By Suzi Dafnis, Australian Businesswomen’s Network

Crowdsourcing, or “sourcing your crowd” for input and solutions, is a great way to engage your audience and invite customers to co-create products and services.

For example, we have a webinar series called BOOKED for Lunch where once a month we interview a best-selling business book author.

When we first had the idea for the series, we put a message out on Twitter and Facebook that said, “We have a new series and we’re looking for a name.”

We explained the new series and asked our audience for input about the name. People sent it about 15 different ideas; then we picked the top seven or eight and created an online survey where people could vote the name they like best. “BOOKED for Lunch” won by a landslide – and it was actually a suggestion made by a member. (So, as a bonus we were able to acknowledge and promote the member for her contribution in creating this new series!)

If you’re on the verge of launching a new product or service, consider crowdsourcing. It’s a great way to get feedback from the people who matter most: your customers! You’ll be surprised how willing and generous people will be if you engage them in what you’re doing.

Crowdsourcing tips

1. Asking a question and getting responses is not actually crowdsourcing. When you ask the question, go back and get the votes on the ideas. Now you are really harnessing the power of the crowd.
2. While social networks weren’t created for crowdsourcing, they can be a great source of feedback and input. Those that participate in social networks tend to be willing to tell you what they think. Your job is to ask the right questions.
3. People will respond to a crowdsourcing request if it’s clear what is in it for them. So, let them know. Is it recognition, a better service for them, monetary exchange? It doesn’t matter which, people appreciate being informed.

One of the best books I’ve read on the subject of crowdsourcing is Aliza Sherman’s The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Crowdsourcing. Aliza was our guest on the BOOKED for Lunch author series and we discussed this book.

Other resources:

• Tips for designing an effective survey (audio interview)
• Tribe Talk – How to conduct effective market research with customers (webinar)

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By Nerida Gill, Admin Bandit

If social networking is the new frontier of small business, then Facebook must surely be the wagon that gets us there. However, showing up and staking a claim isn’t enough; you’ve got to work that claim to unearth any riches.

I’ve been optimising my own Admin Bandit fan page over the last few months and here’s what I’m learning.

Use applications to make your page different

“Customisation” is the Facebook buzz word right now. What it means is that you can modify the look and functionality of your fan page… and you don’t need to be an IT geek to do it. All you need is one of the many templates available online (the basic ones are free, while the more advanced attract a monthly fee) — setting it up is like painting by numbers.

For example, I used Lujure to create my “welcome” tab, which is the first thing non-fans see when they go to my page. I’ve added a banner, photograph, Twitter feed, testimonials and a link to a 55-day free trial of my accounting software.

A friend who runs a small saddlery on Facebook used Pagemodo to create her “welcome” tab. Compare the two to see just how flexible customisation applications are; the same basic technology has created two “welcome” tabs that are chalk and cheese.

Of course, you don’t need to stick to a single application. Horse Feathers Saddlery used Payvment to create a Facebook store, complete with an inventory function and a check-out linked to Paypal.

Just as exciting is how easy customisation applications are to find. The best ways are to check out the fan pages of other businesses in your industry, especially your competitors or do a Google search.

How to attract fans

Ah, this is where the rubber hits the road for fan pages… getting people to “like” you.

Let me say upfront that attracting fans is not a popularity contest — all fans, whether they purchase or not, have the potential to share quality content and boost your social proof; that is, your credibility and influence.

Start with the marketing basics:

• Add your Facebook address to your stationery, including your email signature, blog and website
• Regularly link to your fan page in electronic communications, especially blog posts and e-newsletters
• Give people reasons to “like” you. Make the benefits clear, such as special offers, free resources or sneak previews
• Ask. It sounds too good to be true, but “plugs” and requests through your personal Facebook page really work!

Apart from buying fans (yes, believe it or not, you can!), a competition or giveaway is the best way to get a sudden influx of fans, up to a couple of hundred at a time, especially the more elusive kind that you don’t personally know. However, Facebook has specific guidelines on hosting anything that comes under the “promotion” banner, so make sure you’re familiar with what you can and can’t do, and toe the line because I know people who have been unwittingly caught and temporarily suspended!

