Raised Eyebrow Blog

One of our newer clients recently had the misfortune of discovering that their Twitter name was not available. The ideal short name for this non-profit seems to belong to someone in Somalia who posted two posts back in April of 2007 and otherwise lays dormant. A frustrating state of affairs akin to finding that your preferred website domain name is already occupied.

When it comes to Twitter names, you can of course use variants of your organization’s name, taking on a “Canada” or simply a “CA” to the end of your Twitter handle or using some other variant of your name. The thing to be aware of there however, is that when limited to posting 140 characters a too long Twitter handle can actually get in the way, particularly when others want to retweet your post and therefore include your @TwitterName in their post. (Also note that Twitter currently restricts names to 15 characters).

If your organization is not yet convinced about using Twitter, you may want to make a case for grabbing your name (or a reasonable variant of it), if it’s still available. Even if you don’t get to using it for a few months, you’ll want to secure it.

So what can you do?

Currently Twitter’s policy is to only release names that are registered by someone else if it is a trademark violation (see here for their word on this). They are talking about releasing accounts that have been inactive for at least 18 months at some point, but do not currently have a time frame in place for when they will do this. They, sadly, will not do it on an individual request basis either. (The official inactive user names policy can be found here).

TweetClaims offers a free service that will notify you when your name of choice becomes available (or a pro service for $20/year which will actually text message you as soon as your name becomes available).

Ok, so that might be a bit of a misleading headline, but it’s not totally false. In fact, in about a week it just might be true. You see one of our retainer clients, Covenant House Vancouver, are making use of their award winning blog, their Facebook Page, Twitter account and their email newsletter system to reach out to their existing supports in a bid to win a content currently being run by Pepsi Canada to award a Canadian non-profit organization, business or idea $100,000. The prize will go to the group with the most votes, which is where Covenant House’s existing toolbox of supporter connections comes in. They’ve been, respectfully contacting their supporters through all the channels they have at their disposal to get folks to vote for them. Currently they’re in third place. This is how the social web works.

Today week they produced the simple but to the point video below, that is making its rounds on the web through people’s Facebook and Twitter feeds as well, in support of the cause.

Will all of this win them $100,000? Hard to say, but the great thing is they had the tools ready to go when an opportunity like this arose. Applying for this $100K was not in their communications or fundraising plan for 2010, but when the Pepsi program was launched they were well positioned to take advantage of it and activate their supporters to boost their chances.

So much of effective communications and capacity building work is about seizing moments that are often not of your organization’s making. Whether it’s an online contest that might boost your profile or land you some serious donation funds, a change in government policy you didn’t see coming, or any other unforeseen event that requires immediate mobilization of your supporter base. Yes, we can all be over saturated with social media and it can be hard to figure out how your organization can really make the best use of the various tools available on a day to day basis, but building up a group of meaningful supporters, and ensuring you have access to channels to communicate effectively with them, can allow an organization to really capitalize on an opportune moment when it comes knocking.

Will Covenant House win $100,000? We’ll find out next week, but if you want to help you can vote here.

Depending on the size of your organization and whether or not you have previously applied for this program, there is a BC Government initiative which your organization may be able to use to offset some of the cost of your website (re)design and development project.

Information about the program and the one page application form are available on the Ministry website: http://www.aved.gov.bc.ca/workplace_training_program/welcome.htm

In brief the eligibility requirements are:

• Business or organization (non-profit organizations are eligible) with less than 50 employees (this number would not include volunteers).
• Been operating for more than a year.
• Apply the funding to training which will “help improve productivity” and/or “support the introduction of new equipment, technology or work process”. Your new CMS should be eligible as a new technology which will also help improve productivity.
• You must have not already applied for the grant.

The grant offers:

• Up to $1,500 per employee for training costs
• An organizational maximum of $5,000

Please note that training for Owners is not eligible for the grant, however, we have been unable to ascertain whether or not Executive Directors are excluded (there is no language that says so, and the Ministry has been slow to respond).

The program is in place until January 31, 2011.

Please note, this is a one time grant so if you feel there is other training to which you could better apply this grant, then we would advise you to not apply for the grant for your website training.

Of course Raised Eyebrow can not guarantee that your funding will be approved, but the training we provide to our clients as a part of a website redesign or a new development project does fit into the criteria of the program. We are in no way affiliated with this program, we simply want to make our clients aware of it as we are conscious of the limited resources that many of our clients operate under.

More information:

• Download the One Page Application Form (PDF)
• Questions and Answers on the Ministry website (PDF)

Last month I ran a very successful workshop for writers/journalists on the topic of setting up a Wordpress.com portfolio site. I’m running it again later this month (November 21-22), here’s the description:

As a writer, you know you need a website-something clean, professional and easy on the eyes. You also know it can cost serious money to hire a web designer to do it for you.

