New Jersey Web Design & Internet Marketing Company - 4M Web Design

If you think Internet users waste their day on their smart phones, ipads or computers a new study by, Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project may surprise you.

The study revels internet users are more likely to be active with some kind of volunteer organization or group. About 80 percent of Internet users participate in some sort of volunteer group, compared to 56 percent of non-Web users.

The increased participation might be due to the fact that volunteer information is so readily available on the internet. Of the 2,303 adults surveyed by Pew, 72 percent of Web users said the Internet had a major impact on their ability to communicate with members. Another 68 percent said it greatly impacted efforts to draw attention to an issue.

Download the whole report from Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project’s website.

You’ve probably seen custom Fan Pages like those of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the Make a Wish Foundation or the American Red Cross. When you land there, you start on what is essentially a mini website within Facebook, instead of the Page’s wall or feed.

These are often used to promote special events, an annual appeal or simply welcome visitors. Anyone with a Fan Page can create one, and it only takes a little effort.

Step 1 – Download the Static FBML application from Facebook.

1. Login to Facebook

2. Go to the Static FBML application page on Facebook.

3. Click ‘Add to my Page’ on the top left hand corner under the logo.

4. A popup window will open up containing pages that you’re the admin for, Hit the ‘add to page’ button next to the page you want to use Static FBML on.

5. Go to the Facebook page that you selected and look for the ‘Edit page’ link under your logo and click it.

6. Click the ‘Applications link’ on the left.

7. Scroll down until you see the FBML, Click ‘Go to Application’.

8. Change the Box Title and enter your html.

“Box Title” will be the name of your tab, I used ‘Welcome’.

The main text field is where your content goes, and you can add standard HTML to the page as you would any website, including images, text, links, and other formatting.

Note: Your images must be hosted elsewhere (on your non-profit’s website, for example) and only referenced in your HTML code.

9. Once you’re done click ‘save changes’.

10. Click ‘Edit Settings’.

11. A popup box will appear that lets you choose where to display your new application. Hit ‘remove’ for the box and hit ‘add’ for the tab. Then hit ‘okay’.

12. Click the tab to check that it all looks ok. You might need to go back into edit the page to tweak it and get it looking right.

Step 2 – Make your landing page automatically shown to new visitors.

1. To change this visit your page and again click the ‘Edit Page’ link under your logo.

2. Click ‘Manage Permissions’.

3. Find ‘Default Landing Tab:’ click the drop down box and select your new tab.

4. Click ‘Save Changes’

That’s it!!

Share your Facebook Landing Page

I’d love to see examples of your Facebook Landing Page’s. Feel free to link to your pages below by clicking the ‘link to this tab’ link in the FBML application.

Below is a chart from “The Online Giving Study” conducted by Network for Good and TrueSense Marketing.  It examines the online giving experience not only on nonprofits’ websites, but also via donation portals and social networks.

As we can see that more than half of charitable online giving through Network for Good is via the charities website (64.1%) followed by giving portals (25.5%) and social networks (10.4%).

Between February 3 and March 15, 2010 NTEN, Common Knowledge, and ThePort Network surveyed 1,173 nonprofit professionals about their organization’s use of online social networks for the second annual Nonprofit Social Networking Benchmark Report.

As you can see by the chart above most non-profit organizations are using their websites and email campaigns (alerts, newsletters, etc.), with 82.5% (78.7% in 2009) and 75.7 (71.9% in 2009). The next most common tactics were promotion at the organization’s events 54.1% (43.2% in 2009) and Twitter 52.1% (44.0% in 2009).

How are you promoting your social network pages?

I just created a free guide “Monitor your Non-Profit or Small Business online for free“, which shows you how to use Google Alerts and Google Reader to monitor what’s being said about you online.

You can download and print the PDF right now using this link. No opt-in required. Just download the guide and enjoy.

Between February 3 and March 15, 2010 NTEN, Common Knowledge, and ThePort Network surveyed 1,173 nonprofit professionals about their organization’s use of online social networks for the second annual Nonprofit Social Networking Benchmark Report.

Looking at how survey respondents use commercial social networks, the most popular role is for traditional marketing—to promote the nonprofit’s brand, programs, events or services—with 92.5% of survey respondents indicating this role as the purpose of their presence on commercial social networks. The second most popular role is for fundraising (45.9%). Program delivery (34.5%) and market research (24.3%) via the social network are utilized, but less frequently.

Between February 3 and March 15, 2010 NTEN, Common Knowledge, and ThePort Network surveyed 1,173 nonprofit professionals about their organization’s use of online social networks for the second annual Nonprofit Social Networking Benchmark Report.

When asked about the size of their commercial social network communities, survey respondents indicated an average of 2,440 members on Facebook, a sizeable drop (55%) from the 5,391 member average Facebook community size reported in 2009.

At first glance, this drop would seem to indicate that nonprofits are getting fewer supporters on Facebook and therefore less value.Yet upon further inspection, it becomes clear that many new nonprofits are coming onto the Facebook platform. Nonprofits reporting a presence on Facebook increased by 16% in the last year. Thus, the dip in average Facebook community size is likely more a result of the many new nonprofits coming onto the platform that are building an audience but have not had sufficient time to accumulate a large base of support. Stated simply, an influx of new Facebook-focused nonprofits that have yet to build a big audience is skewing the average community size downward this year. In contrast,Twitter showed a large increase in average community size, increasing 627% to 1,792 (286 in 2009). Community sizes also increased on LinkedIn from 291 to 450 and on YouTube from 268 to 447. MySpace average community size, however, dropped from 1,905 in 2009 to 1,794 in 2010.

Respondents reported community sizes on Facebook ranging from 1 to 250,000 fans, but 96% of the communities were 10,000 members or less with three very large communities of 214,000+ members skewing the average. Remove these three outliers, and the average community size on Facebook is 1,773 members. The nonprofit-specific social network, Change.org had an average community size of 1,334, a large increase (449%) from last year (243 members in 2009).

How does your website measure up? Not sure?

Take advantage of our Complimentary-No Obligation Analysis of your web site or download your free copy of our Website Planner Workbook.

Between February 3 and March 15, 2010 NTEN, Common Knowledge, and ThePort Network surveyed 1,173 nonprofit professionals about their organization’s use of online social networks for the second annual Nonprofit Social Networking Benchmark Report.

By a large margin, Facebook continues to be the most popular commercial social network with 86% (74.0% in 2009) of respondents indicating their organization has a presence there, an increase of 16% year-over-year. In tandem, the use of Twitter has increased by 38% in the last year, moving from 43.2% in 2009 to 59.7% in 2010. Usage of YouTube rose to 48.1%, up slightly from 2009 (46.5%), while LinkedIn followed at 33.1% (basically unchanged from last year). While commercial social networks continue to appeal to nonprofits overall, there is one exception. The past market leader,MySpace, dropped from 26.1% in 2009 to 14.4% (or a drop of 45% year-over-year).

How does your website measure up? Not sure? Take advantage of our Complimentary-No Obligation Analysis of your web site or download your free copy of our Website Planner Workbook.