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Measure Up: Promoting your project and making an impact Step 1) Test your find-ability Step 2) Write good copy & call to action - Including setting targets. Step 3) Get Online - Blog; Photos; Calendar; Facebook; Google places; Twitter; Step 4) Media matters Step 5) Get Printed - Cards; Posters; Press Release. Step 6) Get Connected: Step 7) Get advertising Step 8) Measure Up
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Eight steps to promote your project: Positive activities for young people are as important as ever. But with central resources tight, all projects need to think carefully about: • Promoting their opportunities. Are you operating at capacity? Or could more young people benefit from your project? Are you visible to the people who need your project most? • Measuring impact. Using measurement and reflective learning to make the most of the resources you have. This guide sets out eight steps to a being better promoted project, throwing in some ideas about measurement along the way. Itʼs designed so you can work through it all in one go, or so you can take a section a week over two months - building up your promotion bit-by-bit. Weʼve tried out each step - and you can complete them in between 30 minutes to an hour if you need, although you can also spend more time to develop each step further if you wish.
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Who are you? Weʼve written this guide for: • People running projects for young people • Young people who are involved in the running of projects; or running their own projects; The ideas in this guide work best if approached by young people and project leaders working together. You can work through each step on your own - or you can hold a group work / discussion session on each step.
What you will need A lot of this guide is about online tools you can use to promote your project - so you will need access to an Internet connection - ideally without too many blocks and filters that prevent you accessing sites like Facebook and YouTube. (The venues we were working in when preparing much of this guide didnʼt have reliable Internet access, so we got hold of a pre-pay ʻMiFiʼ from a Three mobile shop - as this gives us mobile Internet access we can share with up to four laptops for around £10 for a monthʼs light usage.) For some of the approaches this guide covers you will also need to check whether your organisation has existing policies on use of social networks and social media. We were surprised by how supportive the 3 of 53 - DRAFT - DECEMBER 2010
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organisations we worked with were about the use of social media: as long as you think about taking a safe approach to online engagement you should find you can make the case for taking your promotion to the online spaces where young people are.
Who are we? The Measure Up project team includes: Frances, Kate, Andy, Tim, Steven & Cath, Alex, Luke, Steph, Jack, Isaac, Faye, Kyle, Vicky, Tom and Sherrnade. We始ve been working to explore how different online tools can be used to make young people in Nottingham aware of positive activities as part of a pilot hosted by Nottingham City Council and funded by the 驶Social Media始 strand of Local Government Improvement & Development始s Customer-Led Service Transformation Fund.
How to use this guide Take a look at one section a week and try to work through the different actions that section covers. That way, by the end of two months you should have some of the best promotion for your project around.
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Step 1) How findable are you? 1a) Quick audit Before you get started promoting your project it始s time to 驶audit始 how visible you are already. Take a look at the list below: where are you being promoted right now? Posters Are there posters about your project somewhere other than your venue? [ ]
Flyers Do you have flyers / cards / leaflets about your project ready to give out? [ ]
Directories Are you included in any directories or projects, or calendars of activities?
Website Does your project have it始s own website?
Blog Does your project have an blog with recent updates on it? [ ]
Facebook Does your project have a Facebook group or page? [ ]
Photo Do you have photos of your project online?
Lists Do you have an e-mail list or list of people optedin to get e-mail/ SMS updates on your project? [ ]
[
]
Video Do you have a video about your project online (e.g. on YouTube?) [
]
[
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• For each different place you are promoting your project give yourself one point. • For each place you have promotion available, but the information is out of date (e.g. wrong times and dates), take off two points. How do you score? • Less than 0? You must have a lot of old information out there! Time to tidy it up and make sure young people can find out about whatʼs on offer now! • Less than 3? Itʼs time to explore some new tools and work on an up-to-date publicity presence.... • Between 3 and 8? Youʼve got some good foundations to build on: letʼs explore how to get them fully connected and make the most of them. • Over 8: Youʼve got a great reach: but there are always ways to tune it to get the best impact for your effort.
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1b) The search test Counting the number of places you have put publicity out is only part of measuring your visibility. More important is to see how findable you are in practice. For this activity to work you really need to put yourselves into the shoes of someone who might benefit from your activity, but who might not already know about it. Write down five things that someone might type into a search engine if they were interested in the sort of project your run. Remember: if they donʼt know about your project already theyʼre not likely to search for it by name; and they are not likely to use the jargon you might use to describe your own project. 1: _________________________________ [
]
2: _________________________________ [
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3: _________________________________ [
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4: _________________________________ [
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5: _________________________________ [
]
Example: Nottingham Music School Coming up with search terms young people might use and where they should find the Nottingham music school. 1. Nottingham music school <- They wouldnʼt already know our name 2. Music school in Nottingham <-Would they search for ʻschoolʼ? 3. Youth Bands Nottingham <- More likely. Letʼs try this...
