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Web socialite or stay-at-home hoarder?
Submitted by sarahhughes on 9 May, 2007 - 13:02.
Is your charity out and about on the web - by which I mean joining in with other websites (information / charity portals, directories, enhanced Guidestar, eBay, MySpace, YouTube etc) and leaving its mark in a variety of relevant meeting points - or is it stuck at home hoarding its own possessions and in likely need of a de-clutter?
I have been struck in recent years by the amount of growth in the content and functionality of charities' websites whilst underwhelmed by the relative movement of e-marketing.
Various Virtual Promise research reports into charities use of the Internet have born my observations out, and in VP 05 the charities surveyed had an average of 4 websites a-piece (compared to 2 in 04). The question wasn't asked in 06.
A certain commercial fashion with micro-sites and splash pages and other one-time sites did pervade the charity sector, but the above figure counts for growth simply in their core year-round websites. That's a lot to manage on the average staff levels and budgets of charity online departments?
I'm not disputing the role of some of those additional websites, after all I was a big culprit myself whilst at CAF. But I also tried to make sure and to push for CAF's web presence and content to be disaggregated, rather than focused (egocentrically) on everyone finding their way to its own door.
There are all kinds of arguments to support this. The best are the financial and the behavioural. Financially, few charities will have the reach to build significant traffic direct to their own site, so that conversion ratios really deliver something that puts a big smile on their faces. So it's advisable to piggy back the marketing reach of someone else, appropriately of course. And behaviourally, well few people really just have the habit of going out to one spot and never considering any other ways to spend their time. It's not promiscuity, it's variety, necessity and lifestyle. They have the need to be in many places at different times. So if you can catch them in more than one spot, you'll likely have a bigger and more lasting impact, as well as more opportunities to say your piece.
So my advice is don't hoard. Especially if you have something fantastic as an asset, whether in content or functionality. Get it plugged in to other sites. Do build the right collateral on your main web presence(s) - ensuring they form a cohesive whole and a clear overall identity - and then concentrate on taking its message out to those places where you think you may be heard. Be a web socialite, but make sure you have your cushions tidied for when you bring people home.
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Long tail
Hi John (and Sarah) - sorry i'm only just stopping by again.
John - your comment about it taking time is I think one of the reasons that so many 'commercial' organisations - businesses as well as charities etc don't participate more actively in social networking - blogging and forums etc.
It is very much the long tail however, with the future of web search leaning towards a more social aspect - we'll display this result because this site has good neighbourhood networks etc so the effort is worth it.
Our own blog has been going more than a year and we've posted over 180 articles in that time, and joined numerous groups and communities.
We now attract 30 to 40 regular views a day from all over the world - I'm not saying they are all customers but one day they may want a photo gift and who will they feel most comfortable using? A complete stranger or an old friend?
I think its really important for organisations to get involved as early as possible but I appreciate the time and money constraints - the requiring of instant proofs the expense and effort is worth it is putting people off.
Have patience. Done right, you will reap the benefits one day.
Have a good Christmas and New Year.
Jonathan Crouch
www.fabulousphotogifts.co.uk
Re : Web socialite or stay-at-home hoarder?
Social networks are certainly part of the future for charities, though how best utilised remains to be seen. We've started a facebook group, but only time will tell if this is productive in terms of fundraising -- or even, to use the jargon -- social networking. My feeling is that for certain types of fundraising it may have a role, but the whole social networking phenomenon will take a while to stabilise, and identify its various niches. Collecting friends will, i presume, be just a passing phase in its development.
Re : Web socialite or stay-at-home hoarder?
Jonathan - thanks for this. It's great to see an example of using social networking to build awareness. Please forgive me for being so slow to respond. I'm an involuntary erratic blogger (soon to be a known affliction!) as I juggle a young family, my consulting work and a role in an e-commerce website. When I do get time to blog I so enjoy it and start wondering what it would be like if I could do it regularly, build an audience, get to know them and them me...
This is what it must be like for social network users. These are people that have time, and so I believe you are right, when you have something rich to share you need to take it to those who are likely to stick around long enough to get a real sense of what you are doing. This is not the regular website visitor who averages a few minutes on a site before leaving. According to the HitWise UK Social Networking Research Note June 2007, social network users spend more than twice the average time spent on any other category of website - or 25 minutes 27 seconds!
As for me, I have to hope that people like you are willing to engage in sporadic and protracted time together. Sorry again that I couldn't reply sooner.
Sarah
Re : Web socialite or stay-at-home hoarder?
Hi Sarah
Really enjoyed your article. I've just completed a website design for a friend whose twin boys were diagnosed with SMA (Spinal Muscular Atrophy).
They want it to be a focal point of information for other families as well as reporting their own fund raising events and raising money, especially via their participation in our 'Funds for Life' scheme (open to all fund raisers!)
We've worked hard to build links, blog articles and social bookmarking to their blog from a number of directories etc and already we are seeing the fruits of our labours with over 100 hits on their rss feed last month.
When its such a specific topic and there is a core group or potential visitors interested in getting more info, then I think social bookmarking is a must.
I've wriiten several articles on our own blog - http://purple13.blogspot.com so please feel free to visit and inwardly digest.
The twins website is http://www.twinswithsma.co.uk