Excerpt from my CharityVillage.com column: July, 2011
Heads up! Your social media supporters are mobile.
Which nonprofit communications departments are already thinking “mobile”?
Some charitable sector professionals do consider how to reach out to their mobile visitors. Laura Bradley, digital communications specialist at SickKids Foundation is one of them.
This year’s 2010-2011 SickKids Foundation Annual Report was designed to be smartphone-friendly. The report’s microsite automatically identifies if the user is on a computer or a mobile device.
“Storytelling is at the heart of everything we do and we really wanted to let our SickKids kid stories shine,” Laura explains. “We featured the stories on the mobile site along with video, a summary of our financial statements and a letter from our president and chair of the board.”
The SickKids team looked to existing mobile projects for inspiration: “We searched other mobile sites and incorporated aspects we liked into our design. We tested across many different platforms before our go-live date.”
As the strategist behind the Foundation’s Twitter and Facebook accounts, Laura also followed up the launch of the annual report with a planned push out on social media channels.
Why all the effort? Laura Bradley’s answer is simple. “SickKids wants to remain relevant and engaging to our donors and prospective donors by offering information the way they would like it delivered.”
If your charity lacks the resources to build a custom mobile microsite or application to complement your social media activities, there are creative, lower-cost options available. Try leveraging your project on popular platforms that are already mobile-enabled. A campaign built on a social site like Facebook or Twitter guarantees that both web and mobile audiences can participate.
It’s time for the charitable sector to connect meaningfully with smartphone owners in ways beyond traditional SMS messaging programs.
The Ready, Set, Go Mobile report from AFP and Kaptivate illustrates where trends are headed. The report found a twenty-four percent decrease in the number of nonprofits using text-to-give, but a significant twenty-seven percent increase in the use of mobile websites.
Read the full article on CharityVillage.com!
Uh, I made this blog on a PC. So it’s a bit crap. Like real people. 