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Once youʼve come up with your possible search terms head over to Google and put them in.
Does information about your project come up? Is it result #1? Or result #12 or #25 on the 2nd or 3rd page? Write in how high up your project comes for each search term next to it on the last page. Is the information you can find about your project upto-date? (Make a note of anything that is out-dated, as later on you might want to drop an e-mail to the owners of websites with old information to ask them to link to your updated promotional presence) Would the information someone searching finds tell them all they need, and get them interested enough, to come along to your project? Clifton Audio Project “We explored which search terms led to Clifton Audio Project appearing in the top page of Google results. It was interesting to see that a search for ʻDJing Nottinghamʼ led to quite different results from ʻDJing Clifton Nottinghamʼ. We tried a lot of different combinations of key words. By watching where in the search results the project appeared for different activity words like ʻMixingʼ, ʻDJingʼ and ʻ????ʼ, and when we added different location names (like ʻNottinghamʼ and ʻCliftonʼ we could think about how to write a project description for the website which would be right in keywords. 8 of 53 - DRAFT - DECEMBER 2010
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1c) Quality check & review Choose one piece of publicity (you can repeat this exercise with other parts of your project promotion if you want) and look at which of the following it contains: Clear headline
Short description
Photo from the project
Details of times & dates*
Details of location
Map of location
Contact phone number
Contact e-mail address
Link to more info online
*Does your date information include months and years? Posters, flyers and web pages can hang around for a long time - and you don始t want people to try and come to something that has long passed!
You would be surprised by how much publicity misses out on important details. Were you missing any of the information above? Would it be worth adding to your publicity in future?
The next step will look at how you can craft information about your project which will help young people find you; help your information appear higher in search engines; and which will include a clear 驶call to action始 to invite young people to get involved.
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Step 2) Clear copy & call to action Hopefully you found some information about your project in the last step: but also identified ways it could be improved. Before we move on to explore different tools to promote your project, you need to make sure youʼve got all your key information together... 2a) Who are you trying to reach? Your project might be open to everyone, or you might have a particular target group who you are providing activities for. One way of keeping your potential project participants in mind when preparing publicity is to create ʻpersonaʼ. A persona is an imagined individual: you describe who they are, where they live, what they are interested in and other facts about them. You can then think about how the promotions you create would appeal to them. You can create persona in many different ways: some people use drama games; otherʼs draw around someones outline on large paper and then write in facts about them (age; gender; siblings; home town; hobbies; interests etc.). I prefer to imagine someoneʼs Facebook profile and the things they might share about themselves on it. Fill in one or more ʻpersona profilesʼ (or use your own preferred way of creating a persona) for young people who might benefit from taking part in your project.
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驶Persona Profile始 Imagine the profile of a young person who you might want to get involved in your profile/activities.
Pin up the profiles somewhere where you will be reminded of them during the rest of the steps in the guide. 12 of 53 - DRAFT - DECEMBER 2010
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2b) Writing for search and writing for people How do you think Google decides which pages to put at the top of search listings? Apart from the listings that have been paid for (the ones with the colored background) the others are sorted based on hundreds of different ranking criteria - but three of the most important are: • 1) Clear and relevant text - google is very good at spotting attempts to ʻcheatʼ itʼs rankings. Writing accessible text with your persona in mind is best for humans and best for google. • 2) Key words in the page text - if a word isnʼt mentioned in the text of your page, itʼs hard for google to return that page when someone searches on the word. So, think about • 3) Page rank - who is linking to you. Each link to your website counts as a sort of vote for it. But those votes are topic-specific - so a good music website linking to your music project is better than a link from some other sort of site. Making sure your site is well linked to is useful to humans browsing the web - and it helps your search ranking too. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Some of the tips in this section come from the world of ʻSearch Engine Optimisationʼ. People spend their whole jobs trying to get websites to the top of the google rankings. You donʼt need to go overboard with your SEO: just think about providing useful, findable content and write with people finding your project via web search in mind. 13 of 53 - DRAFT - DECEMBER 2010
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Take a look at these two project descriptions: Music service mentoring programme Want to learn to play in a band or play a specific instrument? Every thought of learning to play the African Drum which gives a specific sound? Do you need to be listened to or need someone to talk to alongside playing an instrument? Come and join us at College Street every Thursday evening. We aim to improve the life chances of young people in challenging circumstances through music based mentoring.
and Music is Power! Make a different to your future through music mentoring (Autumn 2010) Do you want to learn to play in a band with other young people, whether on guitars, bass, drums, keyboard or vocals (singing)? Ever thought of African Drumming with the Djembe? We learn music together and get chance to talk too. Music mentoring can help you when you始re facing tough times - or when you are thinking about your future: or just come for the music-making. For 13 to 16 year olds, every Thursday evening at College Street centre in Nottingham (UK). Contact Kate on 0123 456 789 (phone or text) or e-mail kate@example.com for more info on how to join, or to check a session is on.
