PRASAD (Philanthropic Relief, Altruistic Service And Development)operates health, education, disaster relief and sustainable development programs in the Tansa Valley of India, dental care for children in the United States and eye care in Mexico.

Candace Sanborn, Managing Partner at Encompass Marketing (www.encompassmarketing.com) says the firms’ focus will be helping PRASAD (www.prasad.org) raise awareness here in U.S. about their efforts in India. “We are embarking on a multifaceted, aggressive, yet targeted PR, marketing and capital campaign.” Sanborn says they will be assisting PRASAD with everything from maximizing their social media presence, web development, as well as paid and earned media opportunities. Initially their work will focus in the metro New York City area, New Jersey and Connecticut.

Founded in 1999, Encompass is a group of innovative strategists, creatives, programmers and relationship builders, who enjoy helping quality organizations get noticed for what they do.

Care2: is a social networking site for those who are into living green. If a target or niche audience of yours has anything to do with green products, living green or healthy living, this is the place for you to be. From product sales, to green job openings, to blog sharing and discussions around living and going green, Care2 is a strong site.

Ning: O.K., it isn’t free, but don’t let that scare you away. From $2.95 per month to $59.95 per month (depending on your needs), Ning allows the user to create their own social website. From non-profits to businesses, to musicians, Ning makes it easy to custom build a social media presence. Combined with your other social media presence (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and so on), Ning brings it all together. One advantage to Ning is the opportunity to raise revenue, you can charge members for access, collect donations, even target ads in Ning to raise revenue for your business/organization.

Storenvy: Imagine a free, customized storefront to to sell your products. Storenvy community members browse the site and buy what they like. The are able to share their experience and comment on the products they have purchased. It is a more social friendly and interactive version of eBay. When you have your storefront, through an App., you can connect to your Facebook page and sell from your FB page.

Meetup: take your Facebook “events” to heights you never imagined. Does your business host or sponsor a lot of events or business meetings? Are you engaged in a number of webinars, open houses or bring people together for any reason at all? Consider Meetup, it makes organizing a meeting or gathering easy, again the strength comes in your ability to link it with your other social media networks.

Quora: Is great for the know it all or entrepreneur who has a business built around what you know. Quora is a collection of questions and      answers created, edited and organized by everyone who uses it. Unlike LinkedIn where questions and answers largely appear in chronological o order, here other users rate the quality of the answers provided. For those who want to follow a “topic” or “interest”, or share your knowledge of a particular topic, Quora will be a nice addition to your social media world.

Is there a way to make my news feed more specific? Like top 20 people in my life who I associate with will always be at the top? Or something like that? Since all of the changes I can’t seem to figure it out…

This person happens to be both a real “friend” as well as being a “Facebook friend”.  Several people jumped in gave their thoughts, many people had some good ideas/thoughts.

Being that we work with dozens of individuals, non-profit groups and businesses on their social media strategy and how to maximize their time/resources, this type of question is not all that uncommon. Each member of the Encompass Marketing team has been asked a similar question. Not to take anything away from the folks who posted their opinion on my friends wall,  here is a bit of advice we give folks.

This will be the first part of a two part approach, we’ll first look at the “Subscribe” function of Facebook, we’ll then look at how to set up your Facebook Groups and Lists.

On a Friends page (or when they come up on your feed), check out the  “Subscribe” button.  That “Subscribe” button has a drop down menu to allow you to decide what type of information you would like to see from that Friend.

As you can see from the image/screen-shot you can decide to see all updates from your friends, or perhaps you on wish to see “photos” or “comments.”

The “How Many Updates?” piece can get tricky.  Even though it is implied you picking “how many” updates you see from each friend, you are really picking the level of importance.  “All Updates” clearly means you’ll see everything from your FB friend.  “Most Updates” and “Only Important” are based on how often you interact with that person and how many & how often other people “comment”, “like” and interact with that same friend.  This might take a little trial and error.

(Editorial Comment:  lets face it, if you are “Facebook Friends” with someone and you don’t want to see/hear anything they have to say, consider not being their friend on Facebook.  Or you can always remain their Facebook Friend but “un-subscribe” to their updates.  This will allow you to interact with them, on your terms, not theirs.)

Selecting what you want to see from your Facebook Friends should make your Facebook time more productive and help you gather the information you want from the people you really want to hear from.

Next time, we’ll look at setting up and using Facebook Groups & Lists to filter the information from your friends.

After sifting through a huge amount of data, it turns out that Wednesday is the peak day and 9:30 is the top time to share with others.   This data is derived from looking at all sharing platforms, social media, even looking at copy/pasting URLs into emails.  Of interest, most users click 2 minutes after content is shared and 75% of clicks occur in the first day of a share.

As you plan and look at your social media strategy, do you know what the best time(s) & day(s) are  to share information is?  If you send out electronic newsletters there are undoubtedly certain times of the day that will yield better results.  Do you know what they are?

Constant Contact has tools to help you keep track of how successful your email campaign is.  Facebook’s “Insights” is an important tool to help determine what is and isn’t working for you.

The point of all of this is that Wednesday might not work for your followers.  9:30 AM, might now be the best time for your followers or supporters to share information with others.  However, it is important for you to know the best times, best days, and what type of content yields you the best return on your investment (be if financial or in terms of time).

It might take some experimenting, and analysis,  but the tools are there for you to find out what works best for you and your supporters.  The effort will be well worth your time.