This two-day workshop, led by Emira Mears of Raised Eyebrow Web Studio, will guide you through the basics of setting up, configuring and customizing the look and feel of a Wordpress.com website. In two four-hour sessions, you will create an outline for your site, configure the features you need — a blog, categories, pages, images, links to related information, etc. — and select and customize a design. You’ll also learn how to update content and make changes yourself over time. All for the affordable rate of $140.

Dates: November 21/22, 2009, 10 am – 2 pm

Cost: $140, plus GST (receipts available)

Location:
Endswell Room at The Flack Block
163 West Hastings Street
Corner of Hastings and Cambie

To register or for more information contact workshops [at] raisedeyebrow.com

Seating in this workshop will be limited to 12 participants on a first come, first served basis. Please bring your own laptop.

There’s a great piece on the Drupal and the current White House website in today’s New York Times. Worth a read for Drupal users/fans or Open Source keeners.

Once again we have space available for sublease in our office. We’re going through some changes here at the office which mean we’re now offering a slightly different configuration from what we’ve offered in the past. We have two options available: either individual desk rental in our larger office space, or, if it suits your purposes better we also have an enclosed office available which would fit up to two people.  Details are below. I can’t say enough about how lovely this building and the people in it are (plus we’re kind of swell folks to be around too).

For Rent in Shared Space:

Single Desks in Common Area: $400/month each
Raised Eyebrow has two desk spaces available for rental in our bright, spacious office in the newly-renovated Flack Block in Gastown. This five-story heritage building has just been renovated to top-notch environmental standards (LEED Gold, for those in the know), and features high ceilings, original brick walls — and our favourite feature, windows that open and let in the fresh outdoor air.

Your rent includes high-speed internet, a phone line, access to two different fully kitted out meeting rooms, a beautiful kitchen and eating area that’s decked out with energy-efficient appliances, secure bike storage and showers, and lots of opportunities to interact with some of Vancouver’s brightest sparks of progressive change — our neighbours include Renewal Partners, Penner & Associates, Forest Ethics, Tides Canada, Bullfrog Power, Octopus Strategies, and Rainforest Solutions. The building is highly secure, with fob access at every entrance, and alarms on both our floor and within our suite.

We’re located on the corner of Hastings & Cambie, with fantastic transit access, great lunch & coffee spots all around, and right across the street from the greenery of Victory Square Park.

On single desks we require a minimum 3 month commitment.

Or if you’d prefer:

Contained Office Space in Raised Eyebrow: $850/month
Raised Eyebrow has one self contained office available for sub-rental in our bright, spacious office in the newly-renovated Flack Block in Gastown. This self-contained office has a sliding door glass door to block sound/for privacy and features a long window along one other wall. The office is large enough to fit two people. The five-story heritage building has just been renovated to top-notch environmental standards (LEED Gold, for those in the know), and features high ceilings, original brick walls.

Your rent includes high-speed internet, a phone line, access to two different fully kitted out meeting rooms, a beautiful kitchen and eating area that’s decked out with energy-efficient appliances, secure bike storage and showers, and lots of opportunities to interact with some of Vancouver’s brightest sparks of progressive change — our neighbours include Renewal Partners, Penner & Associates, Forest Ethics, Tides Canada, Bullfrog Power, Octopus Strategies, and Rainforest Solutions. The building is highly secure, with fob access at every entrance, and alarms on both our floor and within our suite.

We’re located on the corner of Hastings & Cambie, with fantastic transit access, great lunch & coffee spots all around, and right across the street from the greenery of Victory Square Park.

On the office space we require a minimum 6 month commitment.

Contact:
Contact us at turningheads [at] raisedeyebrow.com if you’re interested.

I’ve written before about the cost of websites, which is really hard thing to nail down. Like building a house, it depends how big/how fancy that house/website needs to be before a price tag can be attached. That said, we’ve been doing this a long time now, and recently we’ve been talking about rethinking our development model at Raised Eyebrow, which has some ramifications for our pricing and would allow us to answer the “what does a website cost anyway?” question a bit more directly.

On the development model side, we’re moving towards more of an Agile Development framework, which aligns really nicely with our company approach and philosophy quite nicely. For those of you that aren’t familiar with Agile development I do recommend following that link, but in a nutshell I can tell you that it means a more nimble process, more responsive to needs (in our case our clients’ needs), and generally means slower growth over time all of which fits really nicely with our vision of the web, community building and organizational/business sustainability.

