 I wanted to welcome everybody to nonprofit tech hub Austin and our February program. We're really excited to have a social media expert superstar with us who's actually talked to us before to create a claim, which is why we got hold of her again. And so we're glad she's here. My brief background is simply that we've been in existence for the past several years. I've been proud to have Capital Factory as one of our local partners in a variety of others. We're basically a network of tech clubs across the nation and the world. And we're affiliated with N10, nonprofit technology network, and with NetSquared, which is actually division of TechSoup. And if you haven't gotten on TechSoup and created your own little nonprofit account, you should definitely do that because they have tons of discounted software and equipment and other really helpful technologies for you to use. And you just have to be a nonprofit to access those discounts. And it's totally worth it. I recently got a group that was paying almost $1,000 for their QuickBooks platform. I said, have you checked into TechSoup for $80? So I will say it's definitely worth checking it out if you're a nonprofit. And our programs are free to all, but on our Facebook group page, which is where we are currently housed, we do share information about other programs that we think might be investing to folks. So you'll see a mix. But I do mark with an announcement at the top of the latest program and other key items of more important information for everybody to keep an eye on. So we have a few great programs coming up and we have about three more that have not been finalized, but we're talking to the speakers. So be checking our Facebook group page for information on that. And we really appreciate everybody taking the time to speak and share their knowledge free of charge as a public service. It really means a lot. We are appreciative of our sponsors last year. We actually had a really big sponsor with ATB and had a lot of fun working with them. Capital Factory, which is again a sponsor for this year and Trinon Coffee last year. We appreciate everything. It's supported a great deal. We are still working on sponsorships, but as we went online, we actually found that we're all volunteer and there are not a whole lot of expenses. So right now we're doing pretty good. And our volunteers are diverse. Here they are. And you can reach out to any of them on our Facebook group page. If you have questions or need a little help or a little guidance, they're always there for you. So at links, here you go. You can jot those down quickly. I think I'm thinking now I will put this up on our Facebook page. So you can access this as well. So with that further ado, I am going to introduce, stop sharing my screen so she can share her screen. And we are going to hear about humanizing, your digital marketing experience and defining your voice and some COVID lessons that we all really need to hear about and consider. Hello. Can everyone hear me okay? About you and stuff. Perfect. Okay. So welcome. Thank you so much for having me here. My name is Lauren, like Lauren with an R. And I am a digital marketing strategist. And for the last 10 years, I have worked and built an agency called and worked with different brands like big commerce, University of Texas, and a variety of them to be able to humanize the way that they interact with their audience. I'm hearing a little bit of back audio and I'm not exactly sure if you, if everyone can meet themselves besides me, just so we can make sure we get perfect audio for the live screen. That'd be awesome. Thank you. But so what I love to do is helping businesses and organizations really be able to cultivate the community online, especially in a post pandemic world, where we don't actually get to interact with people as often in person and being able to bring that online. So what I'm really excited to talk about today is the shift of an acceleration of how we choose to connect digitally online. And we were talking a little bit earlier using the case study of Zoom and how they have accelerated their technology features by up to five years. And this is just across the board is that we've seen technology being introduced that would not have been introduced for at least five years being brought onto the market as we are being required to interact more on the digital space. And it has become the primary form of communication. And what that also means, though, is that not only has technology accelerated, it's also that we didn't get a chance to learn the best practices of connecting digitally online during that five year gap that we would have heard. So it's kind of like getting bumped up a grade where you're totally intellectually there, but you're not you don't may not have like the mental mindset ready to experience what that new grade level will bring for you. And so you have so that is the space that I want to set the tone for and other different things that are also growing and that is expanded with the pandemic is a new audience that would not have entered in the last five years, except in because of this post pandemic. And they are what we typically when we talk in digital marketing realm late at middle late adoption, where their instinct is to always buy things in person because they like to touch and feel a product, they like to meet a person. And so most importantly of all is that trust is now the number one reason why someone will choose to purchase a product or service over another one brand over another. It's their trust factor for because the fact is that they don't have the convenience of being like I may not know this brand in person in the store, but it looks and feels okay because I'm touching and feeling the product in person. So I'm going to be adventurous and try it out that has gone out the window. And so what you're finding in this technology and what we'll talk about in trends and changes is this new focus of how do we build trust, like truly build trust within our community beyond just satisfying a need. And so what you see is that digital marketing is becoming more human and you hear a lot of this conversation in the marketing industry about how it's no longer just like getting new people through the door, whether you're talking about a nonprofit or you're talking about a product or service, it's not just about how do we keep getting the word out, getting letting more people know it's shifted to how do we keep our people excited to continuously come back and be engaged. And there's two different ways to that piece and that's trust. It shows up in the form of social proof and engagement, which is like user generated content and I'll show more of that below. But there's a next level, which is communities. So communities is more than a here's a Facebook group and let me just put all my people in the Facebook group. It's about what is so magical and powerful when I run a networking event like this one in person, where does that magic of connection occur? And how do I replicate that online? And that's the next frontier as we're talking about making digital marketing more human. So that's what's happening in welcoming 2021 to the picture in a post as we hit a year post pandemic. Let's talk about tying it back to your foundation. No matter how the digital marketing arena changes and it will change about every two to three weeks. And nowadays it's changing about every two to three days. But it's a constant flow of new information. And what I like to say is that there's three things that you need. First off is your mindset. What are your intentions and your goals that you want to make as a vision to it as what it is. It's allowing your brain to be the powerful piece that it is where you in your mind you have a filter. There's a built-in filter in the part of your brain that filters out important information and not important information. And that depends on your intention. If you hear all these new articles about should I be on TikTok or Reels or Facebook groups, etc., etc., all these new features, known your intention allows your mind and yourself to be able to filter with more intention and less about just like taking things at a reactionary state. The second thing is knowing the context is then filtering it through. Okay, these are my goals. How does that relate to my industry? Does that change my industry drastically? A.k.a. like for example post-pandemic world? There's no really in-person events. There's not going to be for a long time. That changes the ball game for everyone. How does that affect? How does that change back to my intentions? And then most importantly, how does it tie to my customer journey? That's the core piece. Everything that you do has to tie back to your core journey because naturally speaking, the digital marketing space is a digital networking room. It's usually jam-packed like it is in a pre-pandemic world of rush hour where you're really packed into each other and you're just shuffling past each other. And so what I like to say is if you choose to only connect on a functional need when you shuffle past each other, it's like a high by situation in the way that you create content that resounds with your audience. But if you are actually looking to build relationships and cultivate communities when you're shuffling past each other, it's about what are you saying that resounds with them that makes them so excited that by the time the next person comes to talk to you, they're like, oh yeah, you talked to this person and I heard about you and I'm really excited to talk about you. And that starts with looking at that relationship. It's like that one-to-one relationship piece because social media is about one human being connecting to another human being. Whether you're a nonprofit or a business, you are a brand. And what that means is you act, walk and talk like a person. And so how do you talk with your customer? And that's the core messaging piece. That's the customer journey piece that I refer to. And what you do in human-centered marketing is that you amplify on that relationship. It is twofold. It is that human relationship that I talked about earlier. And then how does that human relationship magnify, compound, amplify to create the impact that you seek in the community? So when it comes to nonprofits, it's about not only my one-to-one relationship with the people that I'm serving through my organization, but also the community at large that I am serving and helping as well by helping the single cause that I am a part of. And if you tap into these human relationships, you can actually overcome a lot of the noise that I'm talking about and realign to why you started. And the passion behind why someone would be so excited to work with you. Because the core, especially in nonprofit arena, is not about, oh, you're satisfying this functional need for me. You're satisfying a functional need for the actual in-person that you're serving. But when it comes to donors and people that want to support your community and your cause, they have to resound to the larger impact piece beyond just the relationship that they feel with you, too. And so how you do that is for phases. So how you amplify that is, first off, step one, design the relationship. Go back to the customer journey. Then you build creative reflections of that journey. And I'll show you examples as we go through. But once you, it's more than just creating content because traditionally, marketing is assumed that, oh, I just have to create content again and again and just like toss it out like a gigantic megaphone. Remember, that's not how it works because the digital networking room is the newest, is what social media is. It's the networking room. It's so packed that if you're yelling across, no one's going to hear you. It's about this one-to-one conversation. So what content are you creating that is engaging in conversation that is not just engaging conversation back at you, but also engaging it to where they're excited to share with other people and then most importantly, adjusting and growing your strategy along the way. So using those three foundational things that I talked about earlier to constantly adjust and grow your strategy. So diving in a little bit more into two parts about building a relationship because you've mentioned me say this word relationship and just like Valentine's Day, which we're conveniently in. We are in February right now. People have a different assumption of what relationships it is and let me break it down into two parts. The first part is the tactical experience in