Viral marketing requires more work and doesn’t bring the same instant fix, but it does offer a sustained trickle for steady, long-term growth of fans genuinely interested in your business, not just the lure of a freebie.

In case you don’t know, viral marketing is about increasing awareness of your brand using pre-existing social networks. In the case of Facebook, it means regularly and actively participating in other fan pages, where you’ll meet and attract like-minded people. The really cool part is that every time you leave a comment or tag another user in a comment, you appear in at least one person’s news feeds, which puts you in view of that person’s entire network. Now, that offers possibilities!

So, which fan pages do you head to? The easy answer is to start with those related to your industry and expertise. For example, my business is part of the non-profit, accounting and IT industries, so you’ll see a stack of community, non-profit, philanthropy, IT and small business groups and peak bodies in my list of “likes”.

How to engage your fans

Getting conversations started is probably the biggest Facebook struggle for any small business. And it seems no expert or study has a fool-proof solution… yet.

Until anyone knows for sure, here are some ideas to try:

• Be human: share the bad with good, post photos of your office, life and day
• Don’t over-think your posts; say whatever pops into your head (within reason!)
• Ask for opinions and experiences, but make your questions quick and easy to answer
• Appeal to the emotions… people often respond to humour or injustice
• Thank people for simply being your fans
• Mix business and fun: I posted a photo of my dog at Christmas and my team at a convention with a spy theme
• Post regularly, BUT….
• Post quality over quantity: useful links, information, advice, famous quotes
• Tag people when you post about them or respond to comments
• Host Facebook events, such as sales, workshops, Q and A sessions
• Finally, look at super popular fan pages… what do they do?

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By Michele Connolly, Get Organized Wizard

Everyone talks about the benefits of social media. You can get Google juice. You can build your reputation. You can position yourself as an expert in your field.

But the prospect of producing all that social media content can be daunting to many of us – especially if we already have busy business lives.

How do we get around to doing all that posting, tweeting and status-updating?

One smart solution is to create a social media schedule. This allows you to turn your social media activities into a habit. You slot the tasks into regular blocks in your business life.

Here’s how you can do it.

How To Create a Social Media Schedule

First, plan your social media output around frequency. There are certain tasks you’ll do daily, others weekly, some monthly, and maybe a few each year.

Daily

It’s very important to respond to people in your online social networks. Before you think about putting stuff out there, be sure to acknowledge anyone who’s taken the time to communicate with you.

So each day:

• Reply to comments on your blog – I have two blogs (52WeightLossMissions.com and GetOrganizedWizard.com), so I allow a little more time here
• Reply to comments on your Facebook page (here I’m talking about your professional page rather than your personal profile)
• Reply to tweets to your Twitter profile
• Thank people who have retweeted you
• Reply to comments on LinkedIn or other social media sites.

Once you’ve listened and responded to other people, you can think about what you want to say.

How prolific you are on social media sites depends on your network.

I tweet anytime I have something interesting to share because Twitter is about real-time communication. I share links, post observations, reply to other people, retweet interesting stuff, link to my own blogs – anything that might interest or amuse my followers can go into my stream.

I post less often on Facebook because it’s less real-time and easier to overwhelm people. I vary the frequency, but typically post three times a week. Aim for a combination of links to your own blog posts, links to other sites that may interest your network, and general comments, ideas or observations.

I’ve linked my LinkedIn account to Twitter, so my tweets automatically show up there. I’ve done this because Linked In has been a lower priority network for me so far. If you’re involved in HR, LinkedIn may be a higher priority for you.

I allow about an hour each day to do these tasks. Some days I get away with less, other days it’s much more.

Next time: How to Create a Social Media Schedule – Part 2

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By Suzi Dafnis, Australian Businesswomen’s Network

I often speak with small business owners about the value in using social media and some of them respond with social media myths, stories that are just not true. These myths are an unnecessary obstruction that prevents them from implementing the power of social media in their business.

