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Cheers to Charity

Cheers to Charity

Cheers to Charity

According to the Digital Giving Index produced annually by Network for Good, nearly a third of giving occurs in December each year and the average gift size on December 31st is more than double of the average gift size the rest of the year. But before you go to make your year-end gifts to trim your tax bill, be sure to use these tips so that your money is well spent.

Tips for choosing a charity to contribute to:

  1. Research charities on Charity Navigator and GuideStar. “Charity Navigator’s rating system examines two broad areas of a charity’s performance: their Financial Health and their Accountability & Transparency. Our ratings show givers how efficiently we believe a charity will use their support today, how well it has sustained its programs and services over time and their level of commitment to good governance, best practices and openness with information,” (charitynavigator.org). GuideStar is like Yelp for nonprofits and is Charity Navigator’s trusted partner in sharing information on how organizations seek impact. Thus, if you search for a charity on Charity Navigator, you’ll get information from GuideStar as well, and vice versa.
    1. Find out what it costs them to fundraise. If they’re spending more money on fundraising than they’re raising, they’re not an organization you’ll want to make donations to.
  1. Follow the following precautions from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to make sure your donation benefits the people and organizations you want to help:
    1. Ask for detailed information about the charity, including name, address, and telephone number.
    2. Search the name of the organization online—especially with the word “complaint(s)” or “scam”—to learn more about its reputation.
    3. Be wary of charities that spring up too suddenly in response to current events and natural disasters. Even if they are legitimate, they probably don’t have the infrastructure to get the donations to the affected area or people.
  1. Be aware of the FTC’s signs of a charity scam:
    1. Refusing to provide detailed information about the charity or fundraiser’s identity, mission, costs, and how the donation will be used
    2. Doesn’t provide proof that a contribution is tax deductible
    3. Uses a name that closely resembles that of a better-known, reputable organization
    4. Thanks you for a pledge you don’t remember making
    5. Uses high-pressure tactics like trying to get you to donate immediately, without giving you time to think about it and do your research
    6. Offers to send a courier or overnight delivery service to collect the donation immediately
    7. Guarantees sweepstakes winnings in exchange for a contribution. By law, you never have to give a donation to be eligible to win a sweepstakes
  1. Legitimate organizations typically have options for donating securely, so beware if an organization only wants cash donations. Be careful with giving your credit card number over the phone, too. You should be completely confident in the legitimacy of an organization and its contact information before you hand over your credit card information.
  1. Understand that charities have administrative fees, so legitimate charities will not claim that 100% of your donation will go to victims or resources. If an organization claims this, be sure to investigate further. If you receive a call from a fundraiser, ask if the caller is a paid fundraiser. If so, ask the percentage of your donation that will go to the charity, how much will go to the actual cause to which you’re donating and how much will go to the fundraiser. 
  1. Keep an eye on Forbes.com for the 12 Days of Charitable Giving. Starting in mid-December, Forbes provides a charity each day with full details about the organization and how to donate. This will give you ideas of great organizations to donate to that may not be as well-known, especially if you like to contribute to smaller charities. Each charity featured is a bona fide 501(c)(3) organization, meaning that donations are tax-deductible in the United States.

 

And remember, it doesn’t matter how big or small the organization is, as long as you follow these tips and do your research. If you know the charity is legitimate, you’ll know exactly where your money is going and be able to contribute to a cause that feels best to you. Happy giving!

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Supporting Local Business

Small business owners often force themselves to smile through the stress of the not-so-happy holidays.

While many of us love this time of year to rejoice with family and friends, many cannot relax during the holiday season. For many business owners, the next two months represent as much as 30% of their revenues. Therefore, this is not a time of relaxing but of watching P&L reports, online order forms, customers in line and contracts being executed.
So while many owners will be delighted all the way to the bank, many will be worried and fearful if that revenue doesn’t come in.  While we hear many success stories of e-commerce and pop up shops, many stories of failure and struggle remain untold. While entrepreneurs do pick this life, for most it is not one of glamour and glitz but of extremely hard work to carve out a living for themselves and maybe a few others.
If you know a small business that relies heavily on holiday sales, do your best to make their holidays a little less stressful—support them!
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Say Goodbye to Google+

Say Goodbye to Google+

Say Goodbye to Google Plus

So Google Plus is being killed off.

While the “social network” was never that social and not too many joined our circles and the hanging out was still mostly happening at other parties, Google Plus was a core Social Media Marketing strategy for most of our clients as it was a way to have posts show up with your website right in Google’s search engine. The good news is Google has been rolling a new (and, in our opinion, an improved) interface through Google My Business (GMB) that places the posts above even your reviews on your business listing, making your last two or three posts really relevant and visible to anyone looking for or stumbling across your GMB listing.