the customer journey that an individual will feel. Now, let me clarify on the individual. In the case of nonprofits, there are multiple stakeholders. There's not one general audience. There's your sponsors, your donors, your and then the actual community or people that you are serving, right? So three different relationships that you are serving in a tactical format. But the intention is that you have the tactical, but then you have the emotional. As I experience everything from this time that I see a post to watching a video of your internet to wanting to donate to maybe being a mentor in your organization or maybe volunteering in your organization. What is the experience that you would like for me to experience? And why do I need to experience this? And what is the end lesson that I'm seeking to learn? Because in that emotion is where the trust gets built. If I am, if I use a very simple example of a nonprofit like a joke thing, right? If I, this is my tactical journey of seeing cute adorable puppy photos because let's be honest, animal cute puppy photos dominate the internet. So cute puppy photos go and volunteer and experience it, get excited and talk about a friend. What is the emotion that you would like for me as a volunteer to feel at the end of the day? And part of it could be just pure accomplishment of being part of a larger cause that I'm passionate about. And then what do you want me to do as I share that with someone else? What is the call to form action that if I get so excited about this and I tell a friend, do you want me to invite them to volunteer? Do you want me to invite them to follow me on social media? What does that entail? What are the levels of involvement does that entail? But most importantly, all of these actions back up in emotion. And the emotions is what people remember. People don't remember what they did. X, Y, Z, click through something, do anything, watch whatever video. What they remember is what that content made them feel. And that's what they will share with whoever's around them. So, and that's the piece that you have to ask yourself as you're building it. And that is how you define your voice. So, this is a quick exercise that if you're at the beginning journey of building out what your customer journey looks like or the relationship of your marketing looks like, this is a really great start first step of defining your voice. The first step is ideal customer. So, it's not just, oh, it's sponsors, donors, and then volunteers. It's not that it's painting a person in each of those categories. And it's beyond demographic. It's about the psychographics. Because remember what I said earlier, emotions that they feel is the reason why they stay. It's the reason why they become your engaged fan. It's the reason why they build trust. And so, you have to paint the picture of imagining a person directly in front of you. How does that person act, walk, and talk? What brings them joy? What do they value? What do they need? What keeps them up at night that you are satisfying in that space and powers you as an organization and the power of nonprofit organizations like this is not necessarily fulfilling a service or fulfilling a product. It's about cultivating a space for a movement to change in the society that they're a part of. And that's the power of a nonprofit versus a for-profit business. And so, the question that you have to ask yourself is how are you different? Because puppies, we used puppies as an earlier example. There's a dime a dozen shelters out there. So, what makes it different from Austin Pets Alive versus the other 10,000 different shelters that are out there? There's a unique culture of what makes Austin Pets Alive, if we use them as an example, a very unique shelter compared to the Austin Humane Society is a different type of thing. And the Austin Humane Society is very different from the Houston Humane Society or the International Humane Society. They're all totally different beings. And so, it's about, and they satisfy different areas of the world. They will collectively work together to serve the larger issue at hand because they recognize that they're not, then it'll be all answer, but they attract birds of the feather to them, right? So, how are you serving and standing out and who are you attracting? Once you figure that out, and then it's about how are you building trust with your audience? And this is what we call the awareness funnel. This is the sales funnel that everyone goes through at the beginning, right? So, this is a sales funnel in, and it starts with awareness. Someone may just feel pain-pointed. So, they may just be like, oh, these dogs are so cute, and all they feel is this like innate urge and need to want to adopt a puppy. And then there's like a lot of what-ifs that kick in that blocks them from wanting to do that. And then they go into consideration is the second phase where they start recognizing that, yes, I would like to adopt a puppy. And then by that point, at the third stage, it's like I'm looking around for what puppy do I want, what kind of puppy do I want? Do I want a purebred? Do I actually want a puppy? Or do I want a one-year-old? And all that jazz of conversations that comes in. And in any of those questions and stages, how do you explain that answer? Because yes, there's a generic answer, but your tone and your voice and the content that you create to deliver that answer, which is why how awesome pets alive will answer versus Austin Humane Society is very different. And it will resound with different people in that space. But the key is once they come through, and why they stay with your brand, which is the larger mission. So instead of me saying, oh yeah, I randomly adopted my dog from a random place, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It's the experience should be, I saw this, it was cute, I'm experienced. I like what I saw on Instagram. And these are subconscious check marks that goes through someone's mind. And then as they go through the adoption experience, they may be like, I really like this adoption place. And then now I exclusively adopt from this adoption. And I call all of my friends, because all my friends are like, oh my God, your dog is so cute. Where did you get it? That's a very common question that gets