Emira Mears's Blog Posts
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Social Media Tune-up: Losing the Thread
February 16, 2012 CommentsWhile preparing for a presentation I gave to Strathcona BIA members earlier this week, I was speaking with a local small business owner about his Social Media use and how it has helped to support his business. We don't usually talk much about business on this blog, Lauren and I tend to save that for our The Boss of You blog, but the lessons that arose from this conversation are just as relevant to non-profit organizations.
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Our Help Manual
November 8, 2011 CommentsThe lack of user documentation for open-source projects, like Wordpress and Drupal the two Content Management Systems we develop in most frequently at Raised Eyebrow, is a known issue. While a thriving user base and a good google search can often turn up answers to questions not addressed in documentation for a development team, that's not really a viable solution for end-users, in our case clients who are simply trying to maintain and manage their websites. And, since we build a lot of custom Drupal Modules or Wordpress Plugins to meet our client's specific communications needs, we then become the folks responsible for documentation.
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Webinar: 8 Best Practice Do's + Don'ts for Holiday Fundraising
November 1, 2011 Comments
As those in the non-profit world are only too aware, the holiday season is a big time for fundraising. Up to 1/2 of all donations for an organization can come in during this busy donor outreach season, through either targeted campaigns or as a result of end of the year giving.Delivered by Partner and Lead Strategist, Emira Mears and Christine Smith, a Project Manager with an extensive background in online fundraising, this webinar will focus on best practices for online fundraising efforts. Knowing that campaigns for holiday giving will be underway any day now, this webinar is focused on giving you targeted tips you can put into practice right away to help improve your online donor development now.
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Useful Content From the Non Profit Technology Network (NTEN)
October 28, 2011 CommentsThe NTEN newsletter is often a wealth of good information for non-profit organizations thinking about their digital strategy, but this last issue had some particularly juicy articles, relevant to the kinds of conversations we've been having with our clients lately. Here's some links to my favourites:
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Tools to Help Non-Profits with Online Storytelling
October 18, 2011 CommentsOften when we're working with clients and talking about enhanced tools for storytelling online, video is where people put their focus. But not every concept or idea is best presented as video and not everyone has the resources to work with it. Amy Sample Ward has a great blog post up at Care2 right now about different online tools that non-profits can use to tell stories online, that go beyond simple text. There are some more examples and tools being discussed over at LinkedIn that are worth checking out.
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Do you need an App or just a good Mobile ready website?
October 13, 2011 Comments
There's a lot of talk about mobile and tablet ready Apps these days, and for very good reason. There are some very impressive and excellent apps out there that are changing the way a lot of us managing information and interact with each other. That said, I just sat in on a webinar for a Mobile Giving app for non-profits and while the technology has certainly come a long way and is pretty darned easy to deploy at this point, I was left wondering whether or not it was what most non-profits need.
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Redesign in Process: Overview of a Content Audit
October 12, 2011 CommentsWe're currently in the process of redesigning and redeveloping our website and I'm documenting bits and pieces of that process here. The first post about the redesign process is here.
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The Cobbler's Children: A redesign in process
October 6, 2011 CommentsYou know how the saying goes: the cobbler's children have no shoes. Ditto for the web studio and their website. We've historically struggled mightily with getting our own web house in order every 3 years or so and frequently get beyond a point where we're in desperate need of a retooling. The story is always the same: putting client work/client needs first. That said, we work really well with deadlines and our current one is Lauren's impending maternity leave. A date arriving all too soon, and not one with room for extensions.
So. We're putting our collectives noses to the grindstone and getting our own house in order over here, and it's been a really rewarding and illuminating process, I think for the team, but certainly for me.
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Testimonials & Persuasion
September 22, 2011 CommentsI attended the Social Media Week session on Social Good yesterday and a few of the presentations, in particular one given by Melissa Dingmon, got me thinking about concrete ways non-profits can use Social Media tools to help persuade individuals to join their communities.
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Measuring Your Organization's Facebook Impact
September 12, 2011 CommentsIf, like me, you're skeptical of the simple numbers like "# of followers" or "3 of likes" on Facebook and want to be able to dig a little deeper into what kind of an impact your organization's Facebook presence is having, I highly recommend taking 10 minutes to read Mari Smith's summary in her post How to Measure Your Facebook Impact.
Mari gives a great overview to help you dig a little deeper into the effect your Facebook Page could be having on your organization, covering things like: