Three Steps to Launching Your Nonprofit Blog (Case Study)
Introducing NominationWatch.org
The National Women's Law Center (NWLC), dedicated to
advancing and protecting women's legal rights,
launched NominationWatch.org. This highly-
focused blog focuses on the ongoing battles over
judicial nominations, including John Roberts' bid
for the Supreme Court vacancy.
With its prominent history of involvement in key
judicial confirmation debates of the past, NWLC
was ideally positioned to lead the informal debate
on current nominations. So NWLC leadership decided to
capitalize on this unique role with a blog designed
to shed light on the complexities of the nomination
agenda (now even more so, with the death of Chief
Justice Rehnquist and the subsequent nomination of
Roberts to fill that role) and generate support for
judges who support women's rights.
Ranit Schmelzer, NWLC vice president for communications,
says that for years the organization has relied on
traditional press outreach tools (press releases and
conferences, and teleconferences). But driven by the
importance of the current judicial debates, Schmelzer
and her colleagues landed on a blog as the most
effective ways to "get substance out in small bytes."
"We thought it was high time we wrote something that
wasn't footnoted," says Marcia D. Greenberger, NWLC
co-president and newly empowered blogger. "We are
continuing to produce well-researched reports, but
you won't read them here. That's what our website is
for. Here you'll find the latest on breaking news,
vital facts, key findings and some behind-the-scenes
information."
- Shaping the Editorial Policy
NWLC had a lot of work to do before NomininationWatch.org
was launched, and developing an editorial policy was
first on the list. Take a look at the blog and you'll
see the succinct but in-depth entries written by NWLC's
blogging team. Frequency of entries depends on what is
happening in the news, says Schmelzer. At the height of
the Roberts' nomination coverage there were three
entries daily while at other times entries are posted
three times weekly. Frequency, and the decision to vary
it based on the news, is central to the blog's editorial
policy.
Another component of NominationWatch.org's editorial
policy is the bloggers themselves. What's unusual is
that there's a team of bloggers (writers include NCLW's
two co-presidents and two of its vice presidents,
while two staff members serve as editors) who are
assigned daily and weekly blog tasks. To streamline
this team effort, the bloggers participate in a
weekly editorial meeting.
Even more unusual is that the four bloggers don't sign
their posts, which is rare in a venue that is known
for personalization. "Our practice is not to sign our
e-newsletters and e-updates," explains Schmelzer. "The
blog is very much a team effort, the voice of the
Center rather than that of the individual blogger."
Next, the blog team defined how, and to what extent,
to integrate links into NominationWatch.org. Most
links are to mainstream media (The Washington Post
figures prominently in many entries) and Capitol Hill
sources from newspapers to public documents and
court briefs.
And finally the team decided not to include the reader
comment option so common in blogs today. "We decided
to focus our resources on the blog as a venue for NWLC
perspectives at this point in time," says Schmelzer.
Once the team selected its blog tool of choice (Typepad,
known for its ease of use, flexibility and economical
fees), they were ready to blog.
- Bringing the Blog to Life
Once editorial and access decisions were finalized,
the NWLC team considered how best to interface with
the NWLC website and organizational identity. Although
the organization chose to highlight the issue (rather
than its own name) in the blog URL or address, it
remained a priority to link the effort back to NWLC
and to capitalize on this work to generate donations
and e-newsletter and e-alert subscribers, and to build
awareness of NWLC and its work.
In a way, the issue-branded blog reinforces the NWLC
name (e.g., 'Who publishes this blog? It's great.') and
vice versa (e.g., 'Oh, NWLC is publishing a blog now.
Got to take a look.')
To push this cognitive connection, the blog features
a link to the NWLC e-alert adjoining the most recent
entry, and links to the NWLC home page and newsroom.
Similarly, there is a large graphic link to the blog
on the NWLC home page.
- Engaging Readers via Easy Access to Key Content and
First Pass Promotion
The NWLC team knew that as good as their blog content
might be, its impact would be solely dependent on
the number of readers, and motivating those readers
to become regulars.
First the blog team turned its focus to increasing
ease of access to blog content. Schmelzer and her
colleagues decided to provide access to entries via
links (on a sidebar adjoining new entries) to
highlights, sub-topics such as the confirmation
process, recent posts and monthly archives for the
chronological perspective. These varied points of
entry provide almost any reader with a relevant
path to blog content past and present.
An online news feed option (RSS--real simple
syndication) was added so that users could request
to have new entries automatically delivered via a
downloadable reader. Read more about this relatively
new means of 'pushing' blog content to readers at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(protocol)
Using Typepad, one of the most popular, and inexpensive
blog tools, the NWLC bloggers developed start-up
content. To ensure that audiences knew about the blog
and its unique perspective on this key public issue,
NCLW distributed a pithy press release, negotiated
link exchanges with related blogs and sites, and
submitted blog pages to Google and Technorati, which
searches blogs by keyword and for links.
Results –
Increased Visibility and Excited Audiences
Since NominationWatch.org was launched in June, the
blog team has seen a steady increase in visitors and
links to it by related sites. I read about the blog
in a review for the press (highlighting new and
interesting sources), and when I Googled it, I got
pages of links to other blogs, mainstream media and
even Rush Limbaugh.
Schmelzer reports that this coverage has come without
aggressive promotion. What I recommend to bloggers
is to define up to 20 key words and phrases, and
integrate them into blog posting. Readers, if you're
blogging, don't forget this step so critical to
generating search engine results.
Watch NominationWatch.org as the Roberts debate heats
up this month. Although there are no stats to verify
it, I bet that this blog has made a whole new audience
(including the grassroots audience) aware of NWLC and
its work, and shed light on a very complicated process.
Way to go NWLC.
© 2002-2008 Nancy E. Schwartz. All rights reserved.
About the Author
Nancy E. Schwartz helps nonprofits succeed through effective marketing and communications. As President of Nancy Schwartz & Company (www.nancyschwartz.com), Nancy and her team provide marketing planning and implementation services to organizations as varied as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Center for Asian American Media, and Wake County (NC) Health Services.
Subscribe to her free e-newsletter "Getting Attention", (http://www.nancyschwartz.com/getting_attention.html) and read her blog at http://www.gettingattention.org for more insights, ideas and great tips on attracting the attention your organization deserves.
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Revised April 12, 2008
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