Your Digital Marketing Coach with Neal Schaffer

Leveraging Digital Marketing for Nonprofits: Insights from Nicholas Bruneau

• Neal Schaffer • Episode 375

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In today's episode I sit down with Nicholas Bruneau, a seasoned communications consultant and author of Engage with Impact, to discuss the transformative power of digital advocacy. Nicholas shares his vast experience working with organizations like the United Nations and the World Bank, offering practical strategies for raising awareness, engaging communities, and driving fundraising efforts through digital channels. Our conversation highlights the universal applicability of these strategies, making this episode a must-listen for both nonprofit and for-profit professionals.

Embrace the power of authentic storytelling and innovation in a post-pandemic world that values raw, unscripted content. Learn from companies like Candid and initiatives like the Malala Fund’s Assembly, and discover the art of leveraging email for meaningful two-way communication. We also tackle the challenges of transitioning to short-form video content and utilizing AI responsibly, ensuring your digital initiatives are not just effective but also credible and trustworthy. Join us for an episode packed with actionable insights and real-world examples that can elevate your digital marketing strategy to new heights.

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Speaker 1:

Ever wonder how nonprofits like Patagonia and the Malala Fund harness the power of digital tools to drive real-world impact, from leveraging AI and video storytelling to building trust and engaging donor communities. This episode is packed with strategies and insights to revolutionize your digital-first approach. Whether you're a seasoned marketer or just getting started, or you are not even doing anything related to nonprofits, trust me you're going to discover some actionable tips and inspiring examples to elevate your campaigns, but only if you stay tuned to this next episode of the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast.

Speaker 2:

Digital social media content, influencer marketing, blogging, podcasting, vlogging, tiktoking, linkedin, twitter, facebook, instagram, youtube, seo, sem, ppc, email marketing there's a lot to cover. Whether you're a marketing professional, entrepreneur or business owner, you need someone you can rely on for expert advice. Good thing you've got Neil on your side, because Neil Schaefer is your digital marketing coach, helping you grow your business with digital first marketing, one episode at a time. This is your digital marketing coach, and this is Neil Schafer.

Speaker 1:

Hey everybody, this is your digital marketing coach, neil Schafer. Welcome to episode number 375 of this podcast. As always, I want to begin with the latest marketing industry news. So we all know that social commerce something we've talked about for a long time has become a reality with TikTok Shop. Now YouTube is planning to take on TikTok Shop with an expanded Shopify partnership, shopify being really the definitive CMS for consumer e-commerce. Today, I am looking to launch my own bookstore with my books, as well as offering consulting, coaching services and my masterminds group coaching communities all on a Shopify store myself. And it really is. With its integrations with TikTok, with Facebook, with Google ads, facebook ads, it really is the definitive e-commerce platform and it's really good to see that if you are a Shopify owner, well, that's going to become easier for you to generate more revenue from YouTube. So we'll see where that goes, but I think that's really really exciting news for e-commerce and TikTok has proven that, when done right, social commerce can happen, and we'll see what YouTube does there.

Speaker 1:

Another interesting update is from Instagram and obviously last episode I talked all about Instagram, but now they have decided to make views their primary metric. I'm not sure when this is going to kick in. But whether it is a post or whether it is a video, you will begin to see the number of views, which I'm assuming is basically like impressions, like what you see on Twitter, what you see on LinkedIn, almost becoming a standard, so that even if you only get one or two or three likes, well, if you got 10 views or impressions, maybe you'll feel a little bit better and really, the more impressions you're getting, the more engagement you're getting right. So the idea being that the algorithm is only going to give you more impressions, more views, if you're getting engagement on your current content. The challenge, obviously, is understanding that engagement I often get. People on Twitter say, neil, your tweets don't get many likes or retweets, but I say you don't see how many clicks I'm getting, right, it's the same thing with videos we don't know if people are staying for a second, for 15 seconds, how the algorithms measure that differently. But one thing is for sure the more views we're getting, the more impact we have, and you know we're going to have to become used to analyzing that and I think also the. You know, getting rid of likes is something that Instagram did a long time ago in some markets and you know you do have the option on your profile as well. Maybe we're all moving into that. Let's worry less about likes and just try to get more impressions in the algorithm for our content and be done with all the nonsense regarding chasing vanity metrics. Let there just be one metric. So that is an interesting development. We'll see what that looks like. We know what it looks like with reels. We'll see what it looks like with posts.

Speaker 1:

And then we had Google, who they seem to be increasing the frequency of their major core updates At least that's what it seems like to me but they released a new core update this is for search engine, obviously in August. And then there were some bugs and, just like any other search engine algorithm change, maybe your business saw a little change in August. I really didn't, but if you were affected, you know, wait and see, wait until things sort of even out. And, as always, google's saying focus on the quality of your content rather than technical fixes, although obviously technical SEO is important, but always be focusing on the content quality. Obviously, the helpfulness, the usefulness, eeat, telling your own individual perspective based on your own real experience, all of these things they keep talking about.

Speaker 1:

And in fact, there was another interesting article last week that from the SEO advice world that Google was saying that a lot of these technical site audit tools really have no impact on SEO. And you know I couldn't agree a hundred percent more no impact on SEO. And I couldn't agree 100% more. It's funny because I used to use SEMrush and SEMrush was always just like dinging my website left and right, right. And then I moved over to Ahrefs because they have a free SEO audit tool or a site audit tool and I'm at like 98 or 99%. So how can one audit tool rank it one way and another another way? It just shows how, at the end of the day, these are all tools with unique algorithms and you need to figure out what's right for your website. So I thought this was really great advice.

