1) Buy ads. You can target your cause very specifically on Facebook. Then add pay per click, just like you would do on Google. BlitzLocal recommends a small ad budget, but using Google Grants as a primary vehicle to drive people to your website is a great idea. Then have a ‘like’ box there.

2) Get a ‘like’ box on your site. If you hit “edit page” and go to the bottom right, you will see an option for “promote with a like box.” Grab the code there and paste it into your site.

3) Create a contest. As a condition of winning the prize, whatever it may be, require that fans write a comment of at least 30 words on why they deserve to win or whatever. For them to comment, they have to like the page.

4) Incentivized like tab. This is advanced stuff for programmers only. So if you know someone who understands FBML (or ask kindly and perhaps we will do it for you), you create a landing page that reveals the content behind it only if they click like. Think of it like a scratch off ticket. So have something attractive enough to stimulate action. See example here for Grameen Foundation.

5) Let your users participate. Most fan pages allow post by page only,which is the default option. Change that setting to “posts by pages and fans.” When people know they are allowed to participate, they will; their participation, in turn, notifies their friends’ notifications, which, in turn, bring those friends in.

6) Send a Facebook message. Little known option, but when you click ”edit page”, you can send a message to fans. This generates a real email, not a Facebook message. Whatever you do with your regular email program, so it will with Facebook.

7) Interact with users. Not just because it’s the polite thing to do, but because it increases your Post Quality Score, which then increases your prominence on the walls of your page’s fans. When you or a fan makes a comment or hits “like”, only a portion of friends will see it. That percentage is governed by how much interaction Facebook sees.

Choose a custom url. Go to Facebook.com/username to choose a url for your page. The option is available once you get to 25 fans. A short url is better than a numerical monstrosity, making it easier for fans to remember you and find you.

9) Mention your Facebook page in your other marketing efforts. The custom url helps. Place the url in your email signature line, business cards, brochures- even paint it on the side of your minivan! Print sticker with your logo and Facebook url below.

10) Cross-promote with sister organizations and those who endorse you. Did you know that pages can become fans of each other? Don’t go crazy here doing link farms and chains, but you might as well get every advantage you can get.

11) Update your Facebook page with your twitter and rss feeds (blog posts). We believe that if you post content once, it should be available everywhere. We are too lazy to have to manaually copy content to 15 other sites, so we use easy plugins and apps to do that. Likewise, meet users where they are, by making it convenient for them.

12) Get popular people to mention you on their wall. Did you know that if you post the full url of your page (which includes the http part), then it creates not only a blue clickable link, but also shows how many fans the page has? More fans means you look more popular, which means more people will check out what’s there.

13) Automatically invite all your friends: you aren’t actually clicking on every single friend you have when you hit “suggest to friends are you? Check out this article for a clever trick.

14) Say things that are controversial. Don’t be inflammatory or rude, but do pose charged issues that will bait people into expressing their opinion, thereby drawing people in. You might even seed the discussion or wall post by arranging in advance what side each of your team members will say, just to get things started.

Even more more important than the difference between Drupal and WordPress, is which of the two is the better choice for your nonprofit.

Both Drupal and WordPress are open source content management systems, meaning that technically both are free to use.

Drupal is a wonderful, customizable content management system that 1000s of organizations use effectively and successfully. However, for organizations without IT-experts, specifically coding experts, Drupal tends to be more challenging to use. The learning curve is a bit steeper, and it can be more frustrating for a non-IT expert to use.

So, if like a lot of nonprofits, you have neither the IT-expert nor the financial resources to hire one, we recommend WordPress. It is an easy program to use, easy to modify, easy to make your own.

You can upload your own logo, change colors, add e-commerce, keep track of your donors. In short, there’s not much you can’t do with WordPress.

In addition, WordPress links easily to Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites, ensuring that your nonprofit gets the exposure it needs. And deserves.

Please, do check out our nonprofit link for additional information on how to get the most from your Internet presence.

Find out what your audience is thinking

Unlike a physical meeting, you can’t read the body language of your participants during a web event. You need to pay attention to the little things, like the breathing (or snoring) on the other end to gauge your audience’s interest. Better yet you can ensure your audience is engaged early by using the interactive features you have available within your web conferencing service – Q&A, chat, and polling. Polling your audience is especially helpful as it can help you tailor your presentation to their needs, provide a way for them to interact during the event, and gather information that will help you with lead qualification. During training sessions you can also check their understanding and re-direct your presentation if your audience isn’t clear on something.

