Contact, Communicate...Connect!
One of the most important functions of any organisation is communicating what they do to their local community, whether it’s to gain funding, mobilize supporters or to simply let people know what services they offer. In today’s digital world one of the most powerful ways to communicate to your local community and beyond is to have a presence online. The web is now the shop window of the world, allowing any organisation, irrespective of size, to promote their work to audiences near and far, often for little or even no cost. Here are just a few of the options…
Website
If you do have even a small budget, it is well worth getting some help to set up a basic website for your organisation, but there are lots of sites that provide free templates that you can tailor in content and appearance to create your own site for free. (Have a look at www.drupalgardens.com or www.moonfruit.com as examples). You don’t need any specialist computer skills to use these, just a bit of time and a few ‘critical friends’ to help you come up with an attractive, informative and easy-to-use site.
Whether you get some expert help or go it alone, it is vital that you include:
- Information ‘About’ your organisation, explaining who you are and why your organisation exists
- The services you offer and, importantly, the benefits these services offer to the community you operate in.
- Up-to-date news and details events happening in your community or within your organisation. It is essential that you make time to update this regularly.
- Contact details, which should be clearly visible on the home page or via a visible link from the home page so people can contact you easily.
Many websites now allow users to post their own content to the site (events, news, comments, blogs etc.) which can make it much more interesting and relevant, but this needs to be actively managed to avoid abuse and potential embarrassment!
Social media
Many organisations are increasingly turning to social media to promote the work their organisation does. One big advantage of this is that so many people already use social media in their daily lives they will automatically receive regular news and updates from you without having to visit your site. For example, Facebook allows organisations to set up a ‘page’ for their organisation, which can be branded with your own logo, provide basic information about who you are, what you do and how to contact you and be easily updated with news, comments, events, photos and links to videos and other websites on your ‘wall’. When other Facebook users ‘like’ your page, they will automatically see your new posts on their own Facebook account. Once you start to use Facebook or other social media regularly you will quickly discover many other useful tools and possibilities – have a look at CLP group Root Soup’s Facebook page to see what you could do. If you need any help in setting up or maintaining your Facebook page feel free to contact James on 028 9087 7777 or james.mcginley@nicva.org.
Email
While there have been a number of recent news stories predicting the imminent demise of email, for most of us it is still an essential communication tool. Websites and social media require frequent updating and a variety of content (photos, videos, links etc.) to keep users coming back. However, if you don’t have the time to invest, then eNewsletters are a great way of providing regular, targeted information to keep your supporters, funders and local community up to date with all your news and events. It may take time to get people to sign up to this, but once you have a comprehensive email list, this type of communication can have great returns.
To summarise, then, few organisations can afford to ignore the communication potential of the internet any longer. Like everything new, it may seem daunting at first, but today’s internet tools are designed to be intuitive and even fun to use. The best way to find out if it can work for your group is to jump in and give it a go!