Speaker 1:

You know a lot of problems that people have like with a tool like SEM rushes. They log in, they begin with the site audit tool, they find so many issues that they just get so bogged down. They never get to really optimizing their content and understanding you know what keywords they should be targeting to build their library of content, et cetera, et cetera. So don't like everything else I talk about here, don't get lost in the weeds, and I'm really glad that Google came out and said something about it because, in all honesty, I'm currently using Ubersuggest, neil Patel's SEO tool. I do not even look at the site audit, I just use the free Ahrefs site audit and it does a great job. And if I have too many broken links, too many broken images, those are the times when my 99% goes down to 98%. Those are the times I go in and make a quick fix. So if you're interested in receiving this news on a timely fashion, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter. Go to neilschafercom slash newsletter, where I provide this as well as a lot of other useful content that can help your digital marketing efforts. All right, so for personal news, those that follow me on social media may know that I have been asking for your advice on a book cover, and the book cover is not digital thread, so maybe I should begin with digital threads.

Speaker 1:

The Kickstarter campaign successfully funded. It is currently basically waiting for Kickstarter to send me the funds so that I can start facilitating the books. The ebook is done, the paperback book is done, the hardcover that should have been done is done, but they forgot to glue the cover or the sleeve onto the book. So I'm waiting to get a final version of that, which is currently in the mail, and then the companion workbooks had to make some changes in the interior of the cover. This is the paper edition. I'm waiting for confirmation of that as well, but it's all starting to come together, with the exception of the audio book, which I am getting geared up to get started with and really can't wait to get started with. For those of you that were not part of the Kickstarter, the plan is to publish this book October 1st, although it may come out a little earlier. If you are a book reviewer or you're on NetGalley, you can find my book there. Reach out to me for a review copy. But yeah, it's all coming together.

Speaker 1:

But the poll that I did was about this other LinkedIn ebook that I have. If you're not familiar, you should go to neilschafercom slash freebies. That's F-R-E-E-B-I-E-S and that is where I house all of my free ebooks. So I have this ebook called Maximizing LinkedIn for Business that I revise annually, and because I wrote two books on LinkedIn, I sort of owe it to my community to continue to maintain this ebook. I also do it because every year I speak for a client and it's actually mandated in our contract that I'm going to update that ebook.

Speaker 1:

But this time I decided to take it one step further, expand upon the content and really make it maximizing LinkedIn for business growth. So that is going to be an ebook that you're going to see coming out on Amazon pretty soon. That's going to be ebook only. I do plan to make a paperback out of it. But compared to my other books which are, you know, digital threads is like almost 70,000 words, this is a 16,000 word. A very, very short, short and sweet, I think, and very actionable tactical book to really help you with your personal branding geared towards marketers, entrepreneurs, sales, business development, business owners, what have you. So can't wait to release that. Be on the lookout for more news from me. Make sure you sign up to neilschafercom slash newsletter or keep listening to this podcast and I will keep you updated.

Speaker 1:

So very, very busy at the Schaefer office and let's dive into today's interview. So today we're going to be diving deep in a digital first strategies for nonprofits and, as I said in the teaser, you know I have worked with nonprofits, I work with for-profits. I think it's equally applicable the advice that you're going to hear today, so don't tune out just because it's nonprofits. Today, we feature insights from communications expert Nicholas Bruno. Together, we explore the power of personal stories and emotional triggers in engaging donors, the value of persistent, long-term campaigns and the crucial role of a clear mission statement your brand values, your brand story, why you do what you do, and whether it's corporate branding or personal branding, I think it's equally important.

Speaker 1:

We also will discuss the impact of AI and social media algorithms, the rising importance of video content and the challenges of maintaining credibility in the digital age. Trust for nonprofits is just as important as it is for for-profits. Right, nicholas is going to shed some light on creating impactful communications, with examples from global organizations like Patagonia, the World Wildlife Foundation and UNDP. We'll also touch on the shift towards raw and authentic content, the importance of continuous Foundation and UNDP. We'll also touch on the shift towards raw and authentic content, the importance of continuous innovation and the need for a strategic approach to digital tools. So, whether you're from a nonprofit or a for-profit, I believe that this interview is going to be packed with a lot of actionable insights to enhance your digital marketing efforts. So here we go to the interview as we unpack the future of nonprofit communications and the power of storytelling in driving social impact, with my special guest, nicholas Bruneau.

Speaker 2:

You're listening to your Digital Marketing Coach. This is Neil Schaefer.

Speaker 1:

Hey everybody, this is Neil Schaefer, and welcome to another live stream edition of the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast. So I want to say it was about a year, a year and a half ago there was a European communications consultant that reached out to me and he said, neil, I am writing a book on digital communications and I would love to interview you for that book and include your thoughts so that this book becomes a more inclusive piece of work that represents a lot of great thought that's out there. So I said, sure, let's do it. And that actually turned into this book that was just released recently, called Engage with Impact. Today we have the author who interviewed me, engage with impact. Today we have the author who interviewed me, nicholas Bruno, on this podcast to talk more about that.

Speaker 1:

Now, if you don't know Nicholas well, he's based in Europe I believe based in Belgium, Nicholas. You're going to have to correct me on that, and I didn't hear any European accent when I spoke with him, so we're going to have to ask him about his background as well. But Nicholas is a communications consultant with decades of experience in social impact communications. His expertise lies at the intersection of digital communications and purpose-led marketing, and today's topic is about the digital-first nonprofit, but I will remind you that what we talk about, what I talk about, is universal. We might focus on nonprofits, but I believe that all of the strategies and tactics and ideas that we talk about are equally applicable to for-profits. So, even if you're not with a nonprofit, not affiliated with one or work for one, I urge you to keep listening, because I know that there's going to be a lot of golden takeaways during this interview. So, nicholas, welcome to the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast.

