PROVEN DIGITAL AND SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS

As the landscape of communications continues to shift towards the digital kingdom, we thought presenting you the top tried and tested tools to help those looking to dip their toe into the water and can help set you up right away.

Web design and analytics                                           Marketing and social media

Management and Operation                                      Fundraising and event planning

WEB DESIGN & ANALYTICS

Squarespace: We can create custom and robust websites without any web development experience.

Potential uses: Organization’s public site or their internal sites for employees and volunteers.

Feedburner: Feedburner or other similar services convert frequently updated content from RSS feeds (ex. our blogs) to a custom email that supporters can subscribe to directly from our site.

Potential uses: Newsletter and blog email subscription.

Google Analytics: It is the industry standard for tracking site activity to gain insight into visitor behavior and marketing effectiveness.

Potential uses: Create custom reports to track incoming traffic sources, popular pages and overall site traffic.

Google Insights: Google Insights lets us compare search terms across different categories, geographic locations and time period.

Potential uses: Determine most effective/relevant language for newsletters and websites, analyze industry trends and seasonality.

SnapPages and Yola : Yola and SnapPages are inexpensive (Yola is actually free for non profits) hosted solution for building a website with an ease to use interface and great features such as online payment processing for online donation (through PayPal).

Potential uses: Organization’s public site

FUNDRAISING & EVENT PLANNING

Eventbrite: An event management tool that allows us to create, promote and then collect payment for tickets through our custom event web page.

Potential uses: Event landing pages and ticket sales.

ChipIn: Simplifies the payment collection processes for online donation and enables widgets that can be used to fundraise through other sites, blogs and social networks.

Potential uses: Small fundraising campaign and social network fundraising.

Café Press Shops: Let us market products (clothing, accessories, mugs etc.)that we design through café press in your own custom shop.

Potential uses: Design and then sell organizations gear as a year round fundraiser or for specific campaigns.

Big Cartel: Free (when selling fewer than 5 products) e-commerce solutions that lets us create and manage a custom store for our products.

Potential uses: Online store for organization’s branded gear or unique products.

Google, Amazon and PayPal checkout: These payment processing services simplify the payment collection process to make it easier for organizations to sell products (or accept online donations) through own site.

Potential uses: Solicit online donations and create your own online store.

MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA

Animoto: is an online service that automatically generates stunning and completely unique video montages using your photos, video clips and music.

Potential uses: Marketing/inspirational videos, event montages and holiday video e-cards

Podcasts: are digital media files that can be recorded and then streamed on the internet as well as through applications such as iTunes

Potential uses: Self-guided audio tours and recording/sharing speeches

LinkedIn Groups: LinkedIn Groups and Subgroups can be created for LinkedIn members to join (public or private) to connect with other group members and also participate in group discussions

Potential uses: Networking opportunities for volunteers, volunteer research and alumni relations at the regional and local level.

YouTube Channels: are web pages where you can house your account’s videos and that can be custom designed to feature comments, subscribers, donation options, and other social networking features

Potential uses: Viral marketing campaigns, video testimonials, supporter/volunteer generated video content and interviews

Facebook Pages: are essentially profile pages for organizations of all sorts where “fans” can post pictures and videos, participate in discussion and subscribe to news updates

Potential uses: Awareness campaigns and real time feedback from supporters

MeetUp:  is a free online service designed to help people with similar interests plan meetings and form offline clubs in local communities.

Potential uses: Focus groups, grass roots marketing campaigns.

Flip Video: is a simple digital video recorder that lets us easily upload our videos directly to YouTube and other social sites as well as create movies using multiple clips and music.

Potential uses: Capture and share videos of actual volunteer service, events, and testimonials

Addict-o-matic: allows us to search across a wide variety of social networks and other online sites and then create a custom dashboard based on the sources we select.

Potential uses: Monitor your organization and or partners across all of the major social networks and blogosphere

TweetDeck: is a free service (online, application and iPhone app) that allows you to keep track of and update your status on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn.

Potential uses: Social media campaigns that span across major social networks.

MailChimp:  is an email marketing service that is much easier to use than many of the major providers and offers great social media, event marketing, A/B testing, RSS to email and tracking features

Potential uses: Email marketing/communications, newsletters, RSS to email and event invitations

MANAGEMENT & OPERATIONS

Google Apps: brings together all of their great resources (Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and Google Sites) for web-based communication and collaboration.

Potential uses: Intranet and email client

Zoho Creator: is a platform (basic plan is free) to create online database spreadsheets and forms that can be embedded and directly edited in any existing webpage.

Potential uses: Volunteer/donor database, information/data collection and analysis

Dropbox: is online service for storing, organizing and syncing files across multiple computers.

Potential uses: Upload, organize and manage all of your organization’s files

FreeConferenceCall.com: is a free conference call service where a specific number is assigned to our account to use at any time without having to make online arrangements.

Potential uses: Conference calls, tele-reunions, seminars, speaking engagements and crisis response meetings

There you have our top toolkit. Feel free to add your top tools below – it’s always helpful to hear the thoughts of others.