Review of some industry data and how it relates to the Lancaster nonprofit community. Also some examples of good emails and Facebook community building

1. So You’ve Got Benchmarks, Huh?
Eric Gervase
Twitter @egervase Email eric@socialneedia.org

2. What’s The Plan?
• Go Through Benchmarks from…
• NTEN and M&R Strategic Services eNonprofit
Benchmark Study
• NTEN, Common Knowledge, Blackbaud Nonprofit
Social Network Benchmark Study
• Talk about how it relates to local community, those in
this class
• What can you do with this information?
Twitter @egervase Email eric@socialneedia.org

3. Benchmarks
• As an average, organizations have a Facebook
following that is 10% of the size of their email database
• .025% of all users take action (action is commenting
or liking)
• From 2010 to 2011, there was a growth of 70% in
total page likes
• On average, each organization manages 2.9 Facebook
pages
• On average, 8314 Facebook fans per org
• 58% are not fundraising, 30% 0-$1k, 9% $1k-$10k
Twitter @egervase Email eric@socialneedia.org

4. How to Grow Facebook Community
• Have consistent content on the wall- People look for
activity to see if there is a need to be there
• Photos draw attention. Action on photos is routinely the
highest.
• Try to encourage comments and engagement. Ask
questions of your audience. People want to see that they
are joining a conversation.
• Make your Facebook page visible on your website. Create
buttons so that it is more obvious/easy
• Request help from your board to promote ideas on their
personal pages
Twitter @egervase Email eric@socialneedia.org

5. Photos Are Golden
Twitter @egervase Email eric@socialneedia.org

6. Photos Are Golden 2
Twitter @egervase Email eric@socialneedia.org

7. Keep ‘em Comin Back For More
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8. Make It Easy to Connect
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9. A Place to Commune
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10. Benchmarks
• 93.3% of all nonprofits have a presence on one or
more social networks
• 63% measuring soft benefit, 32% not measuring, 5%
financial measurement
• 42% said that time spent maintaining social media
sites will grow
• 46% have no budget for social media
Twitter @egervase Email eric@socialneedia.org

11. Goals
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12. Twitter @egervase Email eric@socialneedia.org

13. Benchmarks
• Messages per month ranged from 4.2 to 5.7 across
sectors
• December spiked (likely because of fundraising), but
other months were pretty consistent
• Overall fundraising messaging was at about 20
messages per subscriber.
• Advocacy at 20, Newsletter at 9 and "other" at 7.
• So, fundraising and advocacy take up about 35% of all
messaging each (70% combined).
• Lists grew over 20% from 2010 to 2011
Twitter @egervase Email eric@socialneedia.org

14. How To Improve Email Open Rates
• Do A/B testing with your subject lines of your emails
• Test time of day to see if you are delivering your
message at the right moment for your audience
• Survey your audience to see if you are not giving
them relevant content
• Try a re-broadcast a couple days later to bump open
rates and activity (just to unopened emails)
• Personalize the email if you aren't already. Make the
email "from" a person instead of the organization.
Twitter @egervase Email eric@socialneedia.org

15. How To Improve Email Open Rates
• Review your list to find the "dead weight". Review
the list to see who never opens your email and drop
them from the list.
• If you have visibility of it, see why/from where they
joined the list in the first place
• Segment your list by most responsive and least
responsive. There may be an opportunity to
communicate more often with some of the people on
your list if they are more engaged with the org
• Don't ask for something every time. Some emails
should be informational or thankful
Twitter @egervase Email eric@socialneedia.org

16. Good Examples:
Creative Subject, Creative Content
Twitter @egervase Email eric@socialneedia.org

17. Good Examples:
Opt-In
Twitter @egervase Email eric@socialneedia.org

18. Good Examples:
Fundraising
Twitter @egervase Email eric@socialneedia.org

19. Does This Represent Us?
Twitter @egervase Email eric@socialneedia.org

20. Numbers
• Of the group that we’ve seen in this workshop, there
is an average of 927 facebook fans per org
• High of 2200 and low of 119
• 46% of nonprofit social networking study had less
than $1 million budget. Guessing that is a majority of
our group
• We’re talking about smaller networks and budgets
Twitter @egervase Email eric@socialneedia.org

21. Quick Conclusions
• Social Network and Email Databases are growing
across the board
• Many orgs aren’t being terribly strategic
• Very few are measuring financial impact
• Very few are receiving direct financial impact
Twitter @egervase Email eric@socialneedia.org