Speaker 3:

Hi, neil, thank you. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1:

Oh, of course, it's an honor to have you on stage here and, like with all my guests, I gave a brief introduction to you, but I love to give you the opportunity to introduce yourself and I think, most importantly, how did you get into doing what you do today?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so first of all, as you've noticed, I have a Canadian accent, so I'm originally from Canada.

Speaker 3:

That's what it was, and I am now based in Portugal. So I'm working from here, remotely, currently for the United Nations, but previously for other intergovernmental organizations like the World Bank or the European Commission, and then also some nonprofits and other associations. And so what I've done is I've been working, you know, for almost a decade now on digital advocacy, digital comms, for basically the social impact sector, and then, I think you know the book just evolved. I just realized, you know, there was really a need to talk about all these stories, all these organizations that were changing the way that they were communicating online, particularly after COVID.

Speaker 1:

So, social impact, digital impact I'm sure that that is a word that's used a lot in the nonprofit and in the government organization world, but I think that for-profit companies use that as well. Right, engagement in social media and newer generations that actually want to align their consumer behaviors with social impact. So let's begin with, just for those that aren't really familiar with the term how do you define social impact, digital impact, in the lens of the work that you do?

Speaker 3:

I mean, I think it depends on your organization, right?

Speaker 3:

If you're an organization, for example, if you're a nonprofit and you're looking to both to raise awareness about the programs that you're doing but also to raise funding, then digital is an important tool for nonprofits to raise funds, an important tool for nonprofits to raise funds For international organizations.

Speaker 3:

It's raising awareness and also creating engagement with their community. So that can be, you know, trying to change policy, trying to get support, but then also, you know, to educate stakeholders in specific areas where the organization is working for, for example, now I'm working with the United Nations Data for Now initiative. It's focused on basically the statistics offices and then we help the statistics offices to improve their innovative technologies in data collection, for example, innovative technologies in data collection, for example. So our audience there is statistics offices and also the partner organizations, even like, maybe, microsoft, who works a lot with the data on a large scale. So it's trying to find those stakeholders and then engaging with them online in sort of interesting ways, using storytelling, using a lot of the different tactics. So there is a lot of content marketing, for example, where you need to sort of showcase okay, this is what we're doing and this is why it's important.

Speaker 1:

Gotcha. So awareness and engagement, and then fundraising, which is very similar to, I think, what a lot of companies want to do as well. Once again, I like to remind people that these strategies are as equally applicable for for-profit companies. So awareness, engagement with fundraising, and this is almost and I think you'd agree two different topics of leveraging social media for fundraising versus awareness and engagement.

Speaker 1:

So, for the fundraising, I think the way that the success or non-success can be measured is by the amount of money you raise, obviously, or the number of people, or the number of new people that you were able to raise money from or organizations. I'm curious and this is sort of the million-dollar question, which is the awareness and the engagement how do the World Bank, the United Nations, how do these organizations measure the success of those initiatives? Because inevitably there's funding that needs to be applied in order to do that work, in order to hire people like yourself, and the tools, what have you? So I'm just curious as how they view that. Is there something that for-profit companies are missing out on? Because maybe they see that more as a cost center instead of a value add center, and I'd love to get your feedback on that.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think, as far as the success for the digital activities, it's all about first setting much like you will do setting some KPIs, setting some key objectives for the work that you're doing, so that you're focused, laser focused, on that.

Speaker 3:

And so, for example, with the World Bank, perhaps it's for the research division, it's the number of downloads, right, so they're trying to sort of making sure that they're reaching the right people at scale.

Speaker 3:

However, you know, in the case of the World Bank, they also realized, well, actually we're not meeting those KPIs, where there was a study done about eight years ago that showed that basically a lot of reports were not being read. So what did they do? They refurbished their websites. They also focused on SEO, so a lot of search engine optimization, seo content writing and basically did a whole training campaign internally so that their research, their blogs and everything was SEO focused, so that they would be on top of basically any search results where, when you're looking for sustainable development in Africa or financing projects in Africa, now the World Bank is top of the Google search results, but previously they were not. So it's really kind of I think it will depend on the organization and it'll depend on basically which area they're working in. But it's you know much like you know the work that you're doing. It's setting those goals and then seeing okay, how do we get there, how are we getting the awareness and then reaching those KPIs.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that's a fantastic example, because I'm really deep in finishing my next book and it begins with people or businesses that reached out to me for influence and marketing, because I wrote the Age of Influence but in order to reach their objectives, was that the right channel? And this is a great example. You want more brand awareness? Well, maybe SEO is going to be a better long-term bet, a better use of funds than social media, to meet that same objective. And I love that example because I think it's very true in real life.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes we assume that something's going to do better, but I think at the end of the day, marketing is this, or communications is sort of half art, half science, and sometimes we forget about that science part of getting the data and comparing things and making those experiments. So that was a great example.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and just to add to that as well, is the fact that you know, what infuriates me, and I'm sure yourself as well, is when people just say, oh, when it's when social media is just like a or digital is just a box ticking exercise, when people say, ok, you know we need this out, and then there's no strategy behind it, there's no objective behind it, and then you know it's basically like, ok, we just need to show people. And then, you know, have a couple of tweets. And I think that what you know, you and I are trying to do is trying to sort of go beyond that, right, because it's, of course, maybe, you know, instrumental to tweet something, but what's the bigger context and what is your objective for that tweet? Where does it sit at the? You know, if you're looking at the funnel of awareness, you know, is the top funnel or are you really looking for people to get an engagement? So I think it's really having that down pat.

