Video Presence

If if a picture paints a thousand words, then a typical video paints 60,000 words a minute. Virtually any organization can be served by an occasional video displaying its product in action, and this is especially true for Non-Profits. By way of recording the non-profit’s charitable work in action, the non-profit entity may well find itself invoking the emotional response needed to garner greater support from volunteers and the general public alike.

• Recording a large scale task,such as home building, then editing to a time lapse.
• Allowing volunteers to post short clips to a central account.
• Live streaming or blogging by non-profit leaders.

 

The requirements for video uploading are remarkably within reach. Time lapsed, or other special effects are still the province of desktop software and some technical know how, but otherwise all one needs is an account to one of several video compatible applications and a smart phone.

Top Down Sharing

One of the issues facing non-profits attempting to navigate social media is the sheer myriad of options. At any given time there will be ~10 social media applications with relevant world wide saturation (assuming the English speaking world). Choosing which can be a daunting task, especially considering how quickly a freshly adopted presence may quickly be replaced be something newer.

A possible solution is the top down sharing approach. Many social media applications offer the ability to automatically share to each other, and still others may work with websites by offering feed portals. For instance, consider the following:

1. Instagram allows direct sharing to Twitter & Facebook when a port is created.
2. Twitter offers automatic sharing to Facebook whenever tweets are created, and also offers users a predefined window feed for websites.
3. Most CMS systems offer auto share to Twitter, Facebook, and most other social applications.

 

What this means is that an entity with Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, a website and very little time to manage all of them would be best serve with a compromise:

1. Set up Twitter to auto share to Facebook.
2. Leverage Twitter’s feed feature for the website.
3. All photographic posts are performed through Instagram and auto shared to Twitter. Twitter in turn auto shares to Facebook and appears in the website feed.
4. Short, non photographic messages are routed directly through twitter. Facebook is reserved for longer posts, and the website for informational articles.

 

Start The Press

Before the advent of social media applications, a website was the starting point for most entities seeking an online presence. Because of the greater amount of front end effort (or cost), some entities now opt to make their website secondary or in some cases never bother at all. While this is understandable, it is a very serious mistake. A website offers several advantages over social media applications.

• No Advertisements – Unless you are using a free service to host, your website is yours alone, and you don’t have to worry about another entity inserting itself right between your lines.
• Content control – websites give you full control not just of what goes in, but how it looks. Colors and logos are often a big part of an organization’s brand. Only a website offers this freedom.
• Permanence – Websites are the little black dress of the internet. They may not be fashion forward, but they maintain a steady relevance . Conversely, the hottest social media applications today may well be abandoned or even shut down in short notice.
• Centralization – Rather than compete with social networks, a well crafted website works with them, serving as both a portal to social applications and a funneling target for social media users.

 

All of these advantages do come at a price. Websites require a high level of maintenance – uploading an electronic billboard and expecting any sort of positive result is pure folly. The website must have some interactive content, or at least (as above) serve as a portal to social media apps that do. Furthermore the website must be updated with some level of frequency to avoid becoming stale. Most organizations simply do not have the time or expertise for such tasks.

To help mitigate website maintenance, a powerful solution is to employ Content Management Systems. WordPress is the most oft used example. Drupal, SMS, and others offer similar solutions. Content Managed Sites offer end users the ability to edit content (hence the name) without editing the site itself, essentially separating the content from its engine. In short – modifying the content becomes akin to creating a Word Documents or PowerPoint. Users can upload media, pictures, link to social media sites, and even make minor design changes depending upon their level of comfort.

Advanced design aspects are still the province of information systems professionals, but by employing a CMS, you don’t need to call your IT guy just to write up a manifest on latest charity excursion.

Initialization

For most non academic non profit organizations, WordPress is highly recommended over other content management systems simply because of the wide array of support tools and general ubiquity. Organizations need not even host the WordPress application or own their own domain name, though at minimum the later is highly recommended. In the case where an entity prefers not to host their own application, WordPress.com is a general maintenance and cost free alternative.

A disadvantage of CMS, WordPress included is lack of individual design. A WordPress site’s presentation is controlled by themes, which can be selected from a large variety of free items, designed by the user, or professionally created. Each has its own advantages and shortcomings.

Free Themes

Free themes are by far the easiest and least time consuming choice. Simply select from one of hundreds of predefined themes and with a single click and your site is operational. Many of the available themes sport impressive features, responsive design (mobile compatibility), and a very professional look.

Free themes do have the disadvantage of having no customization tailored to your organization. Furthermore it is quite likely the most visually appealing and functional are already in use by many other organizations, meaning your site may have sport a very common theme. Most free themes do include options for basic attributes (colors, graphics, etc.), albeit not quite enough to offset identical basic designs.

Professional Themes

Outsourced theme building is essentially the same concept as professional site building, with the exception that only the visual style is being coded and deployed – not the website engine. The obvious advantage over a free theme harnessing technical and design expertise of a dedicated firm to create a unique visual look for your organization’s site.

Expense is consideration of course, but as the contract is for visual design only costs are considerably less than a full site design. Moreover, there are multiple online only micro development groups dedicated only to WordPress design, offering extremely competitive contracted rates.

In House Themes

The final option available is to develop themes and options in house. This can be a good option when technical expertise is available within the organization. It may not be practical to field a dedicated technology staff, but harnessing technically capable personnel on a temporary basis until builds are complete may be a tenable alternative.