These slides, which I will present on behalf of the Open Society Foundations next month in Dubrovnik, describe what video can do for your campaign, how to get people to watch your video using “social proofing”, and how to measure the effect of your video on your audience through the interpretation YouTube metrics.

Activists blog to build community, both by sharing resources and by strengthening relationships.

Yet they also have limited time.  Using pre-existing formats can help activists blog faster since they don’t have to start with a blank page.

These 9 types of blog posts below can serve a variety of topics and causes.  The steps to their creation, as well as examples from some of the best nonprofit blogs, are included in the slideshow.

The Posts:

1. The Pass-it-Along Post
2. The “We’re Real People” Post
3. The Community Appreciation Post
4. The “Our Response” Post
5. The Informative Listicle
6. The Mobilization Post
7. The Ignored News Story
8. The Guest Post
9. The Email Interview

 

Thanks to NOH8 Campaign, ONE, Surfrider Foundation, Greenpeace, Invisible People, Human Rights Campaign, The Nonprofit Technology Network, Beth Kanter, and Melissa Gira Grant for the great examples.

What are other types of blog posts that you’ve used time and again as an activist blogger?

Here’s a first draft of metrics for measuring the effectiveness of digital activism campaigns.  Feedback welcome.  Direct download here (PDF).

Last month I gave a big training for YMCA youth program staff .  (Did you know that it’s the biggest nonprofit in America and that 90% of us live within 10 miles of one?)   I created a cheat sheet (pdf) on digital strategy for youth engagement, which I’m sharing here.  It’s the usual strategic elements of goal, audience, media, and planning, with more lolcats to motivate attention and sharing.

For a presentation to YMCA youth workers in North Carolina that I’ll be giving next week:

Steps are:

1. Schedule (time to do your social media work)
2. Listen (to people online who influence your target audience)
3. Connect (to those influencers and share their content)
4. Mobilize (those influencers by subsequently asking them to share your content)
5. Save the “Starter” (save you contacts so you can use them next time)

I know I rarely post such practical tips, but I created this list for a consulting client and thought I’d share.  The list is remixed from a blog post by Desi Cabrera of Miratel in Toronto.

1. Write Focused Content: Keeping your content focused specifically on your organization’s cause and mission.
2. Post Length of 200-750 Words: Short posts are more likely to be read and (because they require less work) more likely to be written. The ideal length is 500 words.
3. Highlight Key Ideas: Some people won’t have time to read the whole post. If you put a few of the post’s key ideas in boldface, they will still get the main idea.
4. Tell Stories About Real People: This type of post can be created at any time, is conceptually easy to create, and will be accessible to any visitor to the site. To ensure that informed consent is given, every person who is the subject of a story on the blog should sign a release form, ideally using a Google Form (the form is the text, they write their name in a text box and click submit).
5. Write Lists: Top 5 reasons charter schools are over-rated, top 10 best practices of needle exchanges, top 3 environment NGOS in New Orleans – these types of posts are easy to read and provide a simple format for the writer. There is even a name for a blog post that in list form, a listicle.
6. Include Photos/Video: In almost every aspect of social media and digital marketing, visual components such as photos and videos enhance the content that is being shared and should be included in blog posts. This is also a very quick way to create content. Individuals must sign the web release before their photo is posted.
7. Have a Consistent Schedule: There should be a blogging calendar which states which day each person who commits to write for the blog knows they are responsible for writing a post. (For example, Allison might be responsible for posting every other Wednesday.) People can write additional posts when they want (for example, for breaking news), but with a calendar you will not find yourself with blank spaces where no one has blogged all week.
8. Enable Feed (RSS) and Email Subscriptions: If a reader enjoys your blog you should make every attempt to make it as simple as possible for them to return. You can easily create an RSS feed using Feedburner and place sign-up in a visible place around the bog post so visitors who like what they read can receive new posts via feed or email.
9. Look for Examples of Good Nonprofit Blogs: Start here: http://www.businessesgrow.com/2011/05/08/the-worlds-best-non-profit-blogs/

Image: Etsy/LivyLoveDesigns