The common myths I hear are that social media is too time-consuming, that it’s just a distraction from doing business.

The myth that I hear most often, and which I want to address today – is that it’s hard to justify the ROI.

How to get a good ROI from your social media activity

Social media use in business should always be tied to specific targets and objectives.

Doing good business means getting a good return on your investment of time and energy.

If you’re spending time on social media sites without a clear goal, then you may very well be wasting time and creating a distraction.

Some people seem to have a hard time justifying the use of social media, just as some people found it difficult to justify having a business website ten years ago.

But you CAN set goals and measure results to justify the ROI.

Let’s start here:

What is your goal? Do you want to increase your number of follows? Increase sales for a particular item? Increase the number of comments left on your blog?

You can measure and quantify how your social media activity impacts those goals.

Put in place some measures, take some action using social media and see what happens. If nothing happens, it’s probably not ‘social media’ at fault. Perhaps there’s more for you to learn about how to use it effectively.

Two more social media myths

Here are two more myths I often hear.

MYTH: Social media is time consuming.

Social media doesn’t have to be time-consuming. It’s wonderful to offer free, valuable content to your audience, but you don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel. You can save time by repurposing your existing content and disseminating it through different channels.

For example, we repost our top newsletter articles on our blog and link to them from social media sites. Our newsletter is like the backbone of our social media activity for the week. Once the newsletter is complete, our blog posts and tweets for the rest of the week are already scheduled.

Because we’re organised and efficient in repurposing content, we don’t have to spend a lot of time creating fresh content for social media.

MYTH: Social media is a distraction from doing real business.

If your social media activity is tied to specific business goals, it makes sense to spend the time required to get the results. You don’t have use every social media tool. You may be able to use just one tool and create all the results you want.

But FIRST you need to know what the tool does so that you know if it will get you the result you need.

If you come to see social media as the way you interface with customers and prospects, you’ll never see it as a distraction – you’ll see it as the never-before-available-and-wonderfully-effective opportunity that it is.

Of course, all of these myths could be true – but not if you’re using social media wisely.

Social media is the way people communicate. If your business is not using social media, then you’re missing out on the conversation, and you’re missing out on multiple opportunities to engage customers.

Are there other myths that you hear about that you think should be debunked? Let us know by adding a comment.

If you’re looking to improve your social media prowess, you may find our Social Media for Small Business podcast series helpful. Each 30-minute episode gives you tips and tricks for using social media. Available on our website and also on iTunes so that you can enjoy it anytime, anywhere.

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By Belinda Weaver, Copywrite Matters

7 minutes isn’t a terribly long time.

You could make a cup of tea, return a phone call or enjoy a quick walk around the block.

But what if I told you that in just 420 seconds you could optimise your latest blog post or webpage so that Google (and your readers) love it?

1. Choose one main theme in two or three words

If you strive to write content that search engines love, then step 1 is to make each page easy to digest. When you cover lots of topics in a single blog post, article or webpage, your copywriting can look a bit like a pile of books on the floor (to search engines that is).

Choose a main theme to your page or blog post, and stick to it. If you can think of related topics, break them out into more posts or subpages.

2. Do a quick search for the best keywords

Keywords are the words and phrases people use to find solutions online, so if you want your blog posts to be found, you need to use the same words and phrases as your audience!

Google has a free keyword tool that will show you words and phrases that are being searched on and how popular they are. Start by putting in terms relating to your main topic. Ideally you want phrases that have high traffic and low competition.

3. Use your keywords in your headline and any subheadings

To boost your SEO, you need to get smart and use your keywords strategically. One of the ways you can do this is in your headlines and subheadings. Try and use your keywords at the start of your headlines and subheadings, but always keep your reader in mind.

If it feels like you’re pushing a round peg into a square hole, then choose readability over optimisation!

4. Convert long paragraphs into lists

Search engines love bullet and numbered lists and pay particular attention to them. This naturally means your lists are valuable locations for your keywords, especially the first two words of each list.

