Welcome to new and returning visitors to our site! You may notice a fairly large gap in blog posts, but rest assured that we are still here to help you with your needs. We're just not very good at blogging!

Since our last post our owner took a short hiatus from running our business on a regular basis to concentrate on a new opportunity she had in museum management with Hennepin History Museum.  During this time she learned more about the day to day operations of a museum, as well as had an amazing opportunity to write a successful large grant for $75,000 for the museum, funded through the Minnesota Historical and Cultural Heritage Grants - Legacy program. What an absolute thrill it was to receive notice that the museum had received the grant to fund their Historic Structure Report on their almost 100 year old mansion.

We're now back in the virtual office to officially add grant writing to our portfolio, having a total of four (out of four!) successful grants written in the past four years totaling $117,000. And we would love to talk to you about your grant writing needs! Contact us today to learn more.

One of the biggest issues for small non-profits today is finding people to who can help with social media and website management. Let's face it: many organizations find themselves with a wonderfully dedicated, but aging set of volunteers, They may not know anything about social media, or may not be up for learning something new. And as we've noted before, you miss out on potential volunteers, donors and members if you're not active on social media. (See also Why Social Media?)

We've heard: "It's scary!" "It's time consuming!" "It represents change!" For the most part, all of these fears are correct, but manageable by the right people. The key is finding those right people to take on the challenge of marketing in the modern age. How do you find them?

You ask for help. Wow, simple right? Not exactly! Asking for help is often the hardest thing an organization can do. It can be perceived by the members of the organization as weakness, or admitting defeat, to ask for help. It can overwhelm individuals who don't know how to ask the right questions about a subject with which they are not familiar.

However, asking for help is also the BEST thing an organization can do. It shows that your organization recognizes where your strengths lie, and where you could use some assistance to grow stronger. Asking means you want to be better. Be more relevant. Be the best organization you can be. It's not a weakness to ask for help!

Once you've gotten over the fears, who do you ask for help? You start by talking to similar organizations you know to get recommendations. Ask questions like:

"What are you doing for your social media and website maintenance?"

"Have you seen results in the form of increased membership or engagement from your social media posts?"

"Do you feel satisfied that your message is being heard in the online community?"

Once you find organizations that are happy with their plans, replicate what they are doing. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel! Do they use a firm to manage their social media, or is it in in house? Talk to the people who are doing the work to find out who they know who can help you. Volunteers who have special talents often know people with similar talents. They become the best source for new volunteers in your organization with the talents you need.

Ultimately the first step to finding the right people to do this work is to get over your own fears that stem from not knowing the subject matter and being overwhelmed. There are good people out there who know how to do the marketing you need, and they will volunteer...if you ask them!

What is your organization doing to find good people to help with your social media marketing?

How many times have you seen a website that looked old and dated? Perhaps the site doesn't fill the screen entirely, or has an interface that is difficult to navigate. Or maybe it took you more than one click to find their contact info! All of these issues can turn new customers off, which means you've lost the potential income.

It's not all about social media! Websites are important as the anchor for your customers to find the general information they need. And keeping your website updated with new content and layouts is important as well.

Adding a page to your site with current company news is a great way to keep your site updated. Photos help as well, add them to your site with captions for a quick update.

Keeping your site up to date will encourage customers to return, and to know that you're active and open for business!

Check out this great blog entry from the Small Business Association for more great tips:
https://www.sba.gov/blogs/7-ways-improve-your-website-homepage

If you're using Facebook posts to communicate with your follwers, you may have noticed a sentence below your post saying how many people your post reached, such as "534 people reached". You may also have noticed that it can be lower or higher than the number of followers you have. Lower makes sense since you may not reach every one of your follwers with each post (due mostly to the way Facebook displays your posts). But how can the number of people reached be higher than your follwer count?

This is the holy grail of posting strategy - reaching more people than your follower count. And we have a couple of tips to share that we have used in the past to increase the reach of your posts without using the "Boost" option, which costs you money.

First, pay attention to the time of day you are posting, and how many people are reached. For one of our clients we noticed that if we posted on a weekday afternoon we reached more than 100% more people than if we posted in the morning. Our theory is that their followers are more likely to read and comment on our posts, and more likely to share them with their friends, in the afternoon. A simple thing like the time you post can make a huge difference in people reached.