Speaker 3:

And then I think a lot of organizations, whether it's nonprofits or even, you know, the business sector, they don't have. They don't have that. There's a lot of, I think, you know, bad planning from numerous businesses but also nonprofits that don't see the big picture. So, yeah, I think that's key and I think that should always be behind everything that you do online.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I am not a PR or communications person by any means, but I do believe in the power of relationships because I have a background in B2B sales, where people buy from people, not from companies, and in my new book I introduced something called the funnel of digital relationships. And it's exactly that Social media does play a critical role almost at every stage of the funnel, but there's other pieces as well, like email, like SEO, like content marketing. So I want to switch gears a little bit, because you had mentioned that you were looking at how communication has changed since COVID, and this is also a topic. In fact, that term, digital first is actually in the subtitle of my upcoming book. So I fully lean into it and believe it as well, and I think my view is that we've seen this acceleration of the digital transformation and companies and organizations are always playing catch up. How have you seen things change in your world since COVID vis-a-vis communications and social media?

Speaker 3:

Gosh. Where to start? Where?

Speaker 3:

to begin right. I think that you know, the first thing that I would say is the organizations have had to, they've been obliged to experiment, you know, they've been obliged to to try new, uh, new platforms, new ways of doing things, and so that is is really sort of a great, a great thing, and those that have succeeded are the ones that are have said okay, you know, we'll accept, let let's try different ways of doing things. And maybe it's not always going to work, maybe we're going to fall flat on our face, but we're going to learn from it. And so, for example, in the book there was a great example of a nonprofit called Candid, which they said okay, we should be doing some short form videos, but they didn't know where to start. So basically, they said, okay, we should be doing some short form videos, but they didn't know where to start. So basically, they said, okay, let's do an experiment, let's do a three month very specific experiments where we have a certain number of videos. We're not going to spend all our time on it, but we know we're going to do some key videos and then we're going to measure which ones are working, in which platform, which kind of content, and then you know they really tracked it, so they were able to really, you know, have a successful sort of experiment that allowed them to see, actually, you know, we thought we were going to, you know, get a lot more success on TikTok, but it's actually YouTube Shorts that's really helping. Maybe that's where our audience is. So they really had that kind of experimental approach and I think those are the organizations that are succeeding. Those are the ones that are doing great things Because, as you know, you know, digital is going so fast these days that you need to experiment, otherwise you're going to fall behind.

Speaker 3:

So you need to sort of have that mentality, and that's so. That's where I talked about in my book, about, like the startup mentality. You know, startup is going to be like they're going to be experimenting and they, you know, fail fast. You know, let's do things and then try different things and see what works. It's like throwing spaghetti on the wall.

Speaker 3:

Of course you do it, and if you're in a political organization, you're not going to go crazy. You're just going to do some things that are very in a controlled manner, right, you're just going to do some things that are very in a controlled manner, right. And then what I've also seen is you know, before you had all these perfectly scripted videos of, you know, let's say that, the head of the United Nations speaking, whereas now you know he's even going to be doing videos with his handheld mobile phone. Sure, thanks to the pandemic, we're more open and we actually want to see more raw footage, more real kind of like footage that really shows kind of what things are like on the ground, as opposed to like a beautiful corporate videos. And I've seen I did a study to look at that and the ones that are less scripted and more raw are the ones that perform the best.

Speaker 1:

Wow, I'd love to see that data, but I mean a few different things I want to unpack there. But I am in, you know, 100% agreement about everything you said, and in fact, you know, we've never met in person, and if you were to look at my social media profile picture, it's me in a black suit and navy blue. You know Brooks Brothers shirt, but I realized after COVID that people do want more raw, and when I dress more casual, I have comments like Neil, you're so much more relatable on camera. I even talk about this in my upcoming book, so you might've been surprised to see me in a t-shirt here, but I am a Southern California native and this is how I work right. So to me it's just natural and it is in line with the raw, authentic that people want to see. I'm curious, though even myself and maybe yourself as well, nicholas.

Speaker 1:

We come from an era before social media, or when social media just began. It was mainly text-based. When it went image-based with Instagram, it was a challenge, and I talked a lot about that in Maximize your Social, which I wrote like a decade ago. We have this new challenge with short form video right, and something I am still trying to do more of. I can never do enough of, and I think that probably 90% of the organizations you work with are probably the same. How did Candid start the process? Was it and I see it with a lot of companies it's a passionate younger generation, a Gen Z or maybe a younger millennial that is an active user themselves that pushes the organization into it? Or did it begin in another way? Just curious for those companies and people listening to this podcast or watching the live stream of how, if they haven't gotten started yet, what was the trigger for Candid to start doing that and finding success?

