Involve EVERYONE in your organization's online activities
15:43, 15 May 2009
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I wrote last week that there is only one way for volunteers to be seen as essential within an organization, and that's when ALL staff, not just the volunteer manager, works with volunteers.The same is true for online communications: there is only one way for online communications to be seen as essential within an organization, by all staff, including senior management, and that's for more than one staff person to be generating online content and interacting with people online.
Nonprofit organizations should be doing a LOT online, from posting information regularly to its web site to interacting with volunteers, others supporters or the general public via online communities and/or online social networking sites. I talk about the range of things nonprofits should be doing online here: Stages of Maturity in Nonprofit Organizations' Use of Online Technologies.
But many organizations are making the mistake of having ONE person who is the only designated person to do anything on behalf of the organization online, and who is the only person who creates content for the web site, blog, etc. This is a huge mistake!
All staff should be welcomed and frequently encouraged to:
- submit information for the web site (in fact, every department should have its own section of the web site that it is responsible for)
- participate in the organization's own online community/communities (even as just lurkers)
- blog about their work
- interact with their internal constituencies online (the fund raising manager with the donors, the volunteer manager and all staff who work with volunteers interacting with volunteers, program managers interacting with clients, etc.)
In addition, content for online activities should come from the communications staff, or other staff members that interact with people external to the organization in some way, NOT your tech staff! Your tech staff is there to handle tech issues, not to generate content (though, if he or she is a great writer and also regularly contributes content to your paper newsletter, your letters to donors, etc., he or she should be welcomed to contribute!). If your communications manager/director has ceded online activities management to your web manager and says things like, "I'm in charge of the real marketing/public relations, not the online stuff," it's time to pack him or her up to a workshop on integrated marketing communications and social media optimization... or to find a new communications manager.