Compare the two. Which includes more key words that might be searched for (you might highlight them)? Which is more likely to appeal to the people in your persona profiles? Write a description for your project. Include an honest and attention grabbing headline, and think about the key words to include in your paragraph.
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2c) Creating a call to action What do you want someone to do when they hear about your project? Far too often publicity tells people about something great - and then doesʼt give them any route to get involved. Look back at the examples on the last page. The second description has a call to action: contact the project leader. What is your call to action? Choose one of the following sentence starters and finish it to create your own ʻcall to actionʼ: • Come along to.... • Get in touch with... • Register or join at.... • Tell.... Think about the journey someone will go on from finding your publicity to getting involved in your project? Can you guarantee you will reply to their enquiries on time?
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Step 3) Your online presence There are loads of ways to use free online tools to let people know about your project and to generate virtual world of mouth. Even if your main promotion is on paper, making sure there is up-to-date and accessible information about your project on the Internet is essential for anyone who will search for you. Just as you would put posters up in more than one place, you need to take your web presence to where people are. This step takes you through: • Getting a public web presence so anyone searching can find you easily. • Using Facebook and other social networks to connect and create word-of-mouth publicity. • Using Google places to put your project on the map Remember to look back to the descriptions and calls to action you wrote last step, and to run through the quality check (2c) for information you put into your online presence. This step might take longer than an hour if you do it all yourself: but if you are working with others you could split into three groups and take one part each.
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3a) Get a public web page In the next step we始ll look at setting up a presence on Facebook, but because that will only be accessible to people who are members of Facebook, you will also need clear information about you on the public Internet. There are two approaches: 1) Your organisation, local authority or national body might have a website where you can publish information about your project. If this is the case - find out from them how you can add or update the information about your project. Make sure there is a dedicated page about your project with up-to-date information on. 2) You can set up a basic website for free using a blogging tool like http://www.blogger.com. The step-bystep guide over the page takes you though this. Blogging websites make it easy to post pages about your project, and to share regular updates on what the project has been doing. They often perform well in search engine rankings. Whichever option you choose - try to make sure your project description is engaging, and include photos, images and up-to-date information.
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1
Head to www.blogger.com and sign-up / sign-in with a Google account.
2
Choose a template for your blog. You can add your own images and adapt the template later if you want.
Look for the ʻGet Startedʼ or ʻCreate a blogʼ link to start your new website.
Try to include an image or project logo in the design. If you need to edit an image then www.picnik.com have a free online image editor.
Choose a title for your blog and an address.
3
4
Click ʻback to bloggerʼ or go to your dashboard and then to ʻNew postʼ to make sure you are in your blog control panel. The first thing you want to do is add a few pages about your project.
Add a New Page called ʻAbout Usʼ and put your project description on it.
Under the ʻpostingʼ tag look for ʻEdit pagesʼ
Use the ʻPublish Nowʼ button to save your new page.
You can use the ʻadd pictureʼ icon to include an image.
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On the first page you create, you will need to add the ʻPages gadgetʼ (which will display your pages) as blog tabs. Once your first page is created add another page called ʻContact Usʼ with clear contact details on.
6
Your pages will appear as links across the top of your blog. All you need to do now is add one or more ʻpostsʼ (using ʻnew postʼ) to appear on the front page. You could add a welcome post with a clear ʻcall to actionʼ to encourage people to join your project.
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Now your website is set up, take note of the address and make sure other places/ posters etc. mentioning your project link to it. You can add regular updates about the project as posts. The most recent posts appear first. Blogger can show you stats on your visitors over time.
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You can add extra features to display on your blog from the ʻDesignʼ tab; or you can set whether or not people can comment on your blog, or if comments need to be moderated from the ʻSettingsʼ tab (under comments). You can also give other people permission to post to your site (e.g volunteers/workers).
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3b) Facebook and social networking presence Youth Work has a core principle: “Start from where young people are...”. A lot of young peopleʼs time online is spent on Facebook - so itʼs a good place to make sure you have a presence1. Profiles, pages, groups You need a Facebook profile to provide you with a log-in to Facebook: but you donʼt need to use ʻfriendʼ connections to link with people who might be interested in your project. Instead, you can set up a Facebook Page. Pages have ʻfansʼ who ʻlikeʼ the page/project.
But are we allowed to use Facebook? Organisations vary in their policies on the use of social media and social networks. Make sure you know your organisationʼs policy before your set up a page. Approached carefully there should be no problem with general youth organisations maintaining a Facebook page presence and using it to promote their work. The ʻSocial Media Youth Participation in Local Democracyʼ guide which covers some of the details of securing support to use Facebook in your organisation, and putting safe-and-sound foundations in place is available at: http://bit.ly/ypart The second part of that youth work principle is to help young people move beyond where they start... so promoting your project here fits with that too! 1
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Setting up your Facebook Page
1
Make sure you have a Facebook Profile that you can use as your log-in. Check your privacy settings carefully before you get started. If you are using a work profile, make sure there is information on your profile about how to verify who you are.
Visit http://www.facebook.com/pages and look for the ʻCreate Pageʼ button.
2
Create an ʻOfficial pageʼ. Choose ʻorganisationʼ for most types of project, but if you want to be able to list opening times etc., choose a ʻBusinessʼ page. Location Matters: There might be projects with the same name as yours elsewhere in the world. Include the name of your area in the page title or description to avoid confusion.
3
Work through the steps to add a photo to your page [1]. You could use your logo - or a photo of where your project takes place. In your page information [2] include a link to your website and under ʻOverviewʼ describe your project. Include contact details that someone interested in the project should use.
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4
4
Just like on your blog, you can add ʻpostsʼ that share updates about your project. Updates can include links, photos, and ʻeventsʼ. The updates from your page will appear in the ʻfeedsʼ (Top News/Most Recent News) that the people who are fans of your page see when the log in to Facebook.
5
People become ʻfansʼ of your page by visiting and clicking the ʻLikeʼ button. Fans will see your status updates in their ʻfeedsʼ when they visit their Facebook home page (but your updates will quickly get pushed off their feeds by updates from their friends or from other pages). Posting regular updates helps make people aware of your project.
You can add a photo gallery to your page, or from the ʻEdit Pageʼ option you can add applications and extra tabs. The ʻNotesʼ application can pull an feed (RSS) of headlines from your blog to your page.
7
Invite people to become fans or your page. Group members can invite their Facebook friends using the ʻSuggest to Friendsʼ link under your page picture. Once you have 25 or more fans you can set up a short web address for the page at http://facebook.com/username/ which you could print on posters / cards.
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Advanced Facebook tips
Insights Facebook Insights tell you about the people who have become fans of your Facebook page (once there are enough fans for the statistics to be anonymous). You can also explore the targeted advertising feature in Facebook (go to http:// www.facebook.com/ads) to find out the demographics of young people on Facebook in your local area (work through as if you are setting up a targetted advert to your local area, and see the predicted reach: you donʼt actually have to set up the advert).
Bordometer Boredometer is a Facebook application designed to make young people aware of positive activities in their local area (using data on activities from the Plings.net service). You can add a Boredometer tab to your Facebook page by visiting http:// www.boredometer.org.uk
FBML Safety Tab The FBML application allows you to add any ʻHTMLʼ code to your Facebook pages (ask a young techie if you need to understand how that could work). Substance have provide a how to for using this to add a ʻsafety informationʼ tab to your page at: http:// bit.ly/musafe
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3c) Get on the map: Google places
This action is a lot more self-contained than setting up your website or Facebook presence. Google Places are listings that appear when people are browsing Google Maps, or searching in a particular location. If your project is based in a specific area it始s worth getting on the map. To set yourself up: 1) Visit www.google.com/places 2) Work through the registration process 3) You will need to give a contact phone number for the project: this should be an official phoneline. Google will send a text or automated message to this number to verify your places listing. 4) You can include details of your opening times and services, and pick categories that describe your project. 5) Once your listing is verified it should show on the Google map and will increase the chance of your project turning up in local searches.
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Our Online Presence Fill in the form below as a handy reminder of the sites and spaces youʼve set up. Our website or blog address:
http://! !
!
!
.blogspot.com
The blog username: Password reminder: (If your website is on Blogger, look for the ʻSign Inʼ link at the top of the page when you visit it to be able to get in and edit).
Our Facebook Page The page name is: The page creator was: The page administrators are: (To make people admins, they become fans of the page, then an admin can click ʻAll fansʼ from the left-land of the page, and can set new people as administrators)
We are on Google Places [Yes] | [No] The details we gave were: (Include any details of opening times etc. you have here so that you can easily check that the information is up-todate)
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Step 4) Media Matters So far a lot of the promotional content weʼve created has been in text. Now itʼs time to take a look at making sure you have a good library of media to promote your project. 4a) Photos & graphics Blog posts, status updates, adverts and flyers all work better with pictures. Have you got exciting and engaging images of your project to hand which you have got permission to use for promotion? If not, get hold of a digital camera and get snaps of as many of the following as you can: ✓The entrance to the building/place your project takes place; ✓A sign or poster with your logo on; ✓The members of staff or volunteers who deliver the project; ✓Long-shots of sessions taking place (avoiding anyoneʼs face / identifying individuals); ✓A few close-ups that represent your project (e.g. for a football project, someoneʼs feet kicking a ball; for a writing project, someoneʼs hand writing); ✓Group photos of some of the young people in your project; Consent matters You need permission from any young people identifiable in your photos before you use them to promote your project. You may also need parental consent. (Note that many of the photos suggested above donʼt include identifiable people). The Video Projects guide at http://bit.ly/mu-spv provides an example consent form that can be adapted for photos. 27 of 53 - DRAFT - DECEMBER 2010
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Once youʼve got your photos: • Save them all in one place and optionally save a word processor document alongside them with a note on where the related consent forms can be found etc. • Change their filenames to be ʻProject_NameLocal_Area-Description-Yearʼ - for example ʻYouth_Music_Mentors-NottinghamGroup_work_Djembe-2010.jpgʼ - some search engines use the file-name of images as a factor in deciding what pages to show (and it makes it easier to find the images again yourself). • Share the photos & images with anyone who might be updating social media for you. If you need to edit any of your images (crop, filter, remove red-eye etc.) you can find free to use tools at www.picnik.com that you can access through your webbrowser: no need to download and install software. You can now make use of your images when you make online posts. You could also set up your own online image library using the free photo sharing website Flickr. By sharing your photos and ʻgeo-taggingʼ them (indicating the local area they relate to) you can increase the chance of people on Flickr finding out about your project. To add photos to Flickr, sign up for an account and www.flickr.com. See http://scr.bi/bLGaeK for a one page guide to using Flickr. 28 of 53 - DRAFT - DECEMBER 2010
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4b) Videos Ok, we promised most activities in this guide would be possible to complete within an hour. That might not strictly be the case with creating a video about your project - but itʼs worth finding the time to plan and do if you can (although check out Animoto overleaf for a quick cheat...). Video can really offer an insight into what a project does - and it can break down the fear of the unknown that may prevent some young people from reaching out to get involved in a project. A good promotional video doesnʼt have to be long: between 60 seconds and 3 minutes is plenty. You can find a detailed guide to creating professional videos to promote positive activities from the Department for Education here: http://bit.ly/dcsfvid In the Measure Up project weʼve been taking a slightly more rough-and-ready approach: taking a camera along to sessions and capturing a few interviews with workers and young people involved in projects. Good backing music (from a free music site like www.jamendo.com) and some on-screen lettering added with Windows Movie Maker or iMovie can lead to an effective video.
Storyboard NMM
People playing music
Interview with tutor (10 seconds)
(Voiceover)
Preparing for performance
Performance montage
Join us Search for ʻNottingham Music Mentorsʼ on Facebook!
Shot listing - Interview tutors - Film rehearsal - Film venue - walking from outside to practice room - Close ups of instruments - Preparation for performance (Minibus Journey) - Performance - Group curtain call - Background for call to action
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Sharing your video...#
1
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Create a YouTube account. Give clear details about the project when you sign-up. You should be able to link your YouTube account with the Google account you set up for your blogger blog.
2
Upload your video to YouTube. Make sure you give it a clear headline, such as ʻMusic Mentoring, Nottingham, UKʼ. You will also find advanced settings to ʻgeocodeʼ your video - indicating the locality it relates to. YouTube annotations can be used to add additional info, links and temporary ʻcalls to actionʼ on your clip.
3
To display the video on Facebook, simply copy the link to itʼs YouTube page and include it in a status update. To embed your video in a blog post look for the ʻEmbed codeʼ on itʼs YouTube page. A full video in 60 minutes: Animoto Animoto allows you to create a dynamic video just from your photos (and any video clips) automagically. You upload your images and footage; select a music track; add a call to action in text on the end - and animoto mixes a video for you. An account costs around £20 for a years subscription to make as many videos as you want*. Check it out at http://bit.ly/mu-ani.
(Animoto frames)
*You can create 30-second clips for free; but you canʼt download them for adding to YouTube etc. 30 of 53 - DRAFT - DECEMBER 2010
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Step 5) Promotion in print Good promotion involves a mix of methods: including print as well as online. 5a) Media cards The sign of a good flyer of handout is when the people who receive them keep hold of them - rather than loose or bin them straight away. We始re exploring using Moo cards - which are small 1/2 size business cards which can have a different full-color photo on every one. They始re small enough to end up in wallets or purses for a while - reminding young people about activities they could get involved in. To create some cards, go to www.moo.com. Upload some of the photos you collected in the last step to create Moo Mini-cards. Add your project details on the back of the card (don始t forget your Facebook page or blog address). Moo cards cost about 10p each - so they are not the cheapest promotion - but used carefully they are a great way to leave a reminder with people of your project.
[IMAGES OF MOO CARDS]
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5b) Posters The humble poster remains an effective promotion tool for many projects. There are three important things about a good poster: • How it looks - is it eye catching? • What is says - does it have all the information someone needs on it? • Where it is - have you put posters where people will find and see them? The best posters arenʼt always the most high tech. In fact, if you want some time away from a computer then you could create a poster by hand (just remember to put all the information you need on it, and scan or take a photo of the completed thing to share on your blog). Alternatively, open up a graphics programme on your computer and create a poster for your project.Think about basing your poster on bold photos from Step 4, rather than on clip-art. Donʼt forget to check the checklist in 1(c) of elements to include on your poster. Local libraries, community centers, local businesses and community noticeboards can all be good places to put your posters up.
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5c) Press release Although young people are not the main readership of local newspapers, getting an article in your local paper can be a good way to make parents and other adults aware of a project. Sometimes local radio stations with a youth audience will also feature details of a project. To make old-media institutions like newspaper and radio stations aware of your project you can put together a short press release and send it to them (by e-mail is best). The example over the page steps introduces the elements that make a up a good press release. MySociety have put together a list of local newspapers at http://news.mysociety.org which you can search if you are not sure which your local papers are. If your organisation has a press department they may be able to help you put together a press release, or may need to review any release before it始s sent (though they are usually very happy to get suggestions for releases). If you are feeling creative, you could create a 驶Social Media News Release始 (SMNR) using the media from step 4. Find out more at http://www.pressit.com
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Press release template
Include a clear headline and introduction
News Release: YaYa Measure Up Project
Make your websi te and address a key part of the press release if you can to increase the chance of the pape r printing the address.
Young Artists Project Goes Independent & Seeks New Members Young leaders of the YaYa (Young Adults; Young Artists) project, which recently lost itʼs Council funding, have responded by setting up the project as an independent organisation. The group have relaunched their website at www.nottsyaya.org.uk and have set up a Facebook page to attract new members. They meet regularly and welcome new members between 13 and 19. to help running the project, or as young artists seeking support. Young leader, Tom, 19, said “Loosing council funding has meant we can make this into a really youth-led project. Weʼve got some exciting plans for the future and want to hear from young artists who want to be involved.”
Newspapers like to have ready made ne quotes and someo for they can contact ey more quotes if th need them. Including the e name, area and ag of people quoted en makes their job ev easier.
For more information visit the website, find the group on Facebook, or call the project mobile on 01234 567 8910. Note to editors: Photographers are welcome at upcoming sessions. Existing print-ready photos are available on request.
A good photo opportunity also increase the chan ce your story will m ake it into the paper.
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Step 6) Get Connected By now there is no question that someone who finds your web presence, whether your blog or Facebook page, should be able to access clear information about your project and should be able to get inspired about getting involved. In this step weʼll focus on two things: • Internal connections - linking together different elements of your web presence to make maintaining them easier; • Inwards connections - making your web presence findable.
Why links matter - search engine rankings Search engines use a lot of different measures to work out what should appear top of their rankings, but one of the main measures for many search engines is who links to a website. Links are useful to humans browsing the web, but they also tell search engines which pages might be relevant. For example, if a sports website links to your sports activities blog, the search engine can guess that your blog is interesting to people into sport. The relevance of links to your blog or website is more important than the number of links.
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6a) Facebook <--> Blog You can set up your Facebook page to automatically feature updates from your blog, and you can embed a Facebook box on your blog, allowing visitors to instantly connect with your Facebook page. Blog --> Facebook Find your page from http:// www.facebook.com/pages/manage/ and select ʻEdit Pageʼ. Choose ʻApplicationsʼ from the left-hand menu and search for the ʻFacebook Notesʼ application
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Click on the application and then choose ʻAdd to my pageʼ from the lefthand menu. Choose the page to add notes to. Once done, use the backbutton to get back to your page admin.
Return to the ʻApplicationsʼ section and choose ʻGo to applicationʼ for Notes. At the bottom of the left-hand menu choose ʻEdit Import Settingsʼ
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Enter the address of your blog on the page that appears, and confirm that Facebook can import content from it before selecting ʻStart importingʼ. If Facebook doesnʼt autodetect your blogʼs ʻfeedʼ of content, visit your blog and look for ʻRSSʼ or ʻAtomʼ links and use these addresses in the box instead.
Now, whenever you add a blog post, it should automatically appear on your Facebook page within an hour or two.
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Facebook --> Blog There are many ʻwidgetsʼ that Facebook provides that you can add to your blog. You can find them at http:// developers.facebook.com/plugins The most useful for connecting your blog and page is the ʻLike boxʼ
To set this up: Visit your Facebook page and copy the address of the page to the clipboard.
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Visit http://developers.facebook.com/ plugins and choose the ʻLike boxʼ. Paste in the address of your page from the clipboard and choose the settings you want.
Click the ʻGet Codeʼ button and copy the ʻIframeʼ code to your clipboard. Now go to your blog and make sure you are logged in.
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You can add the like box to a blog post, or into a sidebar. To add it to a blog post, start writing a new post. Where you want the box to appear, write ʻHEREʼ in capitals. Then, choose the ʻEdit Htmlʼ tab and paste the code from the clipboard over the ʻHEREʼ. Switch back to the ʻComposeʼ tab about publish the 37 of 53 - DRAFT - DECEMBER 2010
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You can also add your Facebook like box to a blog sidebar. On blogger Go to the design settings for your blog and ʻAdd a Gadgetʼ to the side-bar area of your blog. Find the HTML/ Javascript gadget provided by blogger and click ʻ+ʼ to add it to your blog.
Give the gadget the title ʻJoin our Facebook pageʼ and paste in the Iframe code for your Like box. Save the changes and then view your blog to see the box in action. (if the box overlaps the edge of the page, go back to the step where you got the code and set a narrower box width). On Wordpress (This only works on self-hosted wordpress blogs, and not on blogs hosted at wordpress.com)
From your blogs admin interface visit the ʻWidgetsʼ page in the ʻAppearanceʼ menu. Drag a ʻTextʼ widget to a sidebar of your blog. Enter the Iframe code into this widget and save it. View your blog to see the Like box in action.
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6b) Making web links Making sure that all the links to your online presence are up-to-date, and looking for new opportunities to get links created can help people find your activities. First you need to check for existing links. Search on Google for mentions of your project. Are the details that are being given up-to-date? Do they include a link to your new web presence? If you find out-of-date information, look for a contact address where you can send a polite e-mail asking the website owner to update their details. Example e-mail Dear Webmaster We noticed that you have details on this page http:// www.theirsite.com/full-address about our project, the Nottingham Music Mentors. We have recently changed our session times and have launched a new website. Please could you update the details on your website with our new times, as shown below, and, if possible, include a link to our website which will always contain the most up-to-date information. Thank you for using your site to tell people about our project. Please contact us if you have any questions. Regards Bob, Activity Co-ordinator (0123 456 789)
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If you found a lot of websites with details of your project on, you might want to set up a 驶Google alert始. These, set up from http:// www.google.com/alerts will send you an e-mail whenever the Google search engine discovers new mentions of your project on websites it is adding to it始s index. The Yahoo Site Explorer at https:// siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/ is also a useful tool for checking if any websites are already linking to you, and for finding out more about how search engines see your website. Then look for new opportunities to make relevant links Does your local council have a directory of activities? Are there other local activity listings where you could ask for a link to be added to your site? Make sure you remember to tell people about your web address whenever you are promoting your activities. Repeat the search test Back in Step 1 you tried the search test to see how easy to find your project was. As new links get created, try it again to see if your new web presence is making a difference to how easy it is to find out about your project.
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Step 7) Exploring advertising All the steps so far might have taken time, but they should not have taken much money. Advertising usually involves paying for your project to be promoted. Facebook, Google and many other services offer targeted online advertising - which means you have access to advanced tools to choose who sees your adverts. You can carefully control your advertising budgets and can test out advertising with just ÂŁ10 or ÂŁ20, although you will need access to a credit card to pay for it. Paid for online advertising is not for everyone - but you might find it helps engage new people in your project. The important thing to do is to test is carefully - to make sure paying for adverts really does measure up. Setting your targets There are two important sorts of targets to set for any online advertising campaign: 1. How much are you willing to pay for each new project member. This will help you work out whether you are getting a good return on your advertising investment. 2. Who do you most want to reach. Look back at the persona you created in Step 2: does your existing promotion reach this person? Or could paid advertising help?
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The funnel When you are advertising you have an end point you want to get to (people joining your project), but not everyone will respond to your advert, and you might loose people along the way.
People who see your advert
People who click on it
People who fan your page
People who turn up
The funnel diagram shows how, at each stage of advertising, you have to do you best to keep people engaged. Writing a better advert increases the chance of someone clicking on it. Having a better ʻcall to actionʼ increase the chance someone will come along to your session when they see your website or Facebook page. Pay-per-click Most online advertising offers a ʻpay per clickʼ option. With this, your advert might be shown 1000s of times, but you only get charged when someone clicks on the advert. The price of a click ranges from 10p to £1 (and with most services you set the price range you are willing to pay, rather than choosing a set amount). If you pay a price per click of 30p, and 1 in 5 of the people who click through to your website or Facebook page end up coming along to activities you are paying around £1.50 for each actual new member.
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7a) Advertising on Facebook Facebook Advertising can be a useful way to get new members for your Facebook Page, and then for promoting activities to those page members. You can find the Facebook Advertising tools at http:// www.facebook.com/ads
Choose 驶Advertise something on Facebook始 to promote your Facebook page. You can test different text. Ads use your page logo picture by default.
You can target your advert by city or region. Try looking for your town/city or the nearest city. You can also choose what age Facebook users will see you advert, and target your advert to people with a particular interest.
The 驶Estimated Reach始 box will suggest how many people might see your advert depending on the targeting. 43 of 53 - DRAFT - DECEMBER 2010
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Set your daily advertising budget, (keep it to $5 or less unless you have a big budget), and set an enddate for your advert. You can customise your cost-per-click. Setting a lower cost means you advert might be displayed less.