Speaker 3:

In my view, it was a social media manager that had that sort of curiosity to do something. What they also have at Candid is they have similar to what Google has, which is, I think, the 10% rule, where you're allowed to work 10% of the time on new projects that aren't necessarily directly related with your work to encourage innovation. That's, for example, how Gmail started and all these kind of different things. So they also have that kind of like you could call it a fund that allows people to make these experiments and take these chances on new things. So I think it's not many organizations have that, but I think it's something that you know is really helps people to have the flexibility to do new things.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think in marketing it is as you mentioned things move so fast that that mentality is so important. And I know that marketing communications, pr, is often understaffed, under-resourced, so you might not be able to find the time. But, nicholas, I myself I mean Fridays and today's a Friday. We're doing this interview on a Friday, but Fridays are my days for R&D, to really dig deep, experiment, try new things, learn new things, and I think that for some people that may have to do it over the weekend or maybe on weeknights, but it really is critical to continue to innovate. Because, just you know, I have children, two Gen Z well, one is Gen Z, alpha, borderline but the language they use is different and with every iteration of a TikTok trend, the language they use continues to evolve right, and that's the core communication. So if we're not always evolving like that, at some point there's this huge gap and you know, kudos to Candid for having that culture.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, and it really is like a culture change and you really have to sort of adopt, you know, this kind of vulnerability where you, where you actually accept that you know not everything's going to be perfect, and then that's why, for example, in in the book I talk a lot about you know, accepting your mistakes and learning from them Right, and then actually even like celebrating your mistakes and saying you know accepting your mistakes and learning from them right, and then actually even like celebrating your mistakes and saying, you know, having that culture where you can celebrate okay, we did this campaign, we wanted to do this, but we actually didn't, didn't get there, whereas you know what happens now. A lot is people in organizations they will only show the good side, you know, of the results of a campaign and then they won't show okay, we didn't meet this objective, we didn't meet that objective, and I think you can learn a lot from that. And then you know that's the way that you continuously improve. So it's creating that culture within the organization.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, amen, and I think we both agree this. This culture of experimentation is just critical, and that's something I've been talking about. I know you talk about it as well. So you also talk about something that I think is really important, that I talk a lot about in my upcoming book, which is storytelling that to succeed online, you need to tell personal stories, and one of the ways you talk about doing this, which I thought really interesting, was creating a brand ambassador program, like the WWF did before German elections, or working with influencers, like UNDP did for the Don't Choose Extinction campaign. So I always think that the people around us can always tell better stories about our organization than we can because we're so deep into it. Sometimes we don't see the obvious, and I'm assuming this is why this reaching out to other people that have brand affinity, that like, know and trust the organization, can actually tell the better story of impact. Has that been your experience? I'd love to hear about these two specific campaigns that we talked about.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean and this is also, I think, an impact of the pandemic in the fact that people are a lot more don't want to see just the corporate side, they want to see the face and the people behind the organization. So it is an opportunity for the organizations that want to take that step forward. So, whether it's okay, maybe the CEO or C-suite of the organization can they speak more on camera? But then also, how do you involve your employees to really speak on key issues that relate with what your organization is doing? And that's what the World Wildlife Foundation, for example, and they were able to. Then the communications team worked with them to build up their presence on social media, to create content together with them. So then, after that, it allowed them to not just basically have communications that was coming from the organization, but communication from coming from experts that were speaking directly with the politicians that were running on at the German elections. So it allowed them to really have, like you know, a personal side to the campaign, as opposed to here, you know, we should save the wildlife and this is why you know. So it's something that they've, they've continued and I think we all have as organizations, even companies, we all have experts within our company or organization that we can tap into and then so it's basically working with them to build that up.

Speaker 3:

Dundp was another example where they worked with numerous. Of course, they have the UN Ambassador Program that has a lot of celebrities working with them already, but then they also got specific influencers in specific countries that spoke specific languages to really have something that was tailored and really personalized to different national audiences. So I think you have to think about that as well, so that it's not just a top-down. You know, in English and I think a lot of countries you know they want to see something in their language. They want to see something from someone that is coming, you know, that is speaking to them directly. So that's the strategy that they adopted as well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think all of this, as you know, I define as influencer marketing. I'm curious because in my upcoming book, I have a separate chapter just on the power of brand ambassadors and I classify them as different types. So I believe you were talking about employee ambassadors, but there's also expert ambassadors. So the employee ambassadors for, like, a organization or for a B2B will often be the experts internally, but then there are those experts in the industry that are extremely influential as well. So were they using a combination of the two or were they all just employee ambassadors?

Speaker 3:

Well, as far as UNDP, they were using external ambassadors, so these were not internal ambassadors there. But what they did is they obviously worked with them very closely to sort of brief them on the issues and making sure, as you would with the influencers, to make sure that they're as aligned as possible when they joined the campaign.

Speaker 1:

But what about for WWF? That was the one that I was curious on.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so WWF that was completely internal and then so these were experts that were internally working with them and that's sort of, as I said, something that they've continued even after the election.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, really fantastic advice. I want to move on to another point that before we, before we scheduled the interview, we had like a back and forth on what we were going to talk about and you also talked about. So, you know, going digital first, startup mentality, experimentation, you know that's like this critical thing of digital first marketing, regardless of organization, and then succeeding online storytelling, but not necessarily your executives telling stories, but more of those ambassadors, experts, you know, internal, external, and that is just such a powerful topic on its own that we could go off on for another dedicated interview on. But the third point was create a platform for your fans, and I love this idea.