asked even for adoption. And you're going to say, oh, I got it from insertX. They were great. They did this, and this is how I did this. This is how I resounded with me. You hear very key language when you hear that from your customer. And those are the pieces that you want to have amplified in content again. So to break it down in a little bit more tactical space, if we use a general product design, it's awareness, inquiry, purchase, completion, after sale. So it is the same awareness could be like, oh, I see a lot of puppy photos. Oh, I go on and there, they don't have the puppy that I want, or I'm looking for corgis and I can never find corgis because Austin is like majority pit bulls, as an example. And then, but then I get an email because I subscribed to their email. And then I got, and I got noticed that there is a puppy. I go and then I set up an adoption, I get the adoption, then I have a follow-up. And during between purchase and completion, that experience that I talk about on the emotional side of, I had this really great experience with my adoption. They were super knowledgeable. I was a first time dog mom. It's literally like having a kid the first time. And they helped me along the way because they connected with me as a human. Notice this key language that I am describing, this purchase. And completion, it's not just they purchased and they completed. It is, this is the experience that they guide through because after that, in the after sales, when you ask them for a review to share with their friends, that's the language that they're gonna use to share about your brand. So this is how the tactical merges with the emotional. So what you do with all of that in the space is, if someone goes and says that about your brand, you want to be able to create a visual credibility for them to come back and see that. So if I tell my friends that I went to XYZ shelter and that beautiful, amazing experience, my friend needs to be comfortable enough to go on to your social and almost scroll through and be able to get visual cues of the experience that I've described to you. And that's the key part of where social becomes a loop. It's a circle, right? They go through the funnel, they talk about you, then they will also and they bring in a friend again into your community and the whole entire time is that you want them to experience and feel that. So if we use that example, how do you show up? I like to use Starbucks just because it's iconic. Everybody knows what Starbucks is. It's like a very consistent brand and feel wherever you go. And so the exercise is if you look at your brand, you want to look at what are the descriptors of my brand that I want to feel. In Starbucks case, it's like relationship oriented. They like to be close and you feel homey. You feel like you're able to connect and network. You have really, they have a really high respect for like the human being and society and the human touch. Everything feels cozy and easy and chill and inviting. And it's still good quality and ethical. Those are all the descriptors of Starbucks that you think of and they actually represent it in what they're going to say. So before I show you their grid, I want to show you how they're splitting up their content. There are three different forms. There's foundational content, which is that what I talked earlier. If I hear all of this stuff from my friend, I want to be able to check box this as I go through the experience of their grid. And so that's foundational. It's your rolling infomercial. The promotional is an invitation for them to come through the door and for them to get to see you. And the third is the most important type of content. It is user generated content. It is them actually posting about you and sharing it with their friends. And this three step process of like three layers of a cake of content, you're going to see most of the content being foundational and then some promotional and some user generated. There are certain brands that can be like 90% user generated, but not all of them have that capability. But the key of this is that it is following the sales journey, which is know me like me, foundational, buy from me, talk about me. And this is how it shows up in the space of a visual grid. So if you notice this, all the previous descriptors that we set up Starbucks and the three different types of campaigns that I talk about, they've actually merged into it. See the human relationship piece that describes who they are and how they treat their workers, promotional content that shows what you want to feel, user generated content that shows their audience and who they are and how they're working with. They also theme it along. So Starbucks is really good about theming their content and do visual grid design. Not all grids are made equal, is what I like to say. So this is, Starbucks is kind of like the perfectly cookie cutter. You could be like, okay, this is Warren, pumpkin spice lattes even, Warren winter season. So you can see the different things as they go through. And but you can see it go through into those. And then there's new technology that is coming up for brands that they can expand on. So this is what I like to call ever going on infomercial. This, these next few content features that I will talk about that these new technology features that are coming out are a way to get on the news feed because you want to get on the news feed and follow them so that they come back to the general feed and get them and get for them to get to know you. And so there's an easy way like shopping and reels. Are you guys familiar with reels as a terminology? Okay, cool. So I know people are like, what are Instagram reels? They're basically Instagram version of TikTok. That's all I can say to that. The power of why Instagram TikTok is really powerful. Or sorry, Instagram reels are powerful compared to a different other formats is that reels and IGTV are shoppable. So if you are a nonprofit or an organization that sells merchandise or product, etc., anything that you post on your reels, your video, the posts themselves are shoppable into very specific shoppable things that you can do. And there's a new terminology of called social commerce which means that every single thing is purchased within the Instagram app or the