I’ve written before, and waxed poetic over many a cocktail about new shiny features in the world of the interwebs taking priority over actual use value. Often we have clients coming to us, enticed by the latest cool new web tricks, and wanting to implement them — an understandable impulse. Often, we talk our clients down a notch when we know that they don’t have the internal resources to support said cool trick, or that their (let’s face it often limited) funds could be better spent elsewhere. In an Agile development model we’d be helping our clients focus on a smaller and defined set of features, rolling those out initially and then working with them to monitor the value and strategic impact of those features before we undertake further development. We already pride ourselves on having long term relationships with our clients where we’re happy to act as their trusted advisors when it comes to all things web, so tying that consulting relationship to a plan for a phased feature rollout is not a big new step to take. The new part, is the scaling back of initial specifications.

You may ask, why would a business (that is looking to make some money afterall) want to scale back specifications and features off the top? For us, it’s about doing our best work and supporting our clients to do their best work. It’s about making sure that clients are spending funds wisely so that they have something left over for features and consulting they’ll want in the future. Websites are fantastic in their ability to evolve and change, making sure our clients approach the work we do with them as a starting ground for a longer conversation, rather than a race to the finish line is one way that we feel we can better serve our clients and the non-profit sector we work in.

So what does a website cost under this model anyway?

For the first time ever we feel like we really truly have an answer to this question. In our case $15,000 (plus GST if you’re in Canada). And what do you get for that?

• You get a website. Not just any old website though. A website designed and birthed by a team of experts with many, many years of experience in this field.
• You do get an original design process.
• You get a rock solid Content Management System (Drupal), with an integrated search, that can be extended to add all kinds of cool features in the future.
• You get a site that is optimized for SEO both in its overall structure and its technical framework.
• You also get Information Architecture/Interaction Design consulting and ongoing strategic advice throughout the project.

You also get two features, things like:

• A basic events calendar, kind of like the one you see here at the Chan Centre.
• A standard publications/resources catalogue like this one at Pivot Legal.
• A news listing like this one for the Ending Violence Association of BC.
• A customized blog.
• An image gallery.
• A video carousel like the one on CaroleJames.ca.
• Something else that your organization needs specifically (that can be defined within a basic scope) like the integrated custom Job Applications form we did for Covenant House.

Why only two features? Well two features fits within our budget limit of $15,000 (obviously if you have more budget, we can expand the features), and two features is a great place to start. With two features up and running on a website we can work with you to make sure that they’re actually being used by the organization and users (through statistics monitoring), and we can then create a roadmap for building out new features or further customizing the existing ones to do even more for you.

The idea is, that we start with $15,000, get you an excellent and useful website that helps to meet your short term needs and helps you build on your long term communications goals. And then, ideally, we set up a retainer contract with you to have regular check-ins (quarterly, bi-annually, etc whatever works for you), and we help you plan out future feature roll-outs, strategies for enhancing the website and your online communications in general. We play an ongoing role in your communications strategy by regularly monitoring your website statistics and usage patterns, and we help make sure your budgets are being wisely spent over time.

But what about Social Media, is that a feature?

Yes, and no. Adding a link to your Twitter profile or integrating your latest Twitter posts into the website is easily done, and would be included in the project price. Ditto for adding Facebook links or integrating an RSS feed from the site into your Facebook Page/Group/Profile. By default (where applicable) we can include a Social Bookmarking widget that allows people to bookmark, repost, or email your site to a friend/social networks. Ditto for adding an existing email list signup box. Actual online strategic planning is another story. If you need help with creating a strategy for online communications, we’ll do that with you as well, but that would be a separate project.

In preparing an upcoming presentation for a client I found myself leafing through notes and google searches to get an exhaustive list of the different between Facebook Pages and Groups (I know the general difference, but wanted to make sure I was 100% prepared to answer all the ins outs of each, and always like to check in on the latest happenings at evolving beast that is Facebook). Here are two great posts that outline the differences between the two, if you’ve found yourself wondering which is best for you organization/cause/business:

• Search Engine Journal’s post includes a comparison table that is handy dandy. I would point out, however, that while it is true you can “message all members” with both as they say, there is a notable difference between messaging your Page’s fans vs. your Group members. With the former, the message goes out in the form of an “update” which can be easily ignored by users (if I’m any indication, they can in fact be routinely ignored). The latter, offers direct inbox sending options, though only for groups under 1,200 members (or perhaps 5,000 I’ve found conflicting info on that number).
• Advergirl’s post lists out the pros and cons of each, playing champion and devil’s advocate for both options.

The summary seems to be that for a long standing, more engaged approach with a community you want a Page, not a Group, but check out the comparisons and decide for yourself.

(As a side note, you can turn an existing Facebook Group into a Page, but you need to be the admin contact for the original group, and you need to contact Facebook directly to do it. No sense of what the ETA on turn around time for that is).