Speaker 1:

You talk about, or you will talk about, the Malala Fund, but I'm teaching this class on personal branding and becoming someone of influence or yielding influence and, at the end of the day, creating your own community is the ultimate way to really scale that influence, because you build a community, the community members talk about you without you having to talk about yourself, and it builds this very, very positive flywheel. So I love this idea about creating your own platform. I mean, what did the Malala Fund, what did the Malala Fund do with assembly and what are some takeaways that everybody listening might be able to do for their own organization.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, I mean I think they're a great example of an organization that wanted to give the mic to their audience and they wanted to help. Of course, if you know the Malala Fund, it was funded by Malala Yousafzai. She was shot by the Taliban for speaking out on the rights for girls' education and then became well-known and from that, founded this non-profit to help support the education of girls and young women worldwide nonprofit to help support the education of girls and young women worldwide. And then from that she realized we have to tell stories about what's happening internationally with young girls and how can we help them to tell those stories, how can we amplify their stories? So they then created this. So they then created this. First it was just a newsletter called Assembly, where they would reach out to young leaders and if you would like to write a story, then please submit your story and we'll include it in the next edition of Assembly. And actually they were overwhelmed because so many girls internationally wanted to tell their story, wanted to say what was happening in their country, how they're dealing with it and what are some of the solutions right how they're dealing with it and what are some of the solutions right. So it really became kind of a buzzing kind of platform that allowed them to.

Speaker 3:

Now it's almost like a magazine, it's almost like they have a media house, you know, within the nonprofit, and they're having, you know, girls tell their story and it's really it's kind of a win-win because on one hand, you know girls tell their story and it's really it's kind of a win-win because, on one hand, they're getting all this amazing content that helps to support their activity and showcase the importance of girls' education Absolutely. And at the same time, you know, they're amplifying locally sort of what's happening in all these countries and really showcasing, you know, the efforts that are being done. So it's really it's a very positive kind of win-win story. And they even, you know, won the Webby Awards and a lot of different awards. So it's really converting. You know, not just using email to speak to your audience, but then asking your audience then to speak to you and then co-collaboratively, kind of co-creating a lot of stuff together.

Speaker 1:

That would have been a great case study to feature in my new book. I have a dedicated chapter on user-generated content as well, and I also love the power that a lot of people forget about email to facilitate that communication, because it's not defined by who's going to see the search results or are you going to pop up in Mark Zuckerberg's newsfeed or not. It's something you control and being able to have that conversation to be able to source that content and it's not content, it's stories, right, of people who share that passion. So these are great examples. Anyone listening I will challenge you to try to implement in your organization. And one thing I wanted to talk about with the brand ambassador study before is the storytelling of other people talking about you, which obviously is also this user generated content concept.

Speaker 1:

You know I did my own experiment where I have this free LinkedIn ebook that is a lead magnet and I hired someone to create. There are UGC content creators, right, consider them nano influencers and you know her talking about my ebook. She was able to, you know, to talk about it in a way that I couldn't and had the video creation skills to do it in a very engaging way for social media. So two takeaways for anyone that's listening or watching. Number one, if you've never done it and I found this person on Fiverr. In all honesty, she's based, she's being based out of London. You know, do a search for UTC content creator unless you, you know, you have customers that are creating the content for you or other people that can, but I think it's a really, really great experiment to see how other people would tell your story. And then the second one is I love that you know using email, not as one way communication, but as two way communication, and seeing what sort of stories that you can source from your, your customers or your community. But do you have a brand mission? Do you have a brand vision? Do you have a culture that is aligned with something that people are really passionate about, like those that subscribe to the Malala Fund newsletter? I think that is the challenge, and I would argue that every for-profit company should have a passionate mission that they align with. That is along the lines of what a nonprofit has. I think more and more with younger generations, that's becoming critical. So a lot of great takeaways here.

Speaker 1:

Nicholas, and obviously anyone that's interested in learning more about this, definitely buy the book Engage with Impact. It is available wherever fine books are sold online, offline. You'll find my interview sprinkled in there as well. Nicholas, are there any you know talking about the digital first nonprofit? I think we hit a lot of aspects of the funnel. We hit the SEO, the content marketing, the social media, the brand ambassador, the influencer marketing, the user generated content. We covered a lot in 30 minutes, my friend, but I'm curious are there any other you know nuggets of wisdom that you'd like to impart the audience with on the topic before we end this interview, anything that we missed?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean I think that one of the things that and this is something I see very often is that nonprofits and international organizations will have a call to action, will have something and then they don't have the follow through. So I think that companies that do like direct marketing have great expertise to basically have that funnel where that really follows through and make sure that they're able to either get that sale or get that subscriber or whatever it is with the different strategies. And I think that on one hand, I've seen we had a campaign with the Global Partnership for Education. We had amazing traffic going to our website for a campaign that I managed. But one of the things that where we fell short was the participation rates. We didn't have as much participation rate as we wanted to.

Speaker 3:

And I just saw an interview with someone from another nonprofit called Make my Money Matter, and they had I don't know if you saw perhaps you saw a video that went viral with Olivia Colman talking about the importance of your pension, where your pension money goes, and the CEO said that we had a lot of difficulty.

Speaker 3:

We may have seen I think it was, you know, 15 million people that saw the video but then only 2 people took action on that issue. So I think that is, for me, the main thing that I want to work on is to try to help organizations when they, when they have a campaign, to really meet those objectives and to really use digital to really, you know, get more engagement and get more people involved in there for their campaign or for their cause, and I think that's a challenge. I think people are very passive and used to sort of sitting back and then so how do you get them to take action? So I don't know if you would have any suggestions there. Of course, you know, with thanks to your expertise, you know what are, what are the key things that get people to take action online.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you know it's funny, this is a similar topic that I had a conversation with my brother. I bring up my brother, I have four older brothers, but one brother is he's in the wine industry. We had this conversation. He is a winemaker here in Southern California, well, santa Barbara County, and he is a member of a professional association of winemakers of a specific variety of grapes so nonprofit association. But they want to evangelize this type of grape and they want to start.

