Jeff Patrick, Common Knowledge

A whopping 86% of nonprofits say they have a presence on Facebook or another social media site according to the 2010 Nonprofit Social Networking Benchmark Report.  

That’s astounding really, but equally astounding, if a whole lot less obvious: your site visitors are increasingly getting to your site from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media sites. Why is this important? This socially-sourced crowd spends upwards of 15 minutes per day, every day, on social media sites, 3 to 7 times more than on any other major web property. 

Increasingly, consumers define their world in this social context, and there are a whole bunch of them. Should you be considering this important demographic when you redesign your site next time around? Definitely.

First Step – Analytics

Still not convinced. No problem, I’ll lay out a few quick suggestions for sorting out whether this social demographic is, in fact, a big, or at least increasing slice of your website traffic. Take a moment to investigate the following data:

• Analytics: Configure and then analyze reports from your web analytics to see which page on your site is the first stop for folks referred from social networking sites. Is it your homepage, a standard landing page, or deep-linking to a press release, article, or transaction page (e.g. advocacy action or donation)? While you're at it, sort out what percentage of your site traffic is coming from social sites in the first place. After Google.com (search traffic), we’re betting Facebook.com, Twitter.com, LinkedIn and other social sites are up there in the Top 10 Referring Sites list. Even more striking, we’ll bet that among NEW visitors, these social sites rank even higher. 
• Source Coding: If you’re not doing it now, set up source coding for the links posted in your interactions on FB, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Use bit.ly to create short urls, because it supports source code tracking. For transaction pages (e.g. email signup, contact us, donation, petition, etc.), ensure that you're configuring your online software to accept, store, and report on these source codes for all transactions. Scrutinize these reports: how much of your conversion traffic is coming from social media sites?  
• Audience Overlap: Use Rapleaf to sort out what percent of your Facebook audience is also on your email list. Why? A big chunk of your repeat site traffic is probably coming from the emails you send out. If you have a large overlap between your Facebook and email audiences, then a whole bunch of your repeat traffic is living in the social context as well.

Optimize Your Site for the Social Segment 

Assuming that we agree that social media-sourced visitors are an important segment for your site, let’s take a look at how you might optimize your website for this new demographic.

First, find the right context for driving social media audiences to your site. Make your life easier: remember that Facebook fans, for example, tend to respond best when presented with FB-focused calls-to-action. For example, FB ads return higher click and conversion rates when the call-to-action on the ad links to an FB asset, such as a Page. The first way to optimize your site for social media then, is to refer visitors to it -- but only for the right opportunities:

1. Programmatic Calls-to-Action: Direct social media supporters back to your site to complete actions not available on FB or Twitter or LinkedIn -- donations, advocacy actions or petitions, email sign-up, event and volunteer registration, job application, membership form, surveys, polls, etc. We see this a lot in event fundraising, where FB badges and other tools are deployed for event participants (to help them raise more $$ for the charity), but all peer-to-peer giving actually takes place BACK on the organization’s website. 
   (Note: Causes does provide some of these actions, so consider using it if Causes is right for your organization or initiative.)
2. Data Centralization: Visitors could read your blog on FB via FB’s Notes function -- where you can syndicate your Wordpress blog automatically out to FB Notes -- but it may be easier and more efficient for you to direct fans to the blog on your site, where you already have excellent reporting tools set up, and that allow you to see traffic on your blog from all sources. Balance ease of reporting and analysis with campaign effectiveness; sometimes getting the answers all in one place merits a minor reduction in results.   
3. Intentional Cross-Pollination: A common tactic these days is to direct traffic between your online outposts intentionally. For example, acquire fans via Facebook advertising and then present them with FB posts that link them into an action incorporating an email opt-in, intentionally creating the opportunity for FB fans to get on your organization’s email list. 

All that being said, let’s assume you're redoing your organizational web site, and want to make it work well for your visitors arriving from social media communities. Here are a few tips for making it work best:

1. Targeted Landing Pages: Control your destiny where you can. Maximize impact and conversion when posting to Twitter, FB, or LinkedIn by directing fans/followers to a well-constructed landing page which includes a no-click or one-click, simple, clear call-to-action; pithy, scannable, punchy supporting copy; clear identity branding; and for-this-task-only navigation. If it’s just content, then link directly to the content. Don’t confuse visitors by linking to your homepage, for example, and then letting them search around for that article you told them about. That only increases abandons. 
2. Incorporate Social Supporters and Social Content: Go out of your way to use FB, Twitter, and LinkedIn APIs to incorporate social media posts and fans alongside your traditional site content. Your pages will feel more social, content will be real-time, and your supporters will be hyper-evident to any and all visitors. We call that “exposing your community”. Social media oriented visitors appreciate it because it makes your site more relevant. 
3. Add ‘Share’ and ‘Like’ to Content: The social media crowd are sharers in spirit and practice, so help them to do just that: let them circulate their gold nugget finds with their network. Use the Share function (e.g. the big share box with tons of social sites or individual icons for FB, Twitter, etc.) next to individual media like articles, photos, and videos. Add in FB’s “Like” rating feature next to key digital assets, as well. Ratings add dimension to your information by helping visitors judge the value of content more quickly and robustly. If it works for Hotels.com, why wouldn’t it work for your site? Remember, you can switch “Like” to “Recommend” if appropriate -- and because folks can’t “Not Like” your content, you don’t have to worry about managing unflattering ratings.   
4. Blogs: Add Blogs to your site to introduce a different kind of media to your site content mix. Turn on commenting to stimulate group dialog around your posts. 
5. Discussion Groups: Consider adding a discussion board to your site. You’ll need a community manager to make it thrive over the long haul, but helping your supporters engage, educate, and support one another is a sure-fire tactic for helping the social digerati feel at home in your online world. 
6. House Network: Bite off the whole enchilada an socially-enable your site fully by supporting visitor profiles, friending, activity feeds, discussion, ratings and reviews, etc. Or you can take a half-step. We’ve jump-started campaign sites with simple profiles, blogs and discussions, leaving open the opportunity to add in more social features as the community flourishes. You choose how fast and far you socially-enable your site. 

Adding social content, supporters, and features to your site makes socially sourced visitors feel more at home, and introduces all your visitors to their peers -- your supporters, their thoughts, advice, opinions, insights, needs, recommendations, and ratings. Long before Facebook, there was Geocities, which failed. Facebook is approaching 500 million active members, and is accumulating members at about 100 million every five months. What’s the difference between Geocities and Facebook? Well, many things, but primary among FB’s success factors: helping people connect automatically and integrating the very concept of connecting into the user experience.  

The truth is, people don’t connect with organizations, they connect with other people. Putting your audience and their world front and center is the best way to optimize your site for the social crowd -- and everybody else.