Facebook app or the TikTok app. It's not e-commerce where you go to a website and you purchase something. It's social commerce where everything is purchased within a social media platform. What this does is that it allows people to feel like, oh, I trust Instagram. It's approved by Instagram. And everything is paid through there. And I'm still supporting a local business and I'm not potentially spying things off of Amazon as well. And so it's a more seamless approach to it. But what it does is it allows not only for brands to make it easier for you to buy and purchase and shop because it's really hard to be like, okay, you saw this on my reel. Then go into my link in bio. Then go find the reel and then go like click on it and then go to the link. It's a very complex process but on social commerce it's as easy as a swipe up like this. And then most importantly it also applies to user generated content meaning if you have influencers that wears your products or is talking about your products you can actually have it shoppable on their feed that feeds directly into the business which is a nice connection piece. And then the other types of content is storytelling and video. So video consumption it has skyrocketed in the post pandemic era but it's not just about mind numbing like 30 second reels that have increased in consumption. It's also storytelling as well. It's about hearing content and it's the key piece of trust that is built in. So this example for H&M they're not only talking about a new product line they're talking about the sustainability aspect of the product line. So they're going beyond this like here's a cool piece of clothing to satisfy this functional need and maybe aesthetic style that you like. It's like oh but we're also talking about the thing that you kind of question in the back of your mind of is your purchasing power helping a better eco friendly world or not a eco friendly world that we all kind of think about but then we can't wrap our brain about. And the transparency piece that H&M is creating is saying that we get you their audience, their customer. We understand what you're actually keeping you up at night and what if we don't take a stance on in our industry we will lose you because we recognize that this is something that people are looking to feed. And so being able to tell in the storytelling and then the UGC piece the user generated content that is the most powerful form and in the realm of nonprofits it's the one of the number one forms and ways that nonprofit movements go viral. And so user generated content can be as easy as someone posting about the product as you buy them. So cause box kind of falls in this random social nonprofit like there are not there are for profit company doing social good and they support companies of a similar like and so those are a lot of user generated content but in this case for example the do good from home challenge with Play-Doh they sponsored a nonprofit and then on top of that they did. So it's the combination of what normal nonprofits do to in their day to day and then taking it to the next level. So for nonprofits with user generated content they're almost like the amplification of events think of nonprofit events like the strong marathons that you see the like Gailas and all that jazz and like think of all the works that goes into like getting a sponsor getting etc etc all those things. Now what when you're talking sponsorships to these large companies historically it's been like okay I can get you 2,000 people and that's great and then they'll talk about it and so you'll get maybe like two million impressions and that's about it. What you do and user generated content is say I do all of those things and we're doing a challenge at the event or during an event or just not even do we're just making it the theme for the month like this like the do good from home challenge with Play-Doh with Play-Doh and they did it with a nonprofit I believe and then you post about it and then you what here's the most powerful piece of that each and every one of these posts is an average of 500 people reach so if you get a thousand that's 50,000 2,000 that's 100,000 and so on and so forth if you get that many people come just in 2,000 posts you get 100,000 reach and it's a visual representation of word of mouth in that process so that's what you can say to them more than anything it's like hey I'm not only am I getting you just eyes I'm getting you engaged users talking about you on top of that and that's way more powerful for a sponsorship conversation than it is for purely doing the like the let me get more butts and feet for you for an event so and other forms of user generated content as a word of mouth is like BarkBox is one of my favorites again with like puppies and dogs but so I showed you all the different examples I always like to say before we build if we don't build a plan a goal without a plan is just a wish one of my favorite quotes to go into and so as you digest all of the information that I have just told you in the last 20, 30 minutes my favorite number one question is to ask your is for you guys to ask yourself and say what is the one thing that you can do that creates 80% of the impact because the reality is what I just did is I gave you very specific examples but I also showed you what your like a drone view of the customer experience looks like for you and so but the thing is the one thing that you're changing is along that journey it's not building out a whole journey it's not even changing the whole entire journey it's about looking at the power of your journey today and ask yourself what is one thing that I can do in that customer journey that creates 80% of the impact in the next month or quarter what are the tactical key results that I'm looking for in that change and what is my implementation plan to make it happen those are the only questions that you have to ask yourself as you explore what that looks like and then after that you just get to explore and create remember how I said at the beginning the last phase is to adjust and grow remember everything that you're doing in social and digital marketing is like throwing a spaghetti on the wall and seeing what sticks at the end of the day and so all you need to do is just test it out there's really