Second, post items that are of interest to your follwers. While your message is important, if you're posting things your followers are not interested in reading and reposting, you will be more likely to reach less people. Pay attention to which kinds of posts garner the most responses and the most people reached, and tailor your posts to meet the expectations of your audience.

The bottom line is this: If you increase your reach, your message will reach more people outside of your follower circle. And as you reach more people, you will ultimately gain more followers, who are then more likely to become a member or client for your organization. That should be the ultimate goal of your social media strategy.

There are two simple things you can do on social media that will draw attention to your page. And they do not take much time or effort to post!

The first way to help people notice you is to post a photo. Perhaps you were at a summer festival or outing, and you captured a moment during your day in a photo. Or maybe you have a historic photo in your archives that caught your attention. Each time you find a fun photo that is related even remotely to your business or mission, it's an easy plus to post it with a line or to of text stating why you find the photo interesting or why you think it's simply a cool photo. Note too that the more personal you are, the more responses you will receive.  I'm not talking about gushing about a photo of your favorite pet, but if you open up to people with your own personal story, people respond. Social media is a very visual medium, and posting photos with a personal touch is a great way to grab your audience's attention.

The second way to capture attention is to ask questions. If you're like me, you love trivia. Asking questions about significant events on this day in history, or just general questions pertaining to your business theme, will elicit responses and start a dialogue with your followers.  Don't be discouraged if people don't answer your questions right away!  Wait a day. If you don't get any responses, post the answer and ask if anyone got it right.  One good question a week is all it takes to get people thinking about you and looking for your future trivia questions.

And you'll soon find if you neglect posting after you start a successful dialogue, they'll notice and ask for more!

We've been asked more than once, "What benefit is it to us to use Social Media?" 

With most non-profit memberships including older members, this is a valid question. And it's true: you may not reach those you consider your tried and true audience with social media posts. Surprised that we said that? Read on.

We're members of Generation X (those born approximately between 1961 and 1981) and we, along with our younger cohorts, the Millennials, are big social media consumers. Ever wonder what we're staring at on our smart phone? Or wonder what we do with that tablet? We're reading, sharing information and being marketed at by savvy businesses. And we buy things and join organizations online. 

Ultimately, we're  the people you want to attract to your organization. We are your future members, future volunteers, future board members.  And we're here in large numbers. The Millennials (1981-2000) just surpassed the size of the Boomer generation at 80 million plus! (See the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation link at the bottom of this page.)  And we're all ready to start contributing!

But how will you communicate with us? We don't read newspapers so we won't see your ad. We don't answer phone calls so you can forget cold-calling us for support. And we definitely won't find you in the phone book because, seriously, phone books? So 1990!

We should place the emphasis on the word "Media" when we think of Social Media.  This is where you advertise your best assets to the world.  You start a conversation with us.  You tell us about yourself. You invite us to your events. And, behold, we show up!

If you're not putting yourself out there, we won't know about you.  And if we don't know about you, your organization is in trouble.

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The Millennial Generation Research Review by the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation: http://www.uschamberfoundation.org/millennial-generation-research-review

For some interesting recent information about the generation gap, please see this Pew Research Center study of how the younger generations are using social media as a replacement for TV: http://www.journalism.org/2015/06/01/millennials-political-news/

Also, we really liked this blog post on Entrepreneur.com from 2013. A tad bit out of date but the info graphic used is quite interesting: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/228029

I am so excited to show off our new website!  This site has been a long process of coming up with guidelines, editing, perfecting and asking for feedback.  And now it's finally here!  It turned out just the way I envisioned it, simple and clean.  And in beautiful indigo!

I find it much easier to work on websites for clients than for myself.  Especially when I have active collaboration with my clients and get good feedback.  

Envisioning what you'd like to see, coming up with your requirements and giving me feedback all the way through the creation process are keys to creating a good website.  

I can help guide you through each step and teach you how to be your own best critic.  What you receive from me is a beautiful, simple website that is easy to maintain and modify as time goes on.

Whether you're looking for someone to teach you how to do this, or need someone to create and maintain your site for you, please give us a try!

And welcome to Aerindigo.com!

-Kristin, Founder and Owner