I came across Matt Haughey’s post This is How Social Media Really Works via a friend’s blog this afternoon and it’s finally got me focusing a whole mess of thoughts about Social Media that have been floating around in my brain for the last several months about strategic use of Social Media as a part of your larger communications or marketing plan.

To summarize Matt’s post, if you haven’t already headed over there to read it, he describes a recent purchase he made and how he came across the company he ultimately bought from. Matt was looking to upgrade the swingset in his backyard, his path to purchase went something like this: follow friend on Twitter > one day that friend happens to tweet about the Obama’s buying new swingset for Whitehouse > Matt, because he’s currently interested in swingsets, checks out friend’s blog post that contains more details about the swingset, including a link to the manufacturer of said soon to be presidential swingset > website for swingset vendor is particularly well designed and easy to use > Matt buys swingset.

Matt’s conclusion for this is that, well I’ll just quote him here:

“there are thousands of people all over twitter and blogs that think throwing thousands of dollars at people that describe themselves as a “marketing guru” is the way to increase their company sales. I’m here to say I think that may very well be a waste of money, time, and energy.”

He goes on to conclude the article with the following:

“So maybe instead of getting your company on twitter, paying marketers to mention you are on twitter, and paying people to blog about your company, forget all that and just make awesome stuff that gets people excited about your products, hire people that represent the company well, and when your stuff is so awesome that friends share it with other friends, you may not even need “social media marketing” after all.”

And I agree. Wholeheartedly. But does that mean I think you shouldn’t participate in Social Media as a marketing pursuit be it for a company, a non-profit, a campaign or what have you? No. I do think however — and I’m really not alone in this — that you should see your participation in Social Media — Twitter, Facebook, etc. — as a way to extend your reach, build your community and engage in conversation with customers. And, as you do that — and do it well — you will find that you start getting good Earned Social Media and it will pay off in droves in sales, participation, supporters etc. That means not using Social Media to just let people know directly about your products, sales, fundraising campaigns etc. In fact, you should probably limit how much of that you do through Social Media channels altogether as it detracts from the community building side of things.

I’ve been advocating for clients to get earned online media for many a year now. I think it is by far one of the most effective online strategies to boost sales/supporters/donations etc. and lucky for you it is pretty easy to get. Easier to get than earned media offline anyway, as the barrier to entry is really low. A review on a blog, or an interview with a blogger is a great entry point to earned online media. Obviously, depending on the reach of the blogger or an online magazine, the impact will vary widely, but much like offline earned media it tends to be the kind of thing that builds and grows overtime. With Social Media you’re looking for the same thing. People retweeting a useful resource you post online, or perhaps even better people tweeting links directly to a blog post you’ve written on a company or organizational blog, or another page on your website will help drive pre-qualified (already interested) traffic to your website. As Matt’s scenario displays, that one pre-qualified lead — he was already particularly interested in swingsets — will be far more valuable than thousands of curious folks who just happen to click on a link from your Twitter feed.

The final piece from Matt’s blog post that I want to point to — and I’m aware I’ve got a huge bias here — is a comment he makes about the vendor having “a great website” which, combined with a local lot where he could test out the playground in person, ultimately helped to seal the deal. If when he followed that link he hadn’t been able to quickly and easily get the info that he wanted, he probably would have clicked away and this story would never have been written. When you’re investing in Social Media — be it dollars or simply the valuable time of staff used to tweet and updating Facebook — you are ulitmately investing in driving traffic to your website. If your website isn’t in top form, you may want to spend those Social Media marketing resources on fixing things up at your primary online communications point first.

As providers/builders/magicians of technology it is natural for our clients to come to us when they want to add new features to their websites. And while it’s kind of our job to get the job done, I often find that I start out a conversation about adding “new feature x” with investigative questions about what the reasoning behind the new feature is and how it will be supported with internal resources. Sometimes, I even end up talking clients out of adding some new feature (which ultimately would give us money and business) in favour of redirecting them to pay more attention to content/people time spent on what they’ve already got. This article looking at how too many features can harm your online community hits the nail on the head on this topic, and can be broadened out to include most online applications not just those in community websites. The biggest take away comes near the end of the article with this paragraph:

Don’t be tricked into thinking that members demand certain features and functionality. Members aren’t really interested in the technology behind a community – they are far more interested in the people and human activity taking place there.

I’ve been compiling notes from the various conferences I’ve been at over the last few weeks and plan to post them up here, many centre around the common thread that the technologies available to us today are ultimately there to support larger visions, they are not in and of themselves the final prize. Whether that translates into pouring resources into supporting people over new technology, or using social media to support and enhance campaigns but not as a campaign itself, the technology can’t be the leader in the equation however shiny and cool it may be.