It actually began late last year, with the understanding that the 1% Web site needed a complete overhaul, which we completed in January of this year. Once that was complete, we knew the online fundraising component of the site needed building out. The good folks at Baxa Marketing did that work and, with a tip of the hat to Kickstarter, and the understanding that it’s not perfect, it has turned out to be a great system.

The idea behind 1% for the Tetons, modeled after 1% for the Planet (and actually legally affiliated), is that Member businesses donate 1% of their gross profit in order to have it granted out to organizations that create projects that sustain the Tetons region. A committee of 1% Members chooses which of the grant applications get funded. This year there were many worthy grants, plus, after two years of successful grant cycles, 1% for the Tetons wanted to address two concerns that regularly arose:

1. Members often stated that they would like more control over where there money goes, and…
2. Non-members, who were not willing to donate a full 1% of their gross income, still wanted to be able to contribute.

Enter the One28 Campaign.

Now, through the fundraising mechanism in place on the Web site, Member organizations have the ability to allocate their donations and now anyone can make a donation.

And how are we getting the word out? Along with traditional forms of awareness-building that our fearless leader Jonathan Schechter is heading up (advertising, banners, yard-signs, PR, etc), Twist of Lime is managing the social media side of things to see how well we can drive traffic to the 1% site. (This blog is one shameless way of doing so…)

The first thing we did was implement the 1% blog, where Finalists are featured every day of the One28 campaign and special announcements are made to our constituents. Then implemented a handful of social media outposts to help build the network.

We use MailChimp to send email updates to our constituents on a weekly basis (if not more often). MailChimp has great features, including fantastic list management, email sign-up forms, WordPress integration and much more stuff that I’m sure we’re not using. You can sign up for the 1% email list here.

We’re using Twitter, but growth here is slow and we don’t have many followers yet. You can help us out by following 1% for the Tetons.

But perhaps our best social media tool is Facebook, where many of our Members belong and almost all of our grant finalists have pages. We post much of what is happening during the One28 Campaign on the 1% for the Tetons Facebook page. We tag our Finalists and Members whenever we can, helping to strengthen the Facebook Web. We’ve also connected our 1% page to Twitter for automatic updates. In addition to Members and Finalists, Facebook has been broadly embraced by the Jackson Hole community, helping us spread the word through this network. We encourage you to become a fan of (or “Like” — I still can’t quite embrace this new parlance) 1% for the Tetons on Facebook.

So far so good. We’ve raised almost $60,000 so far, and perhaps the biggest part of the battle is getting the last of the Member business donations in and allocated. But we’ve never expected Members to complete all the funding this year and we’re relying on you, oh generous public, to help us bridge the gap. So, as a Member of 1% for the Tetons and part of the awareness-building team, I invite and encourage you to help us “Fund Our Future” here in the Tetons region and support the grant project or projects of your choice. And here’s to a successful campaign!

Social media marketing is obviously very hot right now, and the interest Wyoming businesses are taking in this topic is understandably high.

Wyoming is a business-friendly state and one with a high number of small businesses. A big reason for this is that there just aren’t a lot of people in this fairly large state. The population is quite dispersed, even around some of the larger cities and towns, with many people being spread out around and between communities. And many of the state’s businesses rely on people very far away to be their customers. Some of these businesses are based here because they could be based anywhere yet the tax structure and quality of life are quite favorable. (That is certainly the case here in Jackson Hole.) And some of these businesses rely on tourism by people from all around the world. (Also the case here in JH.) And because of this, these businesses recognize the importance of being found online.

So, for someone like me, the opportunity to share my knowledge and meet people who are genuinely interested in what I do is a great one. As an added bonus, I was interviewed by a reporter from Casper’s channel 13 news. Thanks to everyone who worked hard to put on this event and to those of you who attended. It was a pleasure meeting all of you.

If anyone wants to view the slides from either of my two presentations (including my presentation on email marketing, which was not presented), you can view or download them at the temporary page on my dev site (to be launched very soon!): www.twistoflime.biz/seminar-presentations/.

And if you’d like to see the news report about the Idea Expo, you can view it below. Enjoy!

Facebook Connect is the latest gem to make a difference in social networking.

