Will Marlow

Dear universities,

Many of you want to use social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to supplement your arsenal of fundraising tools, and that's great.  The challenge is that social media platforms are different from almost all other types of communication tools.  In order to pull value in from social media platforms, you need to push value out to your intended audience.

Here's how you should do it: first, forget about fundraising.  Instead, focus on the students, prospective students and alums who need your help.  Specifically, use Twitter and Facebook to give them information that will help them succeed in their classes, find internships, connect with fellow alums, find jobs, and stay in touch with one another.  Use these platforms to announce the achievements of people in your community.  Use Flickr and YouTube to post videos of homecoming, sports events, reunions, and undergrads having a great time succeeding on campus.  Use social media platforms to make announcements whenever any of your grads are mentioned positively in newspapers or blogs.  Write posts that show how proud you are of your community.

In short, don't focus on using social media platforms to do fundraising.  Instead, focus on using social media platforms to deliver value.  Then, when you are fundraising, point to your social media presence as one of the many ways that you enhance the lives of the alumni without spending money on glossy direct mail.  This will not hurt your fundraising prospects.

Hint: a major reason to go with this strategy is that prospective students, current students, and recent grads are the quickest cohorts to connect with you on social media platforms, but each cohort is generally slower to connect than the last.  This has nothing to do with how web-savvy the users are.  It's simply because prospective students need the most information from you, because they need to decide if your school is the best fit for them; current students are willing to connect with you, because you can deliver them information that will help them succeed while on campus; and recent grads are similarly interested in connecting, because they need your help to find mentors and jobs.  The slowest cohort of all to connect with you on social media?  That would be the donors themselves, who need the least from you.  The way to get them involved is to show them how much value you're delivering to their fellow alums who need help.

Sincerely,
Will Marlow
Internet Advisor, Social Media Strategist and Fundraising Consultant

Did you like reading this blog post?  Sign up to get my new blog posts delivered by email by clicking here.

Will Marlow is a digital strategist/online marketing consultant.  He's the co-creator of  AlumniFidelity, which is a Web 2.0 fundraising platform for colleges, nonprofits and secondary schools.   He’s working with clients such as UVA, the College of William & Mary, the University of Oklahoma, and Bowling Green State University and he loves nothing better than a thorny marketing challenge.  He would love to help you market your business on the Internet, boost the fundraising numbers for your school or nonprofit, or sellout your next big event.  Email him at will@alumnifidelity.com.

*I took the photo above on Saturday, August 21, 2010 at an event to help the recently homeless in Fairfax, Virginia, which was put on by FACETS, a great charity where my wife works.

Loading mentions Retweet

Photography and videos are tremendously important for communicating on the Internet.  Why?  Because people do not want to read online.  People consume information on the Internet primarily through videos and pictures, not written words.  You can argue with me on this point all you want, but you're better off just accepting the fact that your message will reach more people if it's framed by pictures and videos.  (If the New York Times needs to supplement its written words with pictures and videos, so do unknown bloggers and websites.)

This means that you would benefit tremendously if you equip yourself to take high quality, professional looking photographs on a regular basis. 

Here's one of the biggest tips I can give you: often, the biggest difference between professional-looking photos and amateur photos comes down to the time of day.  I was speaking with a veteran advertising producer who told me that he used to hate getting up at three in the morning to prepare for a photo shoot that had nothing at all to do with a sunrise, but the fact is, the quality of light two hours after sunrise and two hours before sunset is magical on film.  Those two two-hour chunks of time are when 80% of important outdoor movie scenes and magazine pieces are shot. 

If you want your pictures or videos to look professional, the early bird still gets the worm.  

Loading mentions Retweet