Lists will also make your web pages and blog posts easier to read which is good news for your audience (and happy readers are good news for you!)

5. Create links between pages and use your keywords

Creating links between your pages has a few benefits. Links make it easy for your readers to navigate around your site, which in turns keeps them hanging around for longer. More importantly, from an SEO point of view, search engines pay particular attention to links making them the ideal location for your keywords.

6. Run your copy through Wordle.net

While there are several ways to use your keywords strategically, using them frequently is also important. One of the hardest elements of SEO copywriting can be striking a balance between using your keywords frequently and still sounding natural.

Wordle.net will show you a word cloud of your page with the most commonly used words in larger font. You will quickly get a sense of whether or not you need to do more optimisation work, but always keep your reader in mind!

7. Use your keywords in the page title and description tags

Another strategic use of your keywords is in your page title and description tags. Search engines use these metatags as clues about your content so they are prime candidates for a little keyword love.

The page title and descriptions tags also determine the text that appears when search results are displayed, which means they are like ads for your site.

So there you have it. 7 ways you can optimise your online copywriting in just 7 minutes. If you ever think about SEO as “something you’ll get to grips with one day”, remember all you need is 7 minutes!

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By Suzi Dafnis, Australian Businesswomen’s Network

A brand advocate is a satisfied customer who promotes your brand for you. Think of brand advocates as unpaid marketing reps. In fact, brand advocates don’t even necessarily have to be customers; they may just be people who share social media content that you’ve created.

Because social media encourages interaction and participation among your customer base, you can use social media to create brand advocates. When people share your content on Facebook, for instance, they’re essentially endorsing your brand.

You can create brand advocates by energising your customer base.

Offer free, useful content to your audience. Provide stellar customer service and take every opportunity to engage your customers. If someone posts on your Facebook page, reply to their message as soon as possible and try to open up the conversation to others. If someone replies to your Tweet, thank them quickly and engage them in a conversation that will grow and vitalise your online community.

It’s easier now than ever before for people to tell us when they love us – and it’s just as easy for people to tell us when they’re not happy with us. Pay attention to both types of messages. Criticism is valuable to your brand because it gives you a chance to interact and put it straight. You can ignore criticism, which is bad PR. Or you could shoot back with a negative attitude, which is bad PR. Or you could take the opportunity to impress people by taking the issue seriously. Some of the most valuable brand advocates are those who see that you’re willing to resolve issues for customers.

Now, there are some people known as “trolls” who have no real criticisms; they only want to attack others online. Just ignore the trolls. They’ll go away when they realise they’re not getting attention.

Focus on energising your brand advocates and they’ll do the work for you.

Do you have tips for creating brand advocates through social media? We’d love to hear from you. Add to comments and let us know.

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By Belinda Weaver, Copywrite Matters

The ABN Masterclasses are small-group sessions that focus on specific member issues and offer practical advice in a hands-on way. I was honoured to present the very first Masterclass in December 2011, focusing on how to use copywriting to improve the performance of business websites.

If you couldn’t log into the live Masterclass or you haven’t watched the recording, here are the best tips on making your website copywriting more effective and engaging.

Copywriting Health Check Stage 1: Your credibility

When someone lands at your website, they get an instant impression about how reputable your business is. The look and feel of your website plays a big part in that critical first impression, but the types of pages you have also communicate a lot about your credibility.

To create the right impression, your website should have:

• Pages about your products or services
• An About page introducing yourself and/or your business
• Pages that show you’ve worked with other clients (like testimonials or case studies pages)
• A reasonably detailed contact page

All of these pages work together to tell me that you are a real and credible business.

Copywriting Health Check Stage 2: Every page essentials

Every page needs: to back up your value proportion

I call this your simple truth and it is the real benefit you offer your customers (when you get past the marketing speak and industry jargon). To work out your simple truth, imagine describing your business to someone you’ve never met. In response to your fantastically detailed explanation they say, “so what?” You dig a bit deeper. They say, “so what?” When you continue this imaginary conversation, you will eventually get to the simple truth behind what you offer the world.

