I can’t remember what organization ran the commercial (it was not an animal charity), but it would work for any type of nonprofit that can offer tax deductions for donations. The idea is generic enough that we can all run with it.

You could do this via email, print, radio, web, Facebook, etc. Just create a simple graphic (or I have a few you can download if you want to use these) and put some text with it; you’re good to go!

The text would go something like this:

Would you like to FINALLY get to decide how your tax dollars are spent?

I’ve always said that I wouldn’t mind shelling out money every paycheck (AND at the end of the year!) to Uncle Sam, if only I had a say in how the government spends my money. Then we’d truly have a government run by the people, for the people!

Well, if you make a tax-deductible donation before the end of 2011 to XYZ organization, in effect, you ARE choosing how your tax dollars get spent.

When you donate to a charitable organization, you’re allowed to take that donation as a deduction off your income taxes. It’s not exactly a dollar-for-dollar exchange, but if you know you’re going to owe some income taxes, it’s a great way to offset that. Personally, I’d much rather give money to XYZ organization than to the government!

In order for this to affect your 2011 tax return, you HAVE to donate before the end of the year. This helps us as well with our year-end fundraising, which is the time of year we rely on for most of our donations.

So think about it: your hard-earned money could buy food and toys for homeless dogs and cats….or $360 government pizzas. It’s up to you!

Obviously, you can change the text to suit your organization, but I think this is a fresh way of looking at the end-of-year pitches, and remind people that tax time is just around the corner, and they can help themselves by making a donation now.

Best of all, you can do this as an email campaign; it won’t cost you anything and will take very little time. Give it a try and let us know how it works out!

Download dog artwork

Download cat artwork

Download rabbit artwork

I have been watching this campaign with great interest. I think it’s definitely “gone viral,” which is admirable. I don’t know anything about Katherine Heigl; I don’t think I’ve seen any of her movies—I just recognize her as a celebrity. So I don’t have any bias against her one way or the other. I think the spot is really really funny.  To me it was OBVIOUS that she was being over the top. I mean, I don’t think anyone would watch this and actually thinks she wants to rule the world and castrate all men! I think it’s pretty clear that she is being really overt in making her point.

They’ll get some donations (and a lot of hate mail), and they’ll sell some shirts. But they want people to think about neutering. Admittedly, it’s only focused on male dogs—but that’s OK. Good PR campaigns are specific and targeted. It’s not insulting or condescending (“You’re stupid/a bad person because your dog isn’t neutered”) like so many animal welfare campaigns can be.

One question I have is whether this is getting attention ONLY from those of us in the animal welfare world—because we find it an interesting point of conversation and debate—or if it’s getting beyond “preaching to the choir” and reaching the general public. There’s really not a way to measure its efficacy; I guess if spay/neuter clinics around the country had a giant spike in neuter requests, we might have something, but I don’t think we’ll see anything like that.

It didn’t really give any compelling REASONS as to why you should neuter, like the health and behavioral benefits; it just talked about balls being gross (Clearly catering to a female audience!). But again, it’s tongue-in-cheek humor, so I forgive it that. If it gets people talking and thinking, that’s the ticket.

I don’t believe that any singular campaign is going to make people suddenly change their mind and neuter their dog. If someone hadn’t ever thought about it before, then it might cause them to look a little deeper. If they’re OPPOSED or resistant to neutering, though, I don’t think this (or any other campaign by itself) is going to change their minds.

Ad campaigns alone generally don’t change behavior.

However, pieces and campaigns like this, like the Shelter Pet Project, like HSUS’s Spay Day, PETA’s ABC campaign, all put together over time—that’s what makes a difference. If public will can be shaped by advertising, if social norms can be adjusted based on media’s portrayal of what’s cool and what’s acceptable (and also what the celebrities we look up to support), then this is part of the movement that will eventually cause change.

Look at what is happening to stop bullying in schools. Look at what is happening to the use of words like “gay” and “retarded” to mean “dumb.” When I was a kid, we used those words without a second thought, and if we were picked on, adults told us to get over it and turn the other cheek. In a single generation, all of that (and much more) has changed.

You can argue whether that’s for better or worse, but the fact is, it’s true. So if enough campaigns can work their collective magic on the American psyche, then perhaps having an unneutered dog will soon be a huge social faux pas. We’re human, but we’re animals; by nature, we want to fit in and be accepted. So we generally do what is considered acceptable by our communities. If our neighbors and friends all neuter…we will too.

