[Editor's note: The following first appeared in the September 2011 issue of NTEN:Change. Read the complete issue of NTEN's new quarterly journal for nonprofit leaders by subscribing to the journal for free!]

By Beth Kanter, Beth's Blog

1. After Hours Posting
   Timing is important for a communications channel like Facebook. According to a recent study, posts outside of business hours and posts at the end of the week actually increase Facebook engagement. A possible reason for this is that your audience is more likely to be visiting Facebook during those “in between” times – not during regular work hours but in the evenings, mornings, and on the weekends.

Josie Halpern-Finnerty, Adviser and Michelle Samplin-Salgado, New Media Strategist, AIDS.gov

At AIDS.gov, our mission is to provide access to Federal HIV and AIDS information through a variety of new media channels, and to support the use of new media tools by Federal and community partners.

The AIDS.gov team compiled some advice about what it takes to use Twitter effectively to engage with our audiences. Many of the lessons apply across new media tools. Here are some of things we keep in mind as we plan our new media activities:

If you're in charge of your organization's web analytics, you undoubtedly know about bounce rate -- the measure of visitors who enter your site, say "Enh" (or something ruder), and immediately leave, without viewing any more of your carefully crafted pages. Yeah, those people annoy me, too.

But unless you're a consultant working with several nonprofit clients, you're probably working in a vacuum: you know your own site's bounce rate, but you don't know how good it is compared to other sites.

That's okay, though. Around here, we operate under analytics guru Eric Peterson's definition of what your bounce rate should be: 10% better than it is now.

As luck would have it, there's an easy way you can use Google Analytics to simplify that job. Let's dive in.

Brett Meyer, NTEN

You may already know you can use Google Analytics to track your Google AdWords campaigns. Makes sense: Google would integrate puppies into their products if they thought it would help. [Ed. note: Actually, they have.]

Because they had to standardize the system used for this tracking, you can co-opt it for your own purposes to track click-throughs from your e-mail campaigns, banner ads, links in blog posts, even paper mailings (if you use it in conjunction with a URL shortener like bit.ly).

Turns out, it's really easy. Here's how to do it:

Use Google Analytics

> If you read our blog, you know that you can track clickthroughs and landing page performance from your messaging campaigns through Google Analytics. With a little export-to-spreadsheet trickery, you can also do some pretty cool tracking of your blog posts.

> Of course, if you don't have Google Analytics, that's kinda moot. Okay, totally moot. (Actually, we just like to say "moot". Moot moot moot.) If you're not using GA because you don't know how to set it up, not to fear: Ian Lurie has produced a series of videos on Google Analytics, and the Google Team itself made an overview of the interface. Prefer to read? Nicole Gustas has written a very detailed step-by-step tutorial.

> Once you've got the basics, turn to the experts, like Google's Analytics evangelist, Avinash Kaushik, for a few tricks. (If you haven't seen the Ask the Expert session on GA we hosted with Avinash, you really should: it's free for NTEN members!) The Official Analytics blog has a bunch of great tips, as well. And did you know that you can track results from your site's internal search?

Update Your Website

> If you haven't updated your web site since 1995, it may be time to start thinking about a change. Consider the example of the Autism Society of America (which went from this to this). Of course, plowing forward without a good understanding of what you're doing often ends poorly. To help you decide whether it's time, check out some advice from "Notes on Design" or try using MIT's nerdily thorough checklist.

> Unless you've got a big IT department, though, you'll probably need to outsource some of the redesign work. The Independent Computer Consultants Association lets you search their directory, as does Elance. And don't forget the NTEN Member Directory: we've collected a lot of smart people (just like you).

> We've also got you covered when you're ready to choose a consultant. NTEN Member Seth Schneider wrote up a great list of things to consider when hiring a consultant. You might also want to read the ScamBusters article on avoiding outrageous prices for poor results. (As a bonus, there's a list of the "Best Kept Secrets about Chocolate" at the bottom. Mmmmmm.)

