features are you providing them? Discounts to use the gym? Alumni directory? Members only events Blackbaud Professional Services | Page #14 © 2008 Strictly Confidential Material and Property of Blackbaud

Where to from here?  Determine who you are and what you want to be  Build your strategy for engagement but remember to be flexible!  Work out your goals, and what you want to achieve  Work out your time and resources and what you can achieve with these.  Listen, Learn, Adapt  Tools, Tools, Tools – after what you’ve determined what you need then pick your tools. Blackbaud Professional Services | Page #15 © 2008 Strictly Confidential Material and Property of Blackbaud

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Adape Engaging Your Community

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