So was the campaign effective? People are talking about it, so one one level, that IS success. Will it motivate people to take action and neuter their dogs? Some, sure. But what is enough to make it “successful?” If ten people neuter their dogs? 100? 1000? Who decides?

Will people donate to the foundation? Some will—some people will love the campaign. Others will hate it and withdraw their support. All of these things happen every time an organization steps outside the box with marketing. You take any kind of risk, and you will alienate some supporters. But you’ll also get new ones. The key is to keep more than you lose! To me, this scenario is far better than “playing it safe” every time and staying stagnant.

I give this campaign an A+. What do you think? Would you use it in your organization? Has it given you any good ideas for campaigns of your own?

But for a hacker with just a bit of skill, it’s not too difficult to worm their way into an unprotected WordPress site and cause all kinds of trouble! I just spent most of my Thanksgiving weekend cleaning up a site that was hacked about 3 weeks ago. I thought it was all cleaned out…but it wasn’t, and the database was totally corrupted and malicious scripts were putting out phishing information on the site (like asking for peoples’ credit card numbers, paypal logins, etc.). This is a HUGE problem!

Of course, all sites–no matter how they are built–are vulnerable in some ways. Just like our homes. But we can do simple things to protect our homes, like install a burglar alarm, lock our doors and windows, and not leave a key under the mat.

We can do simple things to protect our WordPress sites, too. And luckily there are SOME programmers out there who are using their powers for good instead of evil, and they’ve written some great (free) WordPress plugins that you can use to protect your Internet real estate.

Take a few minutes and install these plugins on your site, activate them and go through the steps they outline. It will take 20 minutes or so, and will save you a world of hurt if your site is ever hacked.

One really important tip that this doesn’t cover–Make SURE that in WordPress, you NEVER use the “admin” login. In fact, just delete it (make sure you have some other account with administrative privileges created first, of course!). What hackers use to break into your site is a program that repeatedly guesses random combinations of letters and numbers until they lock onto your password. So if you are using “admin” as your user name–the default WordPress user name–then they already know half the combination to access your site!

It goes without saying to make sure your password is as complex as possible–more than 8 characters, containing letters, numbers and symbols, as well as capital and lower-case letters.

So here is that list of a few critical steps you should take to protect your WordPress site. (caveat: this only works on a self-hosted wordpress site. if your site is hosted on wordpress.com (if your URL is something like yoursite.wordpress.com) then you can’t install these plugins.)

Create a new administrator user with a new login name. Delete the default “admin” user.

Use random gibberish passwords of at least 12 characters. Here’s a helpful random gibberish password generator.

Install and activate the Login Lockdown plugin.

Install, activate, and run the Secure WordPress plugin.

Install, activate, and run the WP Security Scan plugin. Run its File Permissions check, and change your folder permissions accordingly.

If you are creating a new website, install, activate, and run the Maintenance Mode plugin to create a landing page and “cloak” the work in progress.

Also, be sure to keep your WordPress install and  your plugins updated to their most recent version at all times. Usually the updates to the system and to plugins are to address new security vulnerabilities. Hackers are always developing new ways to attack, so the WordPress developers must respond with enhanced security.

I sure don’t want to scare you away from using WordPress–like I said, ANY system is vulnerable. I sleep much better at night now, knowing my sites are protected. I hope you will, too!

Big thanks to the Idea 15 Blog for providing some of these links and information!

My current foster dog, Norman. What breeds, do you think?!?!

In last week’s webinar about creating custom tabs on your Facebook pages, we talked about inserting a Paypal donate button. Some of you were getting error messages from the donate button that wouldn’t let donors progress on to the donate page. NOT GOOD!

As near as I can tell, there is some piece of code in the code generated from Paypal that Facebook just doesn’t like. So I’ve come up with a workaround. It’s not that difficult, but there are a few steps, so you may need to watch the video a couple of times! As always, let me know if you have any questions by posting in the comment section below, or post on my Facebook page. That way everyone can benefit from the answers.

Hope this helps!

If you missed yesterday’s webinar where we learned how to create custom tabs for our Facebook pages, you can watch the recording here!

If you still have any questions, please post them in the comments below; I’m glad to help. And if you watch this video but it’s still not something you think you can do (or want to mess with), I can create your custom tabs for you, along with graphics and content. Just click here to find out more!