no right or wrong answer just because just like how there's no right or wrong answer of birds flocking together it's just about honing true and adjusting and growing and engaging with your audience along the way and remember influence happens one drop at a time to make the way this end wow simple in some ways but not as easy as one might think yes yes it's stuff that's why I always end with a just ask yourself the simple question what is the one thing that I can do that creates 80% of the impact otherwise you're going to the cycle of really inspired try it halfway didn't get it and then like go back and be inspired again but if you can this to get out of the iteration of constantly just trying things out it's to actually review and adjust and see what works for you you know this is kind of a dumb person social media question here but I wonder about it you know I try and do social media along with like grant writing and research and some you know posting whatever it is but the I guess I hit on that the trust the importance of trust and word of mouth and all of those things that are so key to people wanting to get involved and ultimately give some money you know it's critical but should you like with visual images are so powerful today you know I use Adobe spark post a lot but I find sometimes just a goofy photo on Instagram that's like I was really there this really happened right here and it's not composed in a really beautiful way like what are your thoughts on visual communication that way you know so you don't need to have the perfect picture I use Starbucks more to show the creative aspects that you can do and I usually to put a disclaimer and say that Starbucks like a few billion dollar trillion dollar company right there to put in perspective about what really people see more than anything and trust is transparency so and that is why user generated is so powerful it's like oh cool I see this beautiful Starbucks picture and these like beautiful marketing photos but then simultaneously is I see a person just holding their cup beautifully in like Times Square or like on their phone or hauling a cup or like the pumpkin spice latte range that has been going on for like 10 years like all the different things like people love to see those photos and people seek those photos incredibly more real and it's your phone let's that's how I can explain it it's the tone of which just like in writing you have different tones different ways that you can sound you can sound very nerdy you can sound very like mean girls ask if you wanted to you could do everything visuals are the same and I also like to say and ask as a as another suggestion is like what is your medium of genius because what I like to say is like it's not just about creating different types of visuals and stuff like that it's also about where your content shines best like I have certain clients that are genius wordsmith and then I have clients that are one take wonders and if I try to get them to do the opposite thing it's like pulling teeth and so it's like it's asking like what can I do it's not like I have to do everything for microblogging and being on video and doing all the things I was like unless you're a creative nerd like me that's really hard to do but if you're like I have a lot of clients that are like I'm not naturally creative but I am insanely passionate about right and so I'm like okay let's you're the main expert let's put you in a space where your expertise can shine but then we're going to pair you with a good creative team or creative that is going to take and amplify your content right like it's about not just doing and if you're doing yourself it's knowing where your strengths are if you don't have the bandwidth or the capacity to hire out a creative it's asking how can I build my content maybe it is paying one time to have a creative build out template designs for me just to work in the space of maybe it's me playing around with reels and stories which are naturally designed not to be highly produced maybe it's not going for YouTube and going for TikTok where most people film literally in their bedroom or their study or their home so like it doesn't have to be perfect is all I can say to that it's your tone and your vibe and what I actually like to ask the question of is like ask your audience if they see a perfect photo do they feel better or do they feel like highly intimidated instead I do find people do get intimidated sometimes by more formal presentations and certainly the corporate world wants to present itself in this way you know and I can understand that but I don't know the intimidation factor is something that I don't think enough people pay attention to and I think sometimes the goofy image the heartfelt pose that's not quite spelled right or with all the explanations that it just reads is much more real you know and people gravitate to that you know absolutely social media I've always said this your website is the best version of who you are your social media is the soul of your company so that's where you get to be rods where you get to show the behind the scenes content so if I use like the Austin Petalive and Puppy Shelters as an example Austin Petalive has done a really good job of like digitizing how they do everything and they did this before the pandemic so if you go on their social it's all behind the scenes photos because let's be real taking a good shot of a doggo that's like wagging his tail and moving around very crazy is really hard to do and so what they've done is they did that and then they'll have the photo in a perfectly wrapped packaging of their website to make it easy on user interface like having good user interface in packaging of a website makes it but you are already on with these social platforms you are already on one of some of the top best U.S. designed websites to date I mean they are designed literally to keep your attention forever and ever so like they've built the template site all you need to do is let your content shine but I have seen a lot more of frames in fact there's an app I like called just in frame that you can just add a like it just you know is a little circle around yourself or a square or a pretty background or you know LinkedIn has a little bit of that also so it's really good but I