Every page needs: to answer “what’s in it for me?”

This is the question your website visitors are asking from the moment they arrive on your website. Rather than simply describing what your business does, remember to link your services back to the reasons your website visitor is looking for a solution. How are you making their life better?

Every page needs: a headline

Your headline is the attention grabber for your page. As prime real estate, it’s useful to focus on the key benefit you offer and your main keywords. Imagine if your visitor read nothing else on the page, what is the most important thing they need to know? Another great tip is to make your page headline specific. If your headline would make sense in any other industry, there is an opportunity to make it more specific to your business.

Every page needs: a call to action

A call to action simply instructs your website visitor to perform an action. While you might think it’s obvious that you want people to email you for more information, register for your event or download your free report – a specific call to action will improve your response rate. Make your call to action clearly visible and actionable.

Copywriting Health Check Stage 3: Language and Readability

Once you know your key marketing messages and the benefits your target audience will care about, you can look at the way you communicate those messages. How well your audience understands your message is the key to action and fancy, formal language can sometimes do you more harm than good.

Here are some tips on making your copywriting easy to read and understand:

• Imagine speaking directly to a single person and write like you speak
• Keep your paragraphs relatively short and focused on one idea
• Vary the lengths of your sentences to create a changing rhythm
• Use whitespace to some breathing room around your copy
• Break up long sections of copy with subheadings and lists

Remember, always keep your simple truth in mind and make sure your website copywriting answers the question: what’s in it for me? Oh, and don’t forget those headlines and call to actions!

You can download the live Masterclass now and see my Copywriting Health Check applied to three member sites (along with more tips for effective website copywriting).

By Suzi Dafnis, Australian Businesswomen’s Network

Whether you want to keep up with what’s happening in your industry or collect feedback from your customers, social media makes it easy to conduct business research.

Facebook now has an “Ask a Question” function, which makes it easy to survey your audience. If you’d like to send out a more complex survey, there are several websites where you can create a free survey, such as surveymonkey.com.

You can then place a link to that survey in your social networks – on Twitter, Facebook and LInkedIn, as well as Google+.

Easy research tips for:

• Twitter: Ask a poll question that just requires a simple reply. For a more complex survey, include a link to your survey on Twitter.
• Facebook: Use the Ask A Question function for polls. Link to a longer survey (set up in another program).
• Google+: Same as above for Facebook
• LinkedIn: Use the ANSWERS section of LinkedIn to asks your question. There is room to ask a complex question and LinkedIn users pride themselves on answer questions and being perceived as thought leaders and experts. You can also award the best answer as winner, adding clout to that user’s profile.

In early 2010, we were looking to name a new webinar series in which we’d feature best-selling business book authors. This series, now known as BOOKED for Lunch, was named when, after running a survey on Facebook members suggested names which we then put to a poll. BOOKED for Lunch came out on top and we thank member Linda Fairbairn for the suggestion of what is now a very popular series of webinars.

What sort of research can you do on Social Media?

Pretty much anything. As long as you don’t mind it being public.

I find that community members are happy to contribute if asked questions the answers from which they will also benefit. e.g., Ask them how you can improve your products and services or what new products/services they’d like to see?

So, go ahead and ask:

• Which logo do they like best?
• What’s a great name for a new product?
• What can you do to help them?
• What’s their opinion on an issue or topic relevant to your industry or business?

Be sure to thank and reply to all that respond!

Keep it simple

Keep your research simple. Social media moves so quickly and is often scanned rather than read. So, keep your questions simple and to the point. If you get a lot of interest, but need more depth in answers, you can always approach those who have shown interest and ask for more participation.

Do it well

And, if you want expert advice in structuring your survey questions then I recommend you contact Kate Tribe of Tribe Research who advises the Australian Businesswomen’s Network.

Researching competitor activity

Some business research doesn’t require active participation on your part. If you want to know what your competitors are doing, join their social media groups and watch as a passive spectator.