Craft-Mania on Center Street in Auburn was looking for a website to help them better engage both established and new customers. The new site, www.craftmaniamaine.com, is a dynamic site allowing visitors to ask questions of Craft-Mainia staff, and contains videos from “featured crafters”.

Community Concepts Finance Corporation (CCFC)-Business Lending Center (a division of Community Concepts) provides funding to entrepreneurs and business owners interested in starting, expanding or buying a business.  The new website, www.mainebusinesslending.com provides information on how to apply for various forms of funding, and provides background on local businesses CCFC has worked with.

Encompass Marketing believes in building websites using “Open Source” technology.   Many of their sites are built using Word Press, free from proprietary software, and are easily transferable to other developers and users.

Encompass is a group of innovative strategists, creatives, programmers and relationship builders, who enjoy helping quality organizations get noticed for what they do.

To learn more visit www.encompassmarketing.com.

In just about every episode of “The A-Team”, Hannibal would utter the words, “I love it when a plan comes together.”

While a bit scatter brained, the strategy “The A-Team” used, generally worked.  While not a life or death situation and not a prime-time drama, your business or non-profit needs  a Facebook plan.  If you are starting a Facebook page for the first time, or revising your Facebook presence, a good Facebook Plan should include the following:

Plan your Content - what do you have to share with others which reinforces your brand or message?  Posts should be a combination of photos, videos, ask questions, links of interest.  Remember, each post should be designed to elicit a response, hopefully resulting in a “Like”, or “Share”.

Plan your page Design - consider porting over the look, colors, design and logos from your website.  Take advantage of applications.  Your brand should be represented in your Facebook pages’ design too.

Plan your Goals & Measurement - who/what are your target audiences?  What is the best time to reach them and get them to  “like” your page, comment on posts and share with others.   A smaller group of of passionate customers or advocates who “like” your page is more important that a large number of people who “like” your page but don’t interact.  Quality counts.

Remember Facebook Insights can be a great tool for measuring and looking at the demographics of your “likes”.  Insights will tell you the who/what/how often people are interacting with you.  Are these the people you want/need to make your page successful?

Conversion Plan - once they “like” you, what are you going to do with these people, what do you have to offer?  Do you need them to buy your product, advocate for your cause, sign up for a newsletter?  Build these goals into your “Design” and “Content” plans.

Have fun with Facebook, but as Mr. T would say, be smart about it.  Make a plan.  “Don’t be a fool.”

Well, more likely than not, your organization has spent time and money creating a brand identity… a logo. There’s an icon, a font choice, colors. This is the suit your organization wears when out in public. Just like clothes for a person, a logo conveys a message about an organization, “This is who I am. I’m clean, professional, smart, trendy, not trendy, capable, inviting, elite, creative…” whatever. And people make judgments about an organization based upon what they see.

Using a logo inconsistently is similar to going to a meeting in ripped and dirty clothes. If your logo appears sometimes squished, sometimes stretched, sometimes off color, sometimes with one font and sometimes with another, an impression is definitely created, but probably not the one you want; sloppiness, lack of coordination, lack of professionalism or ability, a home-spun sensibility (BAD).

How to stay well dressed.

Font

Choose a font for your logo and stick with it. If outside sources, such as newspapers or printers, are using your logo, make sure they use the font you specify. Don’t let them get away with setting your logotype in Helvetica on one ad and Times Roman in another. If the font on your logo is Rockwell, then make sure it’s always Rockwell

Color

Color can be tricky because it seems to change from one printer to the next and it looks different on every other monitor. Never the less, choose a color and stick with it. If you’re having something printed, work with your printer to choose a Pantone color and always use that color. If you work with a designer, find out what Pantone colors are used in your logo and make sure they’re always used.

Make A Set Of Files

The easiest way to make sure your use of your logo is consistent in both font and color is to create a set of logo files that you can use internally or send to vendors, printers and advertisers. That way, the font and color are set and wont change from one use to the next.

Proportions

And now that you have a set of logo files, make sure your logo is always recreated in its proper proportions. Don’t stretch it to fit a picture box or squish it to fit into too tight of a space.

Standards Manual

For larger organizations who have many internal and external users of their logo, we not only create a set of logo files for the client to use, but we also create a Use Standards Manual that lays out how (and how not) the logo should appear; fonts, colors, placement, sizes, etc. This helps ensure that, no matter who is using the logo, they will know how to make it look right.

It’s not easy to be consistent, not with your kids, not with your dog, not in life, and especially, not with the use of your logo. However, you probably take the time to dress well when you go to work in order to make the right impression. It’s a good idea to take the time to make sure your organization is dressed well too. After all, the impression your organization makes is just as important.

If you don’t care about the impression you’re making, how do you think your audience feels?

Runnels will compliment the team that is place, integrating website design/functionality with social media and overall marketing efforts. “We have had the pleasure of working with Randy before, the wealth of experience he brings to Encompass will be of great benefit to our clients” says Candace Sanborn, Managing Partner of Encompass Marketing.

“Randy’s technical knowledge and philosophy that websites should compliment an organization’s or companies brand, while working in unison with social and traditional marketing makes him a natural fit for us.” Encompass Marketing is a strong advocate of open source programming and of the Web Standards Project, pushing for lightweight, semantic web documents and a high level of browser compliance.

Encompass Marketing is a comprehensive services firm of talented professionals, integrating marketing, graphic design, public relations, fundraising and internal management under one umbrella, to support the branding and financial goals of non-profit organizations and social enterprises.