There’s been a fair bit of speculation about just how much more sociability and interactivity the new Facebook Connect application will have around ye ole Internets since its announcement last year and now quite a bit more since its launch in December. Well, here at MarketGreener we’ve been playing around with it and finally got it to work across multiple platforms. It seems there are some extra special complexities in Internet Explorer (no surprise there), but I’m no programmer and even I got it working.

After digging around a bit, I found and implemented two different fb Connect plugins for WordPress. The one I’m employing here is Sociable’s Facebook Connect Plugin I’m not going to walk you through installation ’cause you can do that there. But I’m pretty excited about the social and marketing implications of this type of interconnectivity.

So, I’m throwing this post out there for two reasons:

1. Blatant self-promotion. “Hey, look at me and what I did!” OK, now that that’s over…
2. If you are a Facebook member and a MarketGreener reader, please take a moment to see how Facebook Connect works for you.

There are a couple of ways you can interact with Connect here on MarketGreener:

1. Connect via the “Connect with Facebook” button over there on the right. Your profile pic should show up above the button and in the “Latest Visitors” box below it.
2. You can also use the “Share” button at the bottom of the individual post page. Unfortunately it’s not showing up in the most obvious place right now, but I’ll be working on that.

I would greatly appreciate any feedback any of you, dear readers, might have. I’ve tried it out on a PC and Mac on IE (not on the Mac), Firefox and Safari and all seems pretty good so far. Even seen stuff showing up well on my Facebook page.

Once you’ve done that, feel free to check out the use of the other plugin I’m trying out over on Wyoming22. This site isn’t quite fleshed out yet, but I’m trying to get enough posts up there for a formal launch by, uh, well, at least before the end of ski season. Over there I’ve employed the WP-FacebookConnect plugin developed by Adam Hupp.  It works a little differently in that it should allow you to leave a comment while utilizing your Facebook account instead of logging in to Wyoming22. I’m not sure it’s configured correctly, but give it a try and let me know what you think.

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If you’re not already familiar with it, 1% for the Planet is a non-profit organization that encourages businesses to give one percent of their gross income (yep, that’s right, “gross” — give ’til it hurts, baby!) to environmental causes. It was started by Yvon Chouinard, founder Patagonia, and Craig Mathews, owner of Blue Ribbon Flies, and is in the process of becoming a force of its own.

Well, to make a long story short (so you can get on with the video), my business, Twist of Lime, is a member of 1% for the Tetons, based here in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and the only “regional” 1% chapter in the country. As it happens, 1% for the Tetons members are also 1% for the Planet members, and I’ve been doing some marketing work for 1% for the Tetons so I’ve been paying attention to what the Planet folks are doing these days. And they’re doing some pretty cool stuff. So, take a moment to check out this video and then share it with others. They’ve done a smash-up job offering lots of ways for you to share in hopes this baby will go viral. Click the link below to see the video and enjoy!

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Are these people in your social network or just from another bad Web site template?

But how many social networks should you be a part of? Experts agree on a few rules of thumb when it comes to online social networking.

Don’t spread yourself too thin.
There are a bunch of social networking sites out there. A quick Google search for “business networking sites” turned up 81,700,000 results, and there are several easily found articles on the top 50 social networking sites for whatever you want to do online. But let’s just focus on the professional ones.

Arguably LinkedIn has the corner on this market, but a few others are vying for second place including Plaxo, Ryze, Xing and Biznik. Others include MySolutionSpot, Spoke, Ecademy, YorZ, and Networking For Professionals. And then there are those that are better described as business and employee search engines such as Zoominfo and Jigsaw.

Personally, I use Facebook and LinkedIn fairly regularly. In addition, I’ve set up pages on MySpace and Plaxo, which unfortunately are languishing right now. Which brings me to the point: don’t spread yourself too thin. Yes, there are all these sites out there that you can network across, but unless you have time to network 24/7+, you’ll probably just want to focus on the one or two that are most effective for you and easiest to keep up with.

Professional vs. Personal
We all know the lines between professional and personal can easily become blurred. The same is true online, perhaps even more so. My LinkedIn page is strictly professional, but while my Facebook page is heavily weighted toward the personal side, I often delve into the professional realm with my updates, pages I’ve set up, and the applications I use. And while I appreciate the personal social interaction Facebook provides, I’m conservative with my activities (not to be confused with politically conservative) and choose not to engage in snowball fights or do the bidding of Werewolves.

