January is a great time to start looking ahead to what the new year will bring.  Getting organized and making plans for the year will help you and your organization decide your priorities and help everyone get on the same page.  At the start of 2016, we did a blog post on setting goals.  In this blog post, we will talk about organizing your calendar for the year.

Online calendars are a great way to share dates, times, meetings, goals, and other information to those who need it.  Organizations like yours often have committees, sub-committees, and boards.  Therefore, people in your organization would benefit from a calendar option that allows them to see when things are supposed to be done and help plan for the future.  A great way to plan the year is to start at the end.  Plan the best date for your events and auctions, then work your way backwards on the calendar to set your time table and goals.  Be sure to check out our Consulting Page for a brief look at Benefit Bidding’s timeline to auction planning.

Teamup.com is a free online calendar that allows an unlimited amount of users to have access and add thier own dates and times to one team calender.  Each user is assigned a color and can add to the calendar as needed.  This is a great way for everyone to look at who is in charge of what aspect of your organization and to help keep everyone on track.

Google Calendar is my personal favorite.  Most everyone online has a Google account.  This is a great way to have as many calendars as you need to run your organization.  Users see what the person who made the calender wants them to see.  For example, you could make one calendar for the overall organizational goals and limit those who can see it to your executive board.  Committees can have their own calendars and allow access to the board and the committee.  Users can also view their personal calendars, tasks, and organizational calendars together without other people having to view them.  Tasks are easy to organize and prioritize.  Google Calendar is easy to use and can be updated from smartphones, tablets, and other portable devices.

Online calendars are great way to keep your entire organization organized and on track for the year.  When you settle on a date for your auction, be sure to contact Benefit Bidding to start planning!  We always offer free consultations and can help you set fundraising goals for your organization.

In the past three blog posts, we’ve talked about how to make social media work for you and your organization.  In this post, we will talk about the best way to organize all your social media feeds in one place.  The best product for this is Hootsuite and is available at hootsuite.com.

Hootsuite offers different pay plans to help organize your feeds.  The very basic, free plan covers up to 3 different social media feeds and I find that is plenty to help me with my social media needs.  There is no need to pay for the plan unless you have many many social media feeds you need to keep track of.  For our business, we have 3 social media feeds which allow us to cover a wide audience.  Hootsuite allows you to see all of your social media accounts at the same time, on one screen.  This makes interacting with people so easy!

There is also a feature that allows you to schedule your posts and tweets.  This is a wonderful way to make sure you get your information out at the right time.  For example, if you were to have an event for the holidays, you could schedule posts to go out reminding people to buy tickets, check auction items, and come to the event without having to make sure you are online at the specific times the information needs to go out.  Scheduling in advance is a great way to stay on top of your message.

Another feature is analytics, which is tracking what posts are actually being looked at by others.  This can help you schedule posts to go out at times when more people are going to see them.  If most of your audience checks Facebook at noon, you will be able to know that and schedule posts for them to see.  Hootsuite also has many other features you can use for free.  Check out hootsuite.com for more information.

Social media can be an amazing way to engage with people about your organization.  Keeping your social media feeds organized and making sure you are putting out great information can really help your organization find and maintain people who are interested in helping.

Welcome to the second part of our series about making social media work for you!  This month, we will talk about blogs.  This is an amazing opportunity to let people everywhere know about what your organization is doing and how they can help facilitate your goals.

Blogging is a great way to provide information to people.  It provides a casual environment where people can read at their leisure.  There are many free blogging sites online including wordpress.com, blogger.com, and many others.  Look for one that provides statistics on who looks at your blog.  This gives you great information on how many people are reading your blog and allows you to improve how you advertise your message over time.

First, before you begin your blog, make a schedule of your blog posts will help you maintain an audience and keep readers coming back for more. An easy way to do this is to make a calendar of your events, schedules of meetings, and any other activities that are important to your organization.  Second, decide how often the blog will be updated.  You should update your blog consistently.  If you want to post every month, make sure you post every month on the same day at the same time.  Once a week is as often as you should post.  More than that will make your readers feel overwhelmed.  Once a month is the least you should post.  Less often will require you to work very hard to have readers come back for new information.

Writing a blog can be an intimidating thought.  Luckily, the internet has some great writing prompts to help get you started.  The calendar and schedule you made will also come in handy to write about upcoming events.  You should avoid posting about the minutia of your organization.  People who are not attending your meetings do not need to see your meeting minutes or know what snacks your served.  Begin by thinking in broad strokes to make your blog accessible to every reader.  Be sure to add pictures from the public domain to avoid violating any copywrite laws.  You can find a list of websites that provide photos here.  You can have one person write the blog posts, or you can have many members write posts.  It is helpful to have one person schedule the post, proofread the material, and check for grammar and spelling issues.  This ensures your blog post will be professional and posted on time.

When you have a blog post published, make sure to let everyone know.  You can send out a Facebook post and a tweet (on Twitter) about your post.  Including the link of where to find the post will let readers get to in easily.  The easier it is to get to, the more readers you will have.  Be sure to send all the members of your organization the link and let them know how often the blog will be updated.

Blogs are a great way to keep your readers informed of what is going on in your organization.  With these tips and tricks, your blog can be amazing and fun to read!