Every child deserves a chance to dream, learn, and grow. Let's give them another chance.

Donate now to make a difference!
We have organised this one month fundraiser to help address some of the challenges of these innocent souls. Click on the link.

https://spiritualfamily.net/permalink/default/65121/streets-to-smiles-initiative-fundraiser?uh=f05dbde180fb50e1bdacbcd0ff1aa638

In Uganda, a growing crisis silently plagues the nation – the plight of street children. These innocent souls, who should be in the safety of homes and schools, face unimaginable challenges daily but the world seems to have forgotten or not to care about them.

As of our last available data in 2021, Uganda had an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 street children suffering on the streets of Kampala with over 50% of these children are under the age of 15. However, there are more thousands of children in the other parts of the country in the same situation.

Street children in Uganda face a daily battle for survival. They endure hunger, exposure to harsh weather, violence, and exploitation. They are vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse, often falling prey to substance abuse as a means of escape.

Your generosity can provide a lifeline for these children seemingly forgotten souls. Donations can be directed towards Shelter, Education, Healthcare and Nutrition.

Your contribution can transform the lives of Uganda's street children. Together, we can break the cycle of suffering by offering them a chance for a brighter future. Please consider making a donation today, and be the ray of hope in these children's lives.

Network for Good Community

VALUABLE INFORMATION ON FINDING AND HOLDING DONORS

We know you’ve been hard at work supporting your communities and showing the world that #CovidCantStopGOOD. And your efforts haven’t gone unnoticed by donors! Since the start of COVID-19, we’ve seen a significant uptick in online giving across the sector. Organizations that are actively fundraising are thriving. But with many nonprofits still threatened by the impact of the virus, we know that fundraisers must find a way to build donor loyalty to sustain their missions.   

So, we decided to find out once and for all what makes donors tick. We got to work studying years of donor behavior and crunching the numbers from thousands of our successful nonprofit customers. We looked for a big 'ah-ha' moment and we finally arrived at the key to building strong donor relationships – the kind that will sustain your nonprofit through the good times and the bad.   

So here it is – the secret to a long and happy relationship with your donors:  

Communication.   

Are you surprised? Neither are we! Frequent, consistent communication, via multiple different channels yields loyal donors and strong advocates of your mission. The big ah-ha is intuitive, yet not enough nonprofits are actively doing it: treat your donors like a walking checkbook instead of focusing on building relationships with them, and they’ll move on to the next cause that catches their eye. If you’re only reaching out once a year during your annual campaign, or if the only personalized communication you send is their tax receipt (and you’re thinking that the tax receipt will also serve as a thank-you), you’re definitely not winning over the hearts and minds of your donors!  

It’s time to start communicating better so you can cultivate meaningful relationships. Relationships that last, through good times and bad. Relationships that foster new supporters of your mission. That’s why we’ve launched betterdonorrelationships.com.  

Visit our new website to learn how to how to build stronger, more modern donor relationships so your future is bright—regardless of external circumstances. You can also:  

• Take our Relationship Quiz to find out whether your donor relationships are built to last  
• Share how you keep in touch with your supporters using the hashtag #DonorRelationshipGoals on social media  
• Read up on the latest technology, trends, and tips for communicating more effectively with your donors  
• Get a demo of our simple, smart fundraising software to learn how we can help you take your donor relationships to the next level  

The future is here! Donors today want to hear more, not less, from the nonprofits they support, and Network for Good can help you show your donors the love they deserve.  Frequent, multi-channel touches with text, video, and social media will help you thrive and we’re here to help you put it into motion.

Join our movement into a new era of donor love!  

www.mewe.com

Delton Rhodes

The "Grand Daddy" tutorial for users interested in dropping Facebook to reclaim their right to privacy. Gem County Uncensored is ALIVE AND WELL!

This is a long tutorial; but I break down with a simple step by step from A-Z, how to create an account at MeWe. A tutorial even my grandmothers can follow!

How to verify your account, and then I give you a FULL WALK THROUGH the website including how to set up your profile, how to change privacy and notification settings, how to navigate the website, how to discover "Groups" and "Pages", as well as how to navigate and interact with them.

I cover every detail I could possibly think of to ensure you're well educated on how to use the website.

COMMON QUESTIONS I've encountered.

Q: "I got hacked right after I joined!"
A: No, you just failed to check your email and verify your account, and as a result were unable to log in.

Q: "But nobody I know uses MeWe.
A: You're right, I didn't know anybody either. But by sharing the website, and telling friends and family about it; I've managed to get over 200 people and counting to join MeWe and make the switch.

Q: "I got a bunch of SPAM email after joining MeWe"
A: I address this issue in this tutorial video, it's a simple notification setting that you can opt out of. If you follow this tutorial step by step, you won't deal with any spam.

Q: "I joined a group and now my phone wont shut up!"
A: Again, this is a notification setting simply resolved; also covered in the video tutorial.

Q: "Does it work on Kindle/Android/Ipad/PC/Mac?"
A: YES!

If you have ANY questions, please feel free to send me a message! I'm more than happy to assist you with any inquiries. (ON MeWe!!!).

I have invested a LOT of time the past few days into learning how to use this new platform and I can honestly say it was very easy. MeWe feels a LOT like Facebook.

MeWe's Motto is "Your Privacy is #NotForSale" and I feel that should speak volumes to people smart enough to understand that privacy is important, even if you're not doing anything wrong.

Just because you're not participating in immoral activities, doesn't mean it's OK for social media giants and corporations to invade your privacy; let alone sell it for profit. You're human, not some social science experiment.

MeWe is ad free; and has one of the best Privacy Statements I've ever had the pleasure to read on the internet.

P.S