Macro vs. Micro Social Networks
There is some chatter out there that “macro” social networking sites like the ones I’ve listed above are soon to be a thing of the past as people begin engaging in even smaller and smaller online communities. While I understand the concept of providing social users with a more focused and engaging experience and I agree that these networking sites are very much in their infancy, the jury is still out on how the sphere of social networking will evolve into the micro-engagement experience of the future.

So, for now keep your online networking focused and engaged, and you’ll be there and ready when the tide starts to turn, which it will likely do quickly and probably more than once.

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]]> http://www.twistoflime.biz/marketgreener/social-media/3-tips-for-online-business-networking/feed/ 0 http://www.twistoflime.biz/marketgreener/social-media/blog-action-day-fights-poverty-with-huge-social-media-lever/ http://www.twistoflime.biz/marketgreener/social-media/blog-action-day-fights-poverty-with-huge-social-media-lever/#comments Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:12:28 +0000 Chris http://marketgreener.com/?p=159 How can social marketing make an impact on the impoverished? That’s the question I’m asking for Blog Action Day’s topic this year of “Poverty.”. There are millions of places online where you can read about and act to diminish poverty. From Kiva to the Gates Foundation, organizations are harnessing the power of the many online to help their cause. And of course it’s not just for poverty. There are plenty of causes.

So, not to belittle the need to stamp out poverty, but I thought I’d use a local example of an off line “long tail” that I know the Jackson Hole businesses and non-profit (the 200+ of them that there are in our community of just over 20,000 people) community can relate to to help understand how the online long tail can make a difference for their cause, whatever it may be.

Here in Jackson Hole we have one of the most effective community foundations in the country, the Community Foundation of Jackson Hole. They have been able to tap into the wealth of those who have come here with their millions and combine it with the philanthropic capabilities of well-meaning but very average middle-class who make up the bulk of the community here. They have hit upon the long tail of giving within an effective, caring yet fairly small community. In only eleven years, through the generosity of this community alone via the Old Bill’s Fun Run for Charities, they have raised over $53.5 million, and that’s not counting the projected $5+ million from this year’s Old Bill’s that hasn’t been announced yet.

And they do this entirely through local, offline, analog marketing efforts. But it is a great example of the socialness of this fundraising event. Imagine what they could do if they took their marketing online. While their argument might be that they don’t need to, because they are only targeting those here in the community and they are able to reach them in traditional ways. However, that’s not to say their effectiveness couldn’t be increased via online marketing. But their real strength is in matching funds raised by the community with larger donations from wealthy individuals.

Now let’s take this model online. It’s nothing new; dozens, if not hundreds, of non-profits and individuals are doing it. But you need to have more than just an Internet presence. Every one of these organizations has a Web site (or should), but that’s just the base and not the end-all for the marketing that can and should be done on line.

The next step is in creating awareness and initiating conversations. And the social networks are a great place to do this. Plenty are already at it. The ones that are doing a good job have developed a presence on social media sites. Using today’s topic as an example, a search for “poverty” on Facebook returned no fewer than 500 results (though after the first three pages, most were individuals), MySpace returned nearly 280,000 results (again, many are individuals who have shown an interest in the subject by posting or linking to something related), Digg returned pages (though no specific number is given), and Google returned over seventy-and-a-half million results. Obviously, with these kinds of numbers for a single cause-related topic, the need to have your voice heard above the din is huge.

And what a great thing Blog Action Day has done in leveraging thousands of bloggers to speak out about one topic. The real test will be to see what comes of it. I have no doubt that poverty-related causes will see a spike in giving today. It would be great to see some statistics. I’m sure it will be on a scale that eclipses my example of the Community Foundation of Jackson Hole’s Old Bill’s Fun Run.

So, what is my point? Build and leverage your audience. Whether your cause is poverty or other human service needs or environmental or whatever, the potential for harnessing not just thousands, but millions of individuals online is staggering. Build a network, nourish it, keep it happy, and you could have a success on your hands.

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