Best practices to follow

ReadyTalk is preparing to launch its new service, Web Meeting 6, which features robust polling functionality (you can try it out in our preview environment, see more below) so I thought I’d share a few tips I’ve learned. I checked in with Ken Molay, President of Webinar Success recently to get some of his recommendations as we’ve been building out our new service:

• When polling your audience, plan to incorporate at least 2-3 polls throughout an hour-long webinar – not closer than 10 minutes apart.
• When developing your questions, start with your overall goal in mind then create your polls; make sure this is done prior to the meeting – if you’re creating your polls during the meeting you are not paying attention to your audience.
• Make each question simple and direct – avoid using jargon and acronyms.
• Be careful of too much “dead air” while gathering results.
• Participants generally like to see results so be sure to follow up with a discussion about what the results mean or why your audience should care.

Types of questions

In Web Meeting 6, we will support six different question/response types:

• Yes/No
• Free text – use this choice when you don’t know all the possible answers
• Multiple choice with single answer and multiple choice with multiple answers– use when there are a finite number of answers
• Ranking poll – to rate things in relation to other things
• Opinion polls – to assess a person’s feelings about something

Creating a poll is simple using ReadyTalk’s polling tool; press a button and you can create a poll, save it and insert it as a slide. Polls are persistent so if you use the same one often it will be there when you need it. And if you need it to show up later during your presentation, simply drag and drop to reorder your slides.

Polls versus surveys

Is there a difference between polls and surveys? Sure is. Polls are quick, flexible questions – often served one at a time; surveys are longer, more complex, and sometimes probing. Use polls during your event (don’t forget to share your results) and surveys at the end.

Check out our polling feature

If you’re an existing ReadyTalk customer, you can try out our polling feature using your current account information at http://www.readytalk.com/preview. If you don’t have an account, sign up for a free trial and you’ll get exclusive access to our Preview environment.

In the next few months the ReadyTalk Webinar Series will offer a three-part series on planning, meeting and sharing your web event. The second in the series will focus exclusively on engaging your audience during a meeting or event using polling and other similar strategies. Registered participants will receive a white paper outlining best practices so watch for more information coming soon.

Meanwhile, try out our new functionality and let me know what you think. I’d also be interested in hearing how you use polls to engage your audience.

I’m switching it up this month in honor of the impending, or rather already bustling Holiday madness, and sending out a bit of Yuletide humor. Please feel free to sing out loud to the tune of Silent Night. You’ll likely get so caught up in the festiveness of the song, your co-workers may start to sing along. See – the rhyming has already begun.

From the ReadyTalk Crew to You!

Silent night, late work night
All is calm now, I just might
Wrap it up at the office for now
These to-do’s seem fairly mild
I’ll sleep in heavenly peace
Sleep in heavenly peace

(…two hours later)
What a night, crazy night!
I start to quake at the sight
These papers are slowly piling up,
I need a larger coffee cup!
My Outlook box is cursed
Outlook is certainly cursed!

(…three hours later)
Infinite night, eternal night!
Son of a gun, is that morning light?!
Eyes are bulging out of my face
A shot of RedBull – my redeeming grace
I should have just walked away
Put that dang laptop away!

8 hours, 12 hours, 24…a blur
How in the world did this mayhem occur??
I must not check inbox ‘one last time’,
I must get some rest, I’m starting to rhyme!
Closing and shutting down
Just have to write one last thing down…

Web conferencing services have expanded their uses beyond simple collaboration. Many organizations are spending a great deal of money on conducting educational webinars, training videos and sales demonstrations. These conferences are often of high production value and with a hired speaker. It only makes sense to record this conference and re-purpose it for later.

If you are going to put all that money into creating a webinar, you should also think about how you are going to distribute the content and archive it after it is made. The demand for tools that allow you to easily record, publish and distribute conferencing recordings is increasing, as organizations do more produced webinars.

We have always led the industry in content distribution and recording. With our integrated audio and web platform for one-click recording and our industry first podcast ability and hosted RSS feed. We have supplied these things to our customers at no extra charge.

With Conference Center 4, we have re-done the ReadyTalk Media Player and have added several nice new features that add to the production value of your conference recordings.

Check out this short video of the ReadyTalk Media Player.

1. We have re-skinned the player and gave it an up-to-date look with embedded controls, a new thumbnail view and thumbnail previews. It also scales to fit in your browser to avoid scroll bars and clipping
2. You are now also able to embed your recordings into your website or social media site of your choice. This meets your audiences viewing expectations (think YouTube) and also allows viewers to stay on your site while they watch your content. No more annoying pop-ups to watch recordings