Over the next couple of months we will be rolling all our clients over to the GMB posts feature and discontinuing any posting on the Google Plus network, even if Google allows businesses to keep utilizing it. The GMB posts capabilities are becoming better and better so that, at this point, Google Plus seems like a waste of the effort necessary. While most of our third party scheduling and monitoring apps do not play ball (yet) with GMB, we forecast this is just a matter of time. Until then, we think that the benefits of maintaining active GMB accounts for our clients is worth our time and effort. You can thank us later.

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How to Acquire New Customers Through Facebook

How to Acquire New Customers Through Facebook

How to Acquire New Customers Through Facebook

With Facebook’s recent algorithm update, Facebook decided to show less content from brands and businesses in the News Feed. However, there are still a few ways small businesses can compete in the News Feed with this algorithm change.

SHARE ENGAGING, REAL CONTENT.

The best kind of content on Facebook is the kind that looks natural and feels authentic. Photos and videos of real people, doing real things, in real places drives conversations. So what does that mean? It means the more photos you can send us of your work, the better. If you don’t feel comfortable with your photography capabilities, we can send someone in to take photos for you! These are the types of photos and videos that shoppers want to see, and it’s also what beckons them to react to the post or even buy from you. Now that Facebook is ranking content based on how many reactions and comments it gets, your content needs to be good enough to garner those engagement events. Consider collecting user generated content from your customers by hosting contests and use that content in your big campaigns. We can’t run contests on your page unless you give us the OK and have prizes of some sort—so let us know if you’re interested and we can start brainstorming!

INCREASE YOUR BUDGET.

There’s no ifs, ands or buts about it. You need to increase your budget so that people who don’t already “Like” your page will see the content you post. Luckily, Facebook’s a moderately inexpensive tool that reaches a wide audience, so increasing your budget doesn’t break the bank and it’s an effective and efficient way to reach new customers.

FOCUS ON YOUR LOCAL ANGLE.

Facebook also announced that it would be prioritizing local news and content from publishers. If you have a brick-and-mortar location, this may be an untapped opportunity to try to get involved in local events and promote local news mentions on your Facebook feed to your businesses geographic area. This may help your content get more local engagement, therefore benefiting your overall Page reach and engagement. If you have any local content you’d like us to promote, or events you’ll be attending, please let us know so we can post about it for you!

Have you started seeing a decrease in reach and engagement? Let us know if you’d like to increase your Facebook advertising budget!

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5 Tips for Successful Marketing Analytics

5 Tips for Successful Marketing Analytics

5 Tips for Successful Marketing Analytics

Social media and digital advertising trends are crushing the marketing industry these days. The best way to truly test the success of these platforms is to look into the data collected from the sites themselves. The detailed reports have many beneficial uses. Information can then be synthesized into statistics, an effective marketing tool, and as a way to plan future successful marketing campaigns based on the results. These 5 tips can help maximize success from analytics:

Plan ahead.

It is crucial to know your company’s calendar so that any events or holidays will not be forgotten when it comes to social media posts. These are the most valuable when looking at potential customer data. If you plan, it’s easier to identify different time periods that are most beneficial to your marketing. This makes it easier to strategize accordingly in the future. It’s all about making a plan.

Stay in the loop.

There is always new software and easy to use online programs that can help your company track data and view it in an analytical format. Make sure you are staying up to date with the newest programs and formats so you aren’t spending copious amounts of time on an outdated data measurement.

Visual. Visual. Visual.

Especially when explaining to fellow employees or customers, visual(vision) data that is appealing to the eye will not only make the data easier to understand, but it will also increase the engagement of the reader. It’s important to remember that the average person doesn’t always know exactly what you are talking about. Visuals are a great way to break information into digestible pieces.

Experiment.

Trial and error can prove to be a very successful method of finding what works for your audience. Using different types of posts or changing keywords occasionally could show you a lot of insight into what your followers like and dislike. Understanding audience trends is an important part of marketing growth. Don’t be afraid to try some different, unique, even edgy things that your audience may find interesting.

Understand your data.

Long lists of numerical data and titles can be confusing. It is important to research exactly what the data means for your business, and specifically how that information can benefit your company in the future. The data doesn’t serve its true purpose if you don’t understand how to use it. To optimize improvement, understand what your data is telling you and what you are trying to achieve from knowing this data.

By looking at analytics you can adjust and improve your marketing and optimize success for your business. Remember these five tips when creating and using analytics so you can make the most out of your data! Keep up with our blog while we delve deeper into each of these tips and explain how you can best use them to your advantage.

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