Speaker 1:

They've never done Facebook or Instagram ads and it's like you're building asset because it takes time to develop relationships with people and if you think about a pixel, it is an asset. So it's not just one ad campaign for one event and you're over right. You're going to begin the relationship. Not everybody's going to convert and my sales background tells me that it takes five to 20 touches whatever number you want to use to convert people to action. It is a long game and people do not get married the day after they meet someone for the first time and I have to remind people of that that you have to have that long-term approach but you also have to be intelligent and strategically retouching those people getting those touches. Google also calls this a zero moment of truth. I talk about it in my new book. But I think to get people to action I think it's a combination that Google definition is zero moment of truth you need to have X number of hours of content viewed and X number of impressions. What have you?

Speaker 1:

But at some point there has to be a trigger and often in the world of marketing we use exclusivity, time-based discounts. What I've seen in the nonprofit world is if you donate by June 30th, some corporate sponsor will match your donation, but you have to do it by now to get that biggest impact. I've seen that and I don't know how many nonprofits use that, but I would tend to think that's really effective. I think also the personal stories of the emotional triggers, of we will send you updates of how your money is being used right To give people a sense of ownership, or we will. You know the people that your donations are impacting. You know you'll get a postcard from them regularly.

Speaker 1:

This happens a lot with like adoption, you know, or children-related nonprofits. So I think at the end of the day, it's an emotional trigger where we are human beings and we are emotional. And how do you trigger those emotions? And storytelling is how you grab the attention A mission that your organization has. It has to be something that people are passionate about, and then you need to give people an excuse to take that action. Time limit, greater impact, some sort of personal benefits. That's my. I don't work. I have worked with nonprofits in the past, but I think it's a combination of all those things.

Speaker 3:

Nicholas, I mean, what do you think? Yeah, no, I would agree, particularly on the persistence part. So I think that a lot of people they'll do a campaign and it'll be just, you know, a one shot. But a lot of campaigns, you know. I interviewed Patagonia, for example, and they had a campaign that lasted for years and then eventually, you know, after, you know, six years later, they were able to reach their objective to help protect a river in Europe. But it took like six years and a huge campaign with petition, with social media influencers, but they continued, you know so.

Speaker 1:

so I completely agree, I completely agree, and I want to you know, in my personal branding class at UCLA Extension, I use Patagonia as an example, because if you were to go to their Twitter, I refuse to say X, sorry. If you go to their Twitter profile, their bio is we're in business to save our home planet, and that is one of the most eloquent branding statements I've ever heard, which attracts the right people, triggers emotion and I think it's a lot easier for them to rally the troops. But they've had that same bio for probably more than a decade. I mean, that is their mission. It doesn't change, and that is something that I challenge any for-profit company to be able to say the same thing. And I also bring up Simon Sinek what is your why? And that's another classic thing that I think everybody listening or watching should go through, especially if you're a company Start with a why. Why are you in business? And from that exercise you're also going to get a lot of great stories that you can use in your content. So I want to get that.

Speaker 1:

We did have a question here from Andrew Antonucci. Are there any major areas of concern that you have about future changes to SEO, noting Google's current and constant updates, social media algorithms and AI for nonprofits in gaining traction, engagement results on platforms. This is the million dollar question that you could have asked us five years ago and just changed out some of the words here and it's sort of the same thing, because we began talking about how it's always changing and it changes very fast. But, nicholas, let's start with you on this question. What do you, you know, looking in the next 12 months and I'll give my opinion as well and we're not fortune tellers and nobody can predict the future but just curious as to how you're advising with the generative AI search results in Google. Obviously, algorithms always changing. Ai these are three, I think the AI and the, you know, gen AI search results are two more important things. Social media algorithms that's always the case, but curious as to how you're advising organizations over the next 12 months vis-a-vis these things.

Speaker 3:

I think organizations aren't against the use of AI, but they are ring fencing it as far as making sure that that content is fact-checked. That content is then human-centered, so something that is not completely AI-generated. So I interviewed the United Nations Environment Program, their digital lead, and they said we may use it as a support, use AI as a support, but we always make sure that it's triple-checked. Ai as a support, but you know we always make sure that it's triple checked. So first, I think, first and foremost, you know good research and new research is what is going to help you maintain that visibility, even if you know Google's algorithm changes. So it's making sure that you have new research, something new to bring to the table. That then is fact-checked as well. And yeah, I mean I think you know, let's see how search changes over the next year. I think it'll be very interesting. I think SEO is still relevant. You know good content is still going to make its way to the top. How it does that, I think you know, may change.

Speaker 1:

However, yeah, I think, and obviously I'm working more on the for-profit side. I mean, social media is what it is. But obviously, getting back to the earlier point, if you're not creating short form video, you really miss out on getting the visibility and engagement that's required today and I do think that that is not going to change right. As far as AI, absolutely, I think that we're now realizing it is not, it's not the major thing, it is a co-pilot, it is AI assisted, right, if you're using Grammarly, if you're using Spellcheck on Word or Gmail, that is AI assisted as well, and I think it's an extension of that. But obviously, ai and I think for nonprofits, ai does have biases, right, in terms of the language models that it was trained on, which is primarily, you know, white male, you know from the Northern hemisphere or from you know the Western world. So I think that's really critically important. But you know, for short form content, it is a great way to get you know from ideation, right, it's a great way to get ideas. I think, for search, you know the results are not in because we know that Google is the ultimate tester of data and they made this is their most, I believe, their most fundamental change in the algorithm ever for them and I see them tweaking things. So at the end of the day, it comes down to user satisfaction and they're taking the data and who knows what might happen. We might see that some concepts where the gen AI search results get more predominant than others. I'd say that if you are creating content around very, very simple questions, if the AI can answer it, then you're not going to get any visibility. But I think focusing on the deeper issues that are not explainable in a paragraph talking about personal experiences or the storytelling, the experiences of the organization, those deeper things is what I'm recommending my clients to spend more time on.

Speaker 1:

I do believe that, even with Gen AI search results, google is saying that a lot of people are clicking through to the sources, so you obviously want to come up as a source. But I think from a macro perspective Nicholas and I talk about this in my book that SEO is all about the discoverability. Where do we get discovered? So in my funnel of digital relationships, the two primary areas are search and social right. But search is really interesting because now we have a new generation that finds information that gets exposed on TikTok right and then we have YouTube. So I see, and I've seen some organizations already start the shift of going from written content first to video content first, and maybe there's going to be more AI search results in Google.

Speaker 1:

But what about YouTube? And if I can make video, I can maximize my visibility in social media, where we know people spend a lot of time. So that is one advice that I would give everyone listening is to shift a little bit more resources in the video, whether it's short form or YouTube or both. I do think that that is where AI cannot compete. It's the human, the human voice, yeah, and that for every nonprofit, that is your advantage that you should be taking advantage of and using. So, nick, just to end that, the answer to that question Nicholas, do you see a greater shift of video in the organizations that you work with, or is that something you recommend as well?

Speaker 3:

Absolutely so. There's definitely, you know, it's a key element in sort of any work that I do now. Video is becoming more and more important. One of the issues that I just wanted to add to that, to what you were saying, is the impact of AI that is having on disinformation, and that is one of the concerns, I think. So the more content that is out there that is AI generated, that is false, misleading, can then, you know, create a lot of confusion out there, and then, if it becomes something that then makes it, you know, more difficult, whether it's, for example, a very simple issue like climate change or other key issues that are politicized.

Speaker 3:

I think I'm a little bit worried, and we're already seeing, and during the upcoming EU election, a lot of fake articles that are being posted, a lot of bots that are on social media responding automatically to a lot of messages. So it's reasonably concerning where it will go. But, once again, the important thing is credibility and trust. So if you build credibility and trust, then you will be able to maintain yourself and your presence online, and so that, for me, is key is working on that and making sure that all the content that you have is credible and well-regarded.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, there's definitely a lens that whoever's in charge of your content has to look out before anything is published to the world that does. This help us build the credibility and trust. I think it's also a reminder of the importance of email. Right that you might not appear in the search results, but as long as you've converted your fans, your community, into email subscribers and you're offering them something of value and going beyond that, like the Malala Fund did, that's a great recipe for success. So, Nicholas, we covered a lot of ground today. Obviously, as I said, buy Engage with Impact excellent book and I know that there are other experts that I have a lot of respect for that also contributed to the book. Nicholas, if people want to find out more about you and the book, where should we send them?

Speaker 3:

It's very simple. It's engagewithimpactcom, and there you can either get the book or also a free guide that gives you an overview of the Agile framework. So, basically, the framework that I've set for organizations to really engage with impact online.

Speaker 1:

Excellent. Well, you heard that right there. Engagewithimpactcom. Nicholas is also obviously on LinkedIn. We'll put the links to those in the show notes. Nicholas, thank you so much for your time. I know you had a launch party in Belgium that I couldn't make. I'm going to be back in London in July, I don't know. At some point I know that we're going to be able to meet up in person. I look forward to that, but in the meantime, keep doing the excellent work you're doing and, yeah, I wish you the best of luck and I hope that everyone listening today got a lot of great takeaways and, more importantly, that you take action. Right, how do we get you to take action? Because there's so much, there's so much potential for so many organizations that they you know most organizations really at the tip of the iceberg. So just take one thing, one action point, one data point from today's conversation and implement it and let Nicholas and I know how it went. So, nicholas, thank you again and, yeah, I look forward to keeping in touch.

Speaker 3:

Thank you very much. Thanks a lot, neil, my pleasure.

Speaker 1:

All right, I hope you enjoyed that interview as much as I did. If you follow me on well, linkedin, instagram, tiktok Facebook page, I am uploading videos. Obviously, the live streams recordings are also on YouTube. So if you want to see, you know our conversation in real video life, go over to one of those channels and you'll be able to find those videos. And hey, I'm going to be doing a campaign soon for Digital Thread.

Speaker 1:

So if you would like to get your hands on an early copy, but you weren't part of the Kickstarter, you weren't part of the launch team, I'm going to give you one more opportunity. You know, if you're listening to this podcast, hopefully you're a fan, hopefully you've subscribed, and if you haven't written a review, I want to give you a chance to actually win a free copy of Digital Threads. All you need to do is put up a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast player, send me a screenshot and I will send you over a free electronic version of Digital Threads as a way of saying thank you. And when you send that to me, make sure you address it to Neil N-E-A-L at neilschafer S-C-H-A-F-F-E-R dot com. Well, that's it for another episode of the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast. This is your digital marketing coach, neil Schafer, signing off.

Speaker 2:

You've been listening to your Digital Marketing Coach. Questions, comments, requests, links go to podcastneilschafercom. Get the show notes to this and 200 plus podcast episodes at neilschafercom to tap into the 400 plus blog posts that Neil has published to support your business. While you're there, check out Neil's digital first group coaching membership community if you or your business needs a little helping hand. See you next time on your Digital Marketing Coach.