The Agitator

Our previous posts this week have been pretty positive about social media, their penetration, and their potential marketing (and for us, that means fundraising) contribution. Here are some additional views. Take a look at them and then give us your opinion in a quick three-question Agitator ...  Read more

Here’s yet another agency white paper on social marketing … this one, from Serengeti Communications, addresses the challenge of measuring social media impact. Everyone from marketing veteran Seth Godin (see his recent Clout post) to the newest hire on your web team (just walk down the ...  Read more

OK, summer is over, you’ve had a week to get back into work mode, and so The Agitator is ready to offer some heavy lifting this week. We’ve been saving up some important stuff on social media. First up is a new report from the Pew internet Project, called The Internet & Civic ...  Read more

In deference to our U.S. readers, who are coping with the official end of summer after a long Labor Day weekend, I have an easy-to-digest post today. Here are some videos dealing with social networking. The first is actually serious, suggesting the importance of social nets to all forms of ...  Read more

I’ve been thinking about this video ad from Medicins Sans Frontieres, which has stirred up quite a bit of controversy on the Chronicle’s Give & Take blog and elsewhere. Here are my observations. First, a piece of advertising needs to be assessed against its objectives. If the ...  Read more

Given that The Agitator often encourages fundraisers to experiment with online video, we’re pleased to help bring your attention to this fundraising video competition. It’s sponsored by Resource Alliance, who stages the International Fundraising Congress (IFC). Traditionally the ...  Read more

I love this online fundraising campaign run by the Salvation Army in the Detroit region. And I also love the fact that they employ someone (that would be Michelle St. Pierre) with the title, Director of Integrated Marketing! Somebody out there gets it. This campaign was put together with e-Miles ...  Read more

B.L. Ochman, for my money, is one of the better social media strategists around. In this post, she critiques two online contests, finding one a clear winner … the other a distinct loser. Or, as she puts it: One rocks, one sucks. Here’s an excerpt: "Two current contests involving ...  Read more

Here’s the latest report on online video use from Pew Internet Project. As the charts below indicate, 62% of U.S. online adults have watched online video. Amongst those with broadband access, that figure is 69%, with nearly one-in-four watching in any given day. Online video watching ...  Read more

NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof just wrote the fascinating story of Scott Harrison, a fundraiser and skillful marketer who, as Kristof puts its, is making clean water sexy. Some important fundraising lessons here. Scott is a 33-year-old ex-nightclub promoter who "got religion" while ...  Read more