Digital Marketing for Non-Profits: Lack of Time - Developing your Digital Architecture - Content Creation

By now your organization has a website, and your social media accounts are set-up and you understand how to distribute your content. If you don't have any of these steps complete, then CLICK HERE to go to the beginning to make sure you have all the basics taken care of first. Ready?  Awesome!  Let's continue... The reason we deal with the digital architecture first is to make sure you have all the fundamentals in place before you get into content creation.  It's like building your house and roadways and having the vehicle ready to deliver your content. What now? What information are you going to share?  What blog posts are you going to create? Having that digital architecture in place also helps you focus on who your audience is that you are trying to reach.   Knowing where the content will be distributed serves as a reminder as to the type of content you want to create.  After all, some content you create a blog post may apply well to LinkedIn (more business focused), as opposed to Facebook (more personalized).  Either way, knowing your audience will help you craft the content for better engagement. Not all content may be distributed through all channels, but knowing now how you'll distribute, it's time to focus on what you're going to distribute. We begin with a Content Marketing Calendar A well organized and maintained content marketing calendar is the heartbeat of your organization.  It's the best tool to help you plan out what you're going to say and helps you set deadlines to manage your time and efforts, so all of your efforts don't become too overwhelming. Here are the basic steps in creating a content marketing calendar... Take a calendar, and write on the dates that are important for your organization to recognize and be a part of.

• You may have events that your organization are already planning or participating in, such as conferences or fundraisers. Write the dates that these events happen on the calendar.  Then consider promoting your efforts several weeks in advance from those dates.
• Add commonly used internet celebrated dates to that calendar - here are some links to help you find those popular dates and events.  Craft some fun content in advance of those dates, and schedule that content out in advance so they are distributed on those dates.
• Add daily, weekly and monthly dates that are important to your niche.  For example, Autism Awareness Month is in April, and World Autism Awareness Day is April 2nd.  Craft appropriate content to promote during those times, and schedule in advance.
• Only plan out about 90 days.

Knowing what content you have to create, and having the ability to get ahead on it, will provide you with the flexibility to manage your efforts more effectively and efficiently. The above is your foundational content map, which will guide you to what content may be relevant for those days/weeks/months.  Make a note to update each month every 30 days, so you'll always stay ahead. The first calendar is always the toughest, as you're laying the groundwork.  After some time, this does get much easier. (it really does get easier). Once you have an idea of what to share, and when to share it...now it's time to actually create and schedule the sharing of your content... Remember that you don't have to write everything, and not everything has to be about you or your organization.  In fact, it's good to have some variety in the type of content you want to distribute.  After all, saying the same thing over and over again is like listening to someone drone on about a specific topic.  It can get boring. People visit social media to be social, to connect with others... to be entertained.   Have some fun with this process, let your members and those you are trying to reach get to know you... get to know your personality.  It's ok, they'll find out anyway... have some fun with it. Here are a few ideas on what to share:

• Share articles about your topic from other sites, from other Facebook pages, etc...
  • Become the hub of information, let people know you aren't afraid of sharing others content.  You'd rather people come to you first then elsewhere... so find relevant content that they'll be interested in, and share it.
• Share content you've created on your site
  • Write blog posts and articles about what interests your non-profit and it's members.
  • Write about an upcoming event, the details... both before the event, what happened during, and how that event impacted the community.  Letting people know how their donations impacted others serves as a reminder of how they helped - and a reminder to ask them to donate again may prompt them to do as such.
• Share Video Content
  • Go Live by scheduling out a Q and A, or prerecord a video to put a face to your organization.
• Share content others have submitted
  • Ask your members to write or submit content.  See if they'd be willing to share a testimony on how your organization has helped them in some way.  These can be the most powerful forms of content to inspire people to donate to your cause.
• Do some giveaways, promote some online fun...
  • This might be content you only share via social media, but that's ok.  Sometimes you need to drive traffic to your social media accounts to build up your audience on those accounts.

Once you have the topics of what you're going to share and dates planned out, then gather and/or create your content, and then schedule it out. This sounds rather daunting, but taking an hour or two a week to build up a pool of content is all it really takes to get you started.  You can also reshare content that you've shared before.  After all, have you ever heard of #tbt (Throwback Thursday)? We know that having an established digital architecture works, and has saved us countless hours in managing our efforts in connecting the autism community.  Applying this basic strategy in digital architecture has also helped us to discover who our audience is, and allowed us to focus our advertising efforts on an audience that is more likely to be engaged.  Not only has this saved us time, it also helped us become more fiscally responsible in our marketing efforts as well. As an organization grows, we know it may be necessary to have someone help manage this process on a regular basis. We suggest having a dedicated staff member or have our team help you with these efforts. If you've completed all of these steps and discover you've reached a point where you may need more help on a regular basis, we are here to help.  Please feel free to click the button for 'Digital Marketing Services'.  

      

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