Tag Archives: how to

A quick look at targeting your Facebook page posts

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I mentioned on Twitter yesterday that I’d only just found out about targeting your Facebook page posts by different audiences.

I was surprised to get quite a few replies from other people who had never heard of this functionality.

When it is switched on (and that’s the tricky part) you can target by gender, relationship status, education, interests, age, location and language.

Targeting your Facebook page posts

This is how to target posts on your Facebook page. This is NOT for posts on your personal profile and it is NOT paid for posts.

Edit the page and then select Manage Persmissions.

At the bottom of this screen is the option ‘Post privacy gating’. Tick this box.

Facebook page settings

Once you’ve turned this on you will get a compass icon in your page post boxes.

Click the icon to add your targeting options.

Targeting options

Google Alerts for charities

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Google Alerts logo

There are so many great little online tools out there that can make a big difference to the way we work.

In the first of – what I hope will be – a regular series of blog posts I’m going to look at Google Alerts and how they can be used by charities.

What are Google Alerts?

To start at the beginning, “Google Alerts are emails sent to you when Google finds new results – such as web pages, newspaper articles, or blogs – that match your search term.”

You should assume that every piece of information you need to know – sector updates, government policy, funding programmes, campaign news – is firstly being published online. If you were able to get hold of this information as soon as it was made available, just think of the advantage your organisation would have over others.

Using Google Alerts well could save you money as it removes the need to subscribe to paid for news services.

Once Google Alerts are set up they can be left to their own devices, allowing you to get on with the work that really matters.

I would call using a tool like Google Alerts “listening” on the web, and I’ve written about how important I think that is elsewhere on the site.

How can our organisation use Google Alerts?

Google Alerts is a tool that will notify you about information on the web as soon as it appears and as such is relevant for every member of staff.

Some ways you could use Google Alerts include:

  • As a substitute for newspaper cuttings. Set up an alert for the name of your organisation to find out when it has been mentioned.
  • To follow the progress of your campaign. Set up an alert for the name of your campaign to find people writing about it or doing their bit.
  • To keep track of a piece of policy. Set up an alert for the name of the policy or paper, restricting it to the relevant government department website if appropriate (see tips below).
  • Keep up to date with developments and discussions in your sector. Set up an alert for the medical condition name, local area or sector name.
  • Monitor your competitors. Set up an alert with the names of other organisations or services.

Setting up your Google Alerts

Google Alerts form

Google Alerts form

  1. Go to www.google.com/alerts and start filling in the Alerts form.
  2. Search query: This is where you type in your search, just think about what you would put in a normal Google search. There are tips for being smarter with your search below.
  3. Result type: You can specify what you want your search results to show; Everything, News, Blogs, Video, Discussions or Books. Unless you know exactly what you are searching for it’s worth setting this to Everything initially.
  4. How often: You can decide how often you get your alert; As-it-happens, Once a day, Once a week. As-it-happens is useful if you want to know as soon as a funding programme is opened or a paper is published. Once a week is probably a better setting if you’re just searching for general terms. Start with Once a day and make a decision about whether you want your alerts to be more or less frequent.
  5. How many: You have the option to choose between ‘Only the best results’ or ‘All results’. When you start out with your alerts it might be best to set this to ‘All results’. If you find you’re getting too many results back then you can change this.
  6. Your email: This is where your alert will be sent to. If you already have a Google account and are logged in this box will be pre-filled with your address. If you don’t have a Google account then you’ll be sent a confirmation email to your chosen address.
  7. Review your alerts: After a week or so of getting alerts review the information you’re getting. If you haven’t received anything then perhaps your search criteria is too narrow. If you have been totally inundated with alerts then it might be worth narrowing your criteria. Have a look at the search tips below. If your search topic suddenly hits the headlines you might also find you need to review your alerts. This is where having a Google account comes in useful as it’s easier to log in and manage your settings.
  8. Share what you find. There’s no point keeping all of this information to yourself, share it with colleagues.

Tips for perfecting your search

If you’ve never really looked into setting up smart searches then you might be surprised by how much you can do to refine your results.

Here are some tips:

  • Use “quotes” to group together words or specify spelling, for example “National Trust” or “colour” (to remove American spellings from results)
  • Exclude terms using a -, for example Walkers -crisps
  • Search just specific websites using site:communities.gov.uk, this will just search the DCLG website
  • Exclude specific websites from your search using -site:bbc.co.uk, this will search all sites, except the BBC. This is useful if you notice your alerts are returning lots of irrelevant results from a particular site
  • Search for more than one term by using OR. This can be useful if people use different terms to describe the same organisation or issue, for example “London 2012″ or “Olympics 2012″ or “London Olympics”.

Do you use Google Alerts in your work? Are there any other tips you can add?

An introductory guide to blogging

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[This post originally appeared at on the NCVO website in December 2010]

I met with a friend recently to help her think about how she could write a blog for her small business. A lot of the concepts are easily transferable to voluntary organisations so I thought it might be useful to post them up here.

This is by know means everything you need to know about blogging, for a more in depth guide I’d suggest taking a look at the excellent resources produced by Mark Walker at SCIP, all free to download at http://scipdiy.wordpress.com/downloads/.

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Why are you blogging?