Start listening, and reap the rewards

Research is really all about listening. What are people saying about my brand? Are my customers satisfied? What are my competitors saying? What are the latest trends in the industry? Social media is an invaluable tool for listening.

Social Media is a great way to get quick feedback. So, go ahead and try it.

Had some success with research and social media? Comment and let us know.

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By Suzi Dafnis, Australian Businesswomen’s Network

If you’ve explored our website or attended any of our events, you might think that the Australian Businesswomen’s Network (ABN) is a large organisation — but we’re not. We’re a small business, a small team of six people on a good day. And the six of us have to cater to clients all over Australia because women in business are in country towns, rural areas, urban areas and overseas. They’re not always available to come to events, so we had to make our education and information available to them.

Because of this need to make our information widely available and easily accessible, we were very early adopters of many different technologies, and now we train our community of businesswomen to use that technology.

We rely on technology because we don’t have a lot of resources.

I’m sure that a lot of you can appreciate that. We have a small team, with one of our staff actually based in the U.S. and an off-site advisory board, so we need to be able to communicate, share files and collaborate efficiently, sometimes in real time.

We rely on technology to manage our inventory. We need to communicate with our clients every week because 16,500 women rely on us to give them new information about education and resources. As a business owner, I use technology to make sure that I’m updating my skills and have the right information to run my business.

I had the pleasure of attending the largest technology conference in the world this year, South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, where 19,000 attendees shared the latest technologies. I came back with so many great ideas about new technologies that can be used in small business. But so many people are not taking advantage of the most helpful technology: the basic website. For most businesses nowadays, if you don’t have an online presence, you do not exist. If I search for and cannot find you using Google or any other search engine, then you don’t exist for me.

The Internet has changed the way we communicate with our clients.

People expect us to be able to comment on what we’re doing, to collaborate with them and to acknowledge their opinions. We can’t just broadcast to them; you have to give them the opportunity to give feedback. In this way, you can co-create your business with your clients.

At the ABN, we use an online editable website to collaborate on projects, so anyone on our staff can edit it and add content on a moment’s notice, from anywhere. We use YouTube to provide training videos on small business subjects, have our own Facebook page where we provide interesting articles and community updates, a Twitter account, as well as two iTunes channels where we publish podcasts: Social Media for Small Business and herBusiness – Insights for Women in Business. We use a lot of different devices and gadgets and we try to integrate them to give our clients multiple paths to the same destination. Technology allows us to connect with clients, educate ourselves and grow our business.

At this point in history, the question is not: “Should I be using these technologies in my business?” but rather: “How quickly can I adapt the most relevant technologies to grow my business?”

Start with a basic website, then use all those other social media tools to drive traffic to your website. From there, you can start to generate new leads and then communicate with those leads.

For new users, technology may be daunting.

I’m not really a tech-savvy person, but my business goals demand that I use new technologies. When I’m confused or overwhelmed, I may outsource a project to meet my goals. So, if you’re not tech-savvy (like me), don’t let that stop you from taking advantage of all the wonderful technologies available to increase your business.

Go to Google, start researching technologies relevant to your business and you’ll eventually come across a community of individuals in a similar position, looking for the same information. That’s how the ABN has developed into what it is today!

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By Amy Lyden, Australian Businesswomen’s Network Advocacy Advisor

I had the pleasure of attending a Charity: Water event last week. Paull Young, the young passionate Aussie who just HAD to work for this organisation when he came across them, presented to a group of about 50 people in Sydney.

You may have heard of Charity: Water, especially if you are active on Twitter and other social media. Charity: Water has very successfully trail blazed new ways of fundraising and getting their story out to millions of people globally through the clever use of technology and social media strategies. Whether you are working for a charity or own your own business, there is much to be learnt from how they do things.