Thanks to everyone who attended the webinar, and please post in the comments below if you have any requests for other webinar topics to cover!

P.S. Have you heard about the Shelter Marketing Master Class at Sea? It’s going to be awesome….

Join me this Thursday, September 1, at 12:00 pm Central (1:00 pm Eastern/10:00 am Pacific)

If you haven’t already set up a Facebook page for your organization or business, you’ll need to do that first. You can learn how to create a Facebook page in this video.

This webinar will show you how to install custom tabs on your page with any content you want to share with your fans! You can also keep content hidden until someone becomes a fan, if you wish!

Facebook has changed a lot over the last six months, so join me to learn how to set up your own custom Facebook page–for Free.

You need to pre-register for the webinar, so please click here to register now!

Let me be clear: I am NOT selling anything on this webinar. And it’s not just a “here’s why you should have a Facebook page” kind of thing. I am going to walk you through the process, step by step, and answer your questions at the end. This is designed for beginners, not advanced computer users. Please join us–these tend to be really good webinars (if I don’t say so myself!)

I haven’t been answering too many questions lately about Twitter, because everyone is so focused on Facebook! So I appreciate this opportunity to talk about Twitter.

First off, ANYONE can “retweet” your Tweets. And you WANT them to! If you tweet, and I see it, I can retweet it. I can retweet it plain, or I can add my own comment, like “please support this great organization!” at the end.

Keep in mind that if I do this, I am not tweeting AS your organization–nobody can do that unless they have your login information (and of course, you want to keep that private!). But anyone can @reply or RT your tweets. This is how everyone shares links, photos, videos and other information on Twitter!

Now, placing a website link on Twitter. You can put your website URL in your Twitter profile–it asks you for several things like your location (City/State), gender, brief “about us” statement and your URL. So you can definitely put it there, and that way if someone clicks on your profile to learn more about you, they’ll see your URL and be able to click on it.

Unfortunately, there is no way to put your URL anywhere on your Twitter page itself that people can click on it. Even if you make a custom Twitter background, you can put the URL there, but it’s just going to be part of an image–it won’t be clickable. That is just a limitation of Twitter. Who knows, it may change someday!

Fundraising on Twitter! Big question. I think I will tackle this further in another post, but the keys would be:

Be specific, just as in any other social media. Twitter is timely, so ask for things that you need NOW, like TODAY. For example, I often ask for supplies (batteries, paper towels, etc.) right before the lunch hour, because people often drop by the store on their lunch break to pick up supplies and drop them off. Asking for specific things at specific times makes it easy for people.

Say thank-you. Twitter makes that easy, too–you can call out certain people and thank them!

Again, as with other social media, you need to have a relationship with people on Twitter BEFORE you start asking. Twitter is not a broadcast medium, it’s a a conversation, even if your sentences are only 140 letters long!

On his blog, The Fundraising Coach, Marc A. Pitman writes:

That means there’s no magic secret–you have to put in the time to listen more than you talk, build relationships with people, and then ask!

That being said, an enormous amount of money has been raised by nonprofits on Twitter! Read about Tweetsgiving, which raised more than $11,000 in 24 hours!

You can also read a great post by Beth Kanter about fundraising on Twitter–I would suggest you subscribe to Beth’s Blog if you’re interested in nonprofit social media as well.

Here are a few other great links to post you might want to read about Fundraising on Twitter:

1o Tips for Successful Twitter Fundraising
Twollars.com (interesting idea…I wonder if it works?)
Micro Fundraising on Twitter: Red Kettle Campaign, Wellwishes cracks $2,000 mark (another from Beth Kanter’s blog)

I’ll collect more stories of success and good ideas, and I’ll share them here! Readers–do you have good ideas? What has worked for your organization?

If you couldn’t make it to the webinar, I recorded the whole thing, so you can watch it here. Keep in mind it’s about 1 hour long, so you certainly don’t have to watch the whole thing through; just skip around to the parts that interest you. In the coming days, I’ll try to cut it up into smaller videos by topic so you can more easily find what is relevant to your situation.

I got some great feedback, too. One person said it wasn’t quite basic enough, so in the next few weeks I’ll put together a SUPER remedial (just kidding!) Facebook webinar, going over the basic basic basics!