It’s important that before you start you know why you’re blogging. It will help you to keep focus and make clear decisions. I’d like to suggest that you might blog to:

  • Reach supporters – letting people know you’re there and encourage them to make a connection with you, encouraging them to get involved
  • Community – fix yourself within the voluntary sector online community
  • Profile – raise your profile as a person, organisation and cause
  • Engagement – start connecting with people in your field and taking part in conversations

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Practicalities

Getting started

Message: Before you do anything think about what it is you’re trying to say with your blog. Are you talking about the work you do specifically, the general work of the organisation, policy issues relevant to you, a campaign or something different? If you are clear about the focus then people will find it easier to connect with you.

Tone: Make your post personal but don’t feel like you have to reveal too much. You can say that you like something without having to give away any more than that.

Platform: What are you going to use to start your blog? Many websites have a blog built in but if yours doesn’t then you might want to use something like WordPress www.wordpress.com, a really good and popular (and free!) blog site in the sector. I’m going to assume you’re using a WordPress blog from now on.

Title: The name of the blog is important as it will be your URL e.g. http://name.wordpress.com.

URL: It is possible to get a custom URL through the WordPress site so it becomes something like www.mycharitycampaignblog.com more info at http://en.support.wordpress.com/domain-mapping/.

Theme: WordPress has lots of template “themes” that set out the structure for the blog (including number of columns, font etc). Take a look through them and see what you like. Choose one with a “custom header image” so that you can put your own photo at the top http://en.support.wordpress.com/themes/.

Statistics: WordPress has an in built statistics package. As well as keeping track of the numbers of people visiting and where they came from you can also see what key words people use to get to your site http://en.support.wordpress.com/stats/.

Creating pages: As well as the blog posts you can also create static pages. These can be useful places to describe yourself, your organisation, how to contact you etc http://en.support.wordpress.com/pages/.

Scheduling posts: If you’re feeling productive then you can write multiple posts without publishing them and then schedule them to go out at a specific time. This can be useful if you know you have a busy week coming up http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/schedule-a-post/.

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Promotion

How will you get people to read your blog?

Find local blogs and comment: There’s no point writing a blog if you’re not connecting with others to promote it and entering the blogging community. Find other people blogging about your topic or similar and connect with them. Start by posting a comment on their blog to say hi or refer to something they’ve written and then encourage them to return the gesture.

Google blog search: You can find other blogs by using the Google blog search http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch/advanced_blog_search. Put in keywords and your email address and it will alert you each time something relevant appears on the net.

Other blogs: If there are some key blogs that you want to promote to your readers then you can add them to your blogroll http://en.support.wordpress.com/blogroll/. Look at the blogrolls of other blogs to find new people.

Link to others: The more people link to your blog, the higher it will appear in Google searches so it’s really important to make those connections.

Encourage comments: Comments are the great thing about blogs so, as well as posts that state fact, post something that encourages views from people.

Google alerts: Google alerts are more general, scouring the whole of the net for new content http://www.google.com/alerts. You can set up an alert using the same keywords as your blog search.

Newsletter: Include a link to your blog in your newsletter if you have one, on your email signature and any print materials.

Post straight to Facebook and Twitter: It’s easy in WordPress to send a link to your new post to other channels such as Facebook or Twitter. There’s some info about it here http://mashable.com/2009/10/08/wordpress-twitter/ and http://en.support.wordpress.com/publicize/.

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Content

What should you write about?

Personal: Make your posts personal in the sense that people feel like they’re hearing from a human but don’t feel like you have to say too much like where you live or the names of your children.

Short: Blog posts don’t need to be long think pieces, short and sharp works well. A couple of paragraphs is fine, maybe 500 words max, and pictures make it more attractive.

Often: The most important thing is probably to post regularly (and you can decide what regularly means; every day, every other day, every week, every fortnight). It’s possible in WordPress to draft posts and then schedule them to go live at a specific time.

React to news: If there is something in the news that relates to your work then why not post your reaction to it? Journalists search blog posts so you might even get an interview about it.

New products/ services: Post photos and descriptions, promoting your wares.

Campaigns: Give behind-the-scenes information about your campaign planning and delivery including successes and challenges.

Use what happens in the office or at events: If something happens in the office or out at an event then why not post about it? Don’t use it as a place to moan but turn it into something constructive, possibly ideas or top tips.

Case studies: How are people benefitting from the work that you do?

Events: Promote your events in blog posts and those of similar organisations.

Your geographical location: If it’s relevant then why not talk about what’s happening in your town? How does the organisation fit in with the local community?

Policy issues: How are the decisions being made at a government level affecting your service users?

Gimmick: Why not have some kind of gimmick on the blog, maybe something that says if someone quotes the blog when booking a place on an event then they get £5 off.

ICT answers in a box

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ICT answers in a box

ICT answers in a box

I got back to my desk this afternoon to find the very cutely packaged “ICT Answers in a Box” resource sitting there waiting for me.

The box – produced by the regional ICT champions – is a handy, adaptable and easy to use tool that will help staff and volunteers answer some of the most basic ICT questions.

 

 

The ICT Champions have produced a set of ICT Answers in a Box which answers 50 of the most frequently asked questions about ICT. It is written for staff and volunteers from the third sector and is especially useful for people who provide support to other organisations.

It is a useful reminder that can sit on your desk and provide top tips and useful signposting to online resources.

Order your free ”ICT Answers in a Box” online at www.ictchampions.org.uk/order-cards/.