How Charity: Water Started

Charity: Water started five years ago when its young founder, Scott Harrison travelled to Africa and saw first hand the terrible plight of so many without the most basic of human needs – water. When he returned to NYC and a friend bought him a $16 martini, he realised that that same $16 could have fed a family in Africa or built a well. He then decided that if more people understood what was needed, the world could be changed. He then founded Charity: Water.

The facts about water

• Out of the seven billion people living on the planet, one billion people do not have access to drinking water. Without seeing and experiencing this, it is hard for the people who do have water (and always have) to imagine what life would be like for these one billion people.
• 2.6 billion people lack access to basic sanitation – toilets, running water, etc
• This is a major cause of preventable disease. 40,000 kids die every day because of lack of access to clean water and sanitation. Not having a “tap and toilet” kills more people than all the wars around the world every year.
• In Africa alone, people spend 40 billion hours every year just walking for water. Usually it is women and children walking many kilometres to the nearest water source, and this water will likely make them sick.
• Charity: Water’s motto is “Water Changes Everything”. Simple, yet true. Not only does access to clean water (through taps and toilets) eliminate much disease, but also kids are able to go to school and entire communities can be transformed.
• $19 will fund a well. This is such small amount that will make such a huge difference to people without access to water – the price of a cocktail or two in a major city.

Online Philanthropy

“Technology changes everything”. Charity: Water does almost all of its fundraising online. It’s clever use of social media to raise money has certainly been its strong suit. In February 2009, they raised $250,000 through Twestival. This was the largest amount ever raised by a charity online.

Twitter: Charity: Water was first on twitter in 2007 with a few hundred followers (that was like rock-star status in those days), and now they have over 1.3 million followers!

Facebook: Over 200,000 likes.

Online Campaigns

Charity: Water doesn’t ask for money, it asks for fundraisers – people to raise money for them. And they have clever campaigns around this premise. One example is the “Give up your birthday for clean water” campaign. People raise money on their birthday and ask friends and family to make a donation instead of buying them a gift. Genius.

We already have more than we need – right? This is all done online and the technology makes it easy to set this up. We are seeing a lot of charities making use of this now, for example “Everyday Hero”, whereby a fundraiser (individual) can set up an online presence to track the donations etc. This is becoming very common particularly for fun runs and other events like “Movember”.

Stats for Charity: Water’s Online Campaigns

Average amount raised by a fundraiser: $1,000
Average campaign: 13 donors, average donation $80.

Charity: Water then emails all donors to show where and when the wells went. They send them links to googlemaps which actually shows the locations of the wells. Their model is that for every $1 spent, $8 is raised. That’s leverage.

A Winning Model

Paull Young says the culture of Charity: Water “Feels more like a tech start up than a charity.” They have raised $26 million so far, and 75% was raised through digital models, more than any other charity using these models. They are experiencing 100%+ growth. And they are just warming up. They have a big hairy audacious goal to raise $2 billion by 2020 (yes, $2 BILLION).

Some tips from Charity: Water

1. Start with your story and make it their story.
2. Show them where there money goes. Charity: Water uses googlemaps with GPS to show exactly where the wells were built.
3. Use pictures. Charity: Water posts a “picture a day.” Pictures showing the sheer joy that water can bring to people. Real people. They believe in showing people the impact of their giving. Show by photos and share the stories of the people they impact. Show them where their money goes.
4. Use narrative – sharing stories. One African woman named Helen said that now that she has water she feels beautiful, because for the first time in her life she can wash herself. Now THAT is powerful story sharing.
5. Demonstrate the impact to the donor. Because you donated $30, this well (picture) was built in this location (googlemaps). Helen’s family (picture of Helen’s family) now has access to running water.

We are lucky enough to live in an age where our message can be reached by millions (and potentially billions) of people. Before the ubiquitous use of technology, mobile phones etc this simply was not possible without spending ungodly amounts of money. Today anyone can do this by utilising technology. The key is to have a compelling message that truly speaks to people around the world.

Charity: Water has done this well so far in their short life. And I would bet that with passionate people like Paull Young involved they will get their big hairy audacious goal of raising $2 billion by 2020 and then some.

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