Flickr Photo: _ES NTEN doesn't really have a water cooler, but we like to think the NTEN Discuss group serves a similar purpose for folks working with nonprofits and technology, except that instead of gossip about the boss, we share tips, resources, and anecdotes.

Yesterday there was a great discussion about how to get the Communications department to coordinate with the Fundraising department on online and email campaigns. The discussion was spurred on by a question from Michael Hoffman, from See3:

". . . how [do] other organizations create a balance between the Communications and the Fundraising departments when it comes to online initiatives. How should Communications and Fundraising interact without having turf battles?"

Even if your nonprofit's "departments" are just comprised of single staff persons -- like here at NTEN -- getting these folks on the same page is important and often tough. Here's what the NTEN Discuss group had to say:

Flickr Photo: alexander drachmannWe started the week off here at NTEN with a Q&A session with Chris Brogan, who answered questions from NTEN members about engaging people through social media. In case you missed it, you can see a transcript of the questions in the materials section (and if you're a member of NTEN, you can get the recording) here.

Chris commented a few times on how impressed he was by the questions you all asked him -- demonstrating yet again that, in many ways, the nonprofit sector is a leader in harnessing the power of social media to engage and energize communities and individuals online.

Here is a summary of take-aways from the session:

LOLnptech

Michelle Murrain has a new free and open source tool overview: Miro, a video tool you can use to play, organize, download, and disseminate online videos. She predicts that this is the future of television.

NTEN member Beth Dunn is profiled as a "tech star" over at @Bar. We're so proud!

Marnie Webb to all organizations thinking about social networking: start with the search. She gives some tips and links to begin your (re)search.

NTEN member Ed Schipul will be speaking on a panel (which includes NTEN superstar Beth Kanter) about web-based social media technologies for nonprofit organizational fundraising at the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSW). All you NTENners who will be at SXSW -- let us know what you learn!

A couple of familiar NTEN members and contributors joined our nptechies across the pond for the Circuit Riders 4.0 Conference last week. Laura's Notebook has a nice round up, including a video of Beth Kanter, who joined via Skype to discuss Web 2.0 for nonprofits. She also referred to NTEN superstar John Kenyon, who was invited by NTEN organizational member LASA to lead a workshop on nonprofit advising (or leadership, as we refer to it around here) the day after the Circuit Rider Conference. Good show!

Beth also has a great post addressing the issues of transparency and criticism in the world of social media. She offers a hypothetical scenario that anyone engaging constituencies in this user-generated environment should consider (hint: read the comments).

In response to Beth's post, NTEN member Kivi Leroux Miller offers some great advice for nonprofits dealing with negative user-generated content.

Joyce Harmon, of NPower Greater DC, posted slides she presented recently for nonprofit leaders about online strategies and tools for this generation of online fundraising and constituent engagement. Thanks, Joyce!

Speaking of giving stuff away, Katya Andresen wrote this enlightening post applying the business model of the "gift economy" to nonprofit organizations. The important takeaway for me here is that, with the low-cost of technology tools like email, e-newsletters, and of course social media tools, it not only makes sense but is fiscally possible for even the smallest nonprofit organization to use this model. Read Katya's post for more background and ideas.

Finally, I found a new form of online update from an NTEN member: this tweet about the upcoming Nonprofit Technology Conference from "Erica G." Why is this exciting? I used Google Alerts to search for "nten member" -- and was sent a link to this twitter update in my email. Implications? Tweeting has reach outside subscribed followers.

I'm a total snob when it comes to MySpace. My house is pretty much always spotless, and that's the way I like my interface design, too: clean.

So I get the chills when I check out MySpace. Too cluttered! Nonetheless, it's a tool nonprofits cannot ignore. Folks like IFAW and many others have used MySpace to engage and activate a whole new constituency.

If you're looking to start a MySpace campaign, or if you have one already and want to improve it, check out Heather Mansfield's post on optimizing your MySpace page.