I'm not good about that you know yeah I do have some people who some known profits who just want to be on Facebook and they don't want a website and I'm always saying you know you really need to have a home online that's a real place your home especially if you want bigger gifts you need it so so people ask about websites to website or not to website and let me put this blunt and honestly as possible if you don't build it on your own website your data your followers your emails is at a mercy of another business and they will instantly cut your reach as needed that Facebook zero has already occurred Facebook zero happened three years ago where like you had really good reach and then they just like killed it because they wanted sponsors and they were trying to monetize it because everybody was like oh my god you need to actually monetize and live accordingly because they were out they were out of investors so like that was the thing and then now so Apple has it to where the new Apple iOS update kills third-party cookies so if you're doing retargeting ads you don't have it so the number one thing the two number one most vague trends you just read across all the digital articles is you need to be more human and there's like a paragraph defining that you need to be more human and then the second thing is oh data privacy is a thing and here are the updates and I can't give you any more until the updates in the in the shoe drops like that has most of the data that's most of a lot of the articles out there and all you hear is like marketers being like oh we know that data privacy is a thing we know that acquiring data and first-party data aka email addresses is a very important thing but that's as far as we've gotten to it because we're still carry it we're still waiting for Apple and Google and new GDPR or European data privacy laws to come out for us to like read the fine print and write a blog post being like okay clients this is what's going on they've they've finally figured it out now we get to figure it out that's a lot yeah I do say sometimes I like hearing what you're saying because you're reinforcing me because a lot of times I tell nonprofits that you know your home online is your website and that's kind of your your front door you know that's virtual obviously and but the social media is the heartbeat that's beating you know it's the thing that's keeping everybody updated and they can kind of drop by and visit and comment or do whatever they need to do but it it's keeps the drum beating you know yeah yeah so you need to be on there yeah because anybody can create a website all right like if we think about 10 years ago people were creating websites left and right and that's a hollow police on its own and and so people nowadays will be like okay you have the website it looks legit ish let me go on your social media and see if you actually look real let me read your reviews and see if you actually look real so even even for industries that you will never think to be on social as much like oil is a good example or like really highly regulated stuff like things it's still needed it's like okay what can we do can we shift it to be like financial advisors get this this really hard as well because they're like so heavily regulated I would say okay well you can't share anyone's name but you could share your employees names they are like your team members they can highlight themselves you can use it as an extension how about we use it as a recruiting tool instead like construction companies get this a lot they're like none of our we're all taking names and shaking hands right and I was like yes but before you even get to the shaking hands conversation they still have to google you so you still need the website and you still need a LinkedIn so you may not need a Facebook but you still definitely need the LinkedIn and when you're in this high level recruiting where it's like people are getting scooped up and left and right in construction you need the LinkedIn so like it's about looking at your the nature of which the relationships are built in person and then finding the technology feature platform and the type of content that matches relationship yes with non-profit fundraising to what's happening because a lot of people a lot of donors are going to donor advice funds and professional advisors to help them make decisions fidelity charitable on and on banks trust departments all that so what's happened is it's not just the donor that's on online looking it is their attorney their accountant maybe whatever and so the the donor has the big heart but the accountant and attorney don't have that big heart so yeah they're looking kind of a little more objectively so there's kind of a balance of the kind of you want to be super professional and on and on but you need to be aware that a lot of people have moved online that may never change for non-profits you know it used to be you courted the donor just that was it you had the straight line right into the donor and they don't you don't have that all of the time now you've got a lot of interfaces so you've got different audiences to think about and but social media is a big part of it and they get right on there and they lock onto it and I've seen them misconstrue things on social media it's like wait no no you're getting the wrong point a lot of the donor conversations reflect very similarly to have investor conversations in the bcu world is what I like to say like um like they're I've sat on boards for both sides and so I've heard it all I'm like okay this is how your social needs to work but we have different priorities it needs for your social and it but it needs to it needs to match these base things so that the larger movers and shakers that are always behind the scenes feel comfortable but then but the core is always the big filter is how are you resounding with your current audience and how you show open that space my favorite one of my favorite examples for nonprofits there's an instinct for nonprofits that because there are nonprofit they don't need to function or pull best practices from for-profit and practice organizations and I say you don't need to lose your soul or the for-profit side but you should there's a reason why for-profits are so powerful and can do things right and