You can create different adverts with different body text (called ʻcopyʼ) and can run these together to see which get the most clicks. The table below shows the results from an advertising campaign we ran.
Our adverts were seen over 500,000 times, and clicked on 188 times. You can see what some adverts got more clicks than others. The ʻClifton Youth Centreʼ advert certainly did better on itʼs ʻClick Through Rateʼ (CTR) than the ʻClifton Youth Centre Young Achieversʼ advert did. If you have access to a small budget, try running a one week test of Facebook advertising with a $3 daily budget. Does it bring you new fans to your Facebook page. Check daily to see if you can improve your adverts.
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Make the most of your page We found that a lot of people clicked through to our Facebook pages from adverts, but only a handful of them became fans of the page. If more people had become fans of the page we would have had more opportunities to contact them - using the free status updates on our page. We experimented with making sure that, when we were advertising, our Facebook page status was one that invited people to become a fan. One approach we tried was offering free t-shirts to anyone who became a fan of the page and then turned up to the project.
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7b) Google Advertising With Google AdWords you can experiment with a greater range of online advertising, including: • Text adverts - linked to search terms that appear alongside search results or as the ʻFeatured resultʼ on Google searches; • Image adverts - that you can target at particular websites that young people might use; • Display adverts - that can include photos, videos and audio; • WAP Adverts - that appear on searches from mobile phones. Most types of advertising can be restricted to only appear to visitors accessing the Internet from a particular local area, although because Google detects peoples location based on a number of factors, including where their Internet provider is based, accurate local targeting can be tricky (Facebook can target locations better because people have usually said where they live on their profiles!). You can find Google AdWords at http:// adwords.google.com If you want to explore advanced online advertising, work through setting up a trial campaign with AdWords. Set it with a time limit and small daily budget. You can find many online guides to using AdWords effectively. 46 of 53 - DRAFT - DECEMBER 2010
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7c) Local Advertising: Print and Radio Are there other local spaces where you could advertise and reach new groups of young people? Print and radio adverts could get very expensive quickly (and you can trial them with cheap versions as easily as you can with online advertising), but you might find that by clubbing together with other projects that they become worthwhile. Put together a plan for advertising through other channels. Find out how much it would cost and weigh up whether it is worth exploring more.
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Step 8) Measure Up How well are the different promotion tools you始ve tried working for you? How can you get them to work better? To know you will need some form of measurement. Fortunately, many of the tools we始ve looked at provide metrics that you can use to check their effectiveness and to think about ways to improve on it. 8a) Back to the start In Step 1 you carried out an 驶audit始 to check how well your project was promoted then. Go back and work through Step 1 again. How much have you improved?
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8b) Facebook statistics Facebook pages provide some really useful statistics for you. To find them, visit http://www.facebook.com/pages/ manage/ when you are logged in and select ʻView Insightsʼ next to a page you manage.
You will then see the number of people who have clicked the ʻLikeʼ button on your page to become fans, and the levels of ʻactive usersʼ (people visiting, commenting or engaging with your posts) over recent weeks. Selecting ʻUsersʼ from the left-hand menu allows you to find out more about the people who like your page (as long as you enough fans), including their home city, ages and genders.
Explore the data you find. How could you use this data in developing the way you promote your project online? 49 of 53 - DRAFT - DECEMBER 2010
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8c) Blogger statistics You can also get good statistics about visits to your blog by going to http://www.blogger.com and logging in. Look for the 驶Stats始 link.
How well is your blog website being used? Look at whether changes in use correspond with when you add new content. Does adding new content increase the chance that people might take part in your activity.
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8c) The feedback that matters Knowing that people are visiting your Facebook page or website is interesting - but what really matters is how many people are taking part in your project and what they are getting out of it. This guide doesnʼt cover how to evaluate your project, but think about how you could use the different tools and techniques we have covered to: • Measure and record who is taking part in your activities (tip: Try google spreadsheets and forms) • Get feedback from young people about what they think of the activities • Discuss how the activities could be improved • Reflect upon the difference your project makes, and how it could make an even bigger difference to young peopleʼs lives Measuring how well you promote your project is one thing. Measuring itʼs positive impact is even more challenging, but is really important.
Substance Views Substance Views is a new tool for monitoring and evaluation of project impacts and outcomes. You can find out more about it at http://www.substanceviews.net
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Measuring board: you can jot down some of your key statistics here How many hours it始s taken us to get to here...
How long it would take if we did it all again
The number of photos we have to use
The number of new things we have learnt
The number of fans on our Facebook page
The total cost of all our different publicity efforts
The number of people who should now know about our project
The number of new people now coming along
*This one might not be a number!
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How many updates we始ve posted to Facebook
How many posts on our blog
The difference the project has made*
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Where next? This just a draft. The full toolkit will be available from http://www.measure-up.org.uk in January 2011.
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