I also want to do one that’s a bit more advanced/intermediate, so you can see how to do some specific things, like create a custom Facebook page. Some new tools are available now that make this pretty easy and they are even better than old Static FBML!

So here’s the video. You’re seeing it recorded from my screen, so from time to time you’ll see the GoToWebinar control panel; just ignore it.

Please post below and let me know what webinars YOU would like to see in the future!

PS….have you heard about the Marketing at Sea Conference for animal welfare people? This is going to be incredible. Four days on a luxury ship with animal welfare marketing experts who will walk you through the process and share secrets for marketing your shelter–i.e. raising money, recruiting volunteers, doing more adoptions, more spay/neuter surgeries, etc.!! The price is very reasonable, and I’m one of the speakers! I’d love to hang out with you this February, poolside…so check it out!

GREAT news for so many of you who have multiple Facebook pages for your organizations–you can now merge the two (or three or four) pages!!

So many of us have had different people working on our social media for our organizations, and we have different pages, groups, profiles, etc. created. Now we know we need to have just ONE page for our organization, and here’s how to get there!

Keep in mind, this is for merging two PAGES. If you have a profile or a group, these instructions aren’t for you. There is currently no way–that I know of–to convert a group into a page, but you CAN now convert your Facebook profile into a page!

How to do it

This is a two-step, very simple process, but it will take a couple of business days. BIG thanks to Beth Kanter for sharing this information that she got from her insider contact at Facebook! (It helps to have friends in the right places)!

The first thing you have to do is get your page–the one you want to KEEP–”authenticated” by Facebook. Basically what this means is that Facebook needs to determine that all these pages belong to you and that they belong to your organization. So this is where you put the name and URL of the page you want to merge “into.” The page you want to keep. The other pages, the ones that you want to merge into this page, you’ll enter those pages in step 2.

So to get your page authenticated, go to this page and copy and paste the URL of your page into the form. They say that it will take up to 2 business days to get authenticated. (UPDATE August 2011: This is now taking up to a month; they are REALLY backed up!)

Now, just in case you don’t know how to find your page’s URL (I never want to make assumptions here!) that’s what starts with http://www…..in your address bar at the top of your browser, and looks something like this:

After you’ve received the email from Facebook that your page has been authenticated, you can do step 2!

Go to this page and enter the URL and name of your MAIN page, the authenticated one–the one you want to be your one page when this is all said and done.

Then you enter all the URLs of the pages you want to merge into that page. (these are called your “inauthentic” pages). If you have more than five inauthentic Pages that you would like to merge into your Page, just refresh the form after submitting it. You can then submit an additional request.

What happens now? Facebook will merge your pages! The fans of all the pages will now become fans of the main page. (in the case that someone was a fan of both pages, well, they’ll just remain a fan of the remaining page).

Will the content transfer over?

NO. This is VERY important to note. If you have pictures, videos, or any other content on your pages to be merged, be sure to copy and save it BEFORE you do this. Once the pages are merged, you will no longer be able to access your “inauthentic” pages anymore, and that content will be gone forever. ONLY fans will be merged.

Hopefully, this will help clean up and streamline your organization’s Facebook presence! Be sure also on your remaining “authentic” page that you have at LEAST two admins, just in case something happens; it’s never good to be the ONLY person in charge of your page.

Good luck and please post here if you have any other questions or problems!

How do you get rid of the pages, if that’s what you should do? How can you keep all your fans and friends? What’s the best thing to do?

It’s a little different for everyone, depending on your situation.

If you have a Facebook profile for your organization, then you are in violation of Facebook’s terms of use. Please read more about this and what you can do here.

If you have more than one page for your organization, then it’s a little more complicated. It IS a violation of Facebook’s terms of service to have more than one Facebook page for the same organization, but it’s not uncommon.

There really isn’t another solution except to choose one page (probably the one with the fewest fans) and post repeatedly “We are combining our pages! Please go to page xyz (URL) and become a fan, because this page is going away on Friday!” something like that. Tell people a few times via wall posts, and then you just have to bite the bullet and delete that page. (click here to learn how to delete a Facebook page)

Will you lose some of those fans? Sure. But chances are you have a lot of duplicates, and some people are just not interested anymore. So even though you will lose a few people in the conversion, it’s still worth it. You’ll gain new fans from your concentrated effort on your one Facebook page, and continued engagement will see that pay off over time.