so one of my favorite is um impact Austin has actually done a really great job where they took at if you look at the way that they actually audit for the grant program a lot of the questions that they ask is standard for getting venture funding period in like for-profit companies and so it's like if you're a nonprofit that is entering the realm of sponsors and donors my best advice is to look at some of like the big guns like once you get impact if you can match your branding into impact the whole entire reason why impact Austin is so intense it's because they want you to build a nonprofit that is sustainable period oh yeah like that's what it's for very smart and so if you can build your company to match that because at the end of the day it is still an organization it is still a company that needs to be sustained it's the same thing it's the same thing that I tell for-profit companies you will if you can match if you had a VC whether or not you want a VC to go after you or not if you could answer appropriately what a VC shark tank conversation looks like you have a sustainable business and play it's shocking when people think that they can just like wing it and like it's the entrepreneur spirit to just like dive in and like answer questions later and I'm like yes but you still got to answer those questions at some point well here's a really interesting idea of course I would think so because I thought of it I once was at capital factory attending a three-day startup program and I just did one of the three days but I wanted to see what it was about and so they it was a at the time a free program so I go in there and I'm all the things that I do to organize a major gift campaign was what they were saying you need to organize a business and present it to a known with somebody to fund you so my idea was to have 3DS train all the development staff of the nonprofits to go through that process so that they can then run their own capital campaigns because they will know what they need because a lot of the times I've done that I've swapped deemed the thing and you have to answer all those same hard basic questions you just need to take the time to outline it all and then you know then the nonprofits which are paying huge huge hundreds of thousands for consultants you know they they can use their consultants a lot more smartly and less they can prepare themselves to get to that point and be way ahead so that's my 3DS if you are in Austin check it out three days start of 3DS and I've actually judged for 3DS for 3DS the one partner with St. Edwards I judge it yeah I've judged it a couple of times yeah that was the most fun I sat actually with a an investor and a couple of startup guys you know who are there I think I might have been the only woman in that entire room but I I just loved it and then I started researching starting you know how to get your startup going and Forbes and Fortune I was like wow this is the same thought process that you go through for a non-profit major gift campaign to it get people to invest millions in a new building or a new new equipment or whatever it is it's the it's the act of of convincing someone to invest and trust you period yeah and it's the same thing it's for some reason packaged like again it's like there's like disconnect that's so insanely disconnected and I was like it's still the same function the tone of how you deliver it will be different yeah the tone and intention is different but there's no reason why you should be like oh my god just because it's for a profit it's not for me like that that should never be the case my favorite innovations for clients is I would look at completely different industry that has nothing related to them and I'm like why don't you just pull from them and they're like oh that makes total sense and I'm like yes there's a lot out there you know for nonprofits to learn a lot of times they have consciously this is what I found out over the years they've consciously left the idea or or decided not to be corporate and they don't want to even have anything to do with companies they just don't like corporate America and they feel nonprofits are the way to go but there's just so much great information and great ways to survive and thrive that's it's corporate America hate to say that but it's capitalism it's about organizations thriving like if you Google for like human psychology and emotional intelligence and growing a sustainability of organizations I mean it's just about you have human beings united under one single cause whether it's for profit for a movement for a large society goal a nationality etc etc it's about pulling multiple human beings together and the friction and the ugliness that goes into it as one of my friends likes to call it and it's like it's the messiness of being human she's she's coined that term and I was like oh yeah thousand percent the messiness of being human in it and the choice is do you choose to react purely to the messiness or do you choose to pause and in that the pause between the reaction to action own your power and decide how you want to show up the context of which the world of your organization lives in is always ever evolving and changing and you can't but you can choose to build something new out of it and that's what I like to say as a food for thought for everyone going into processing all the information coming out of this talk is is that piece that invitation of you don't need to follow the same checkbox yeah well thanks I don't see any other questions I had to switch to my iPhone zoom because my speaker went out so that's why I changed my visuals but no problem there anything else I could if you have articles roaring to share anything you've got I think I saw some blog posts so maybe I should just share those on our facebook group page or something yeah I know I have your slides well and we'll have the Eli will upload the recording and soon so but thanks so much for taking the time really interesting lots going on I'm glad I was able to help in the United I hope this has been helpful for you too since I do I get to actually get to see you over here uh on facebook stream that's great that's great great wonderful thank you so much for having me have a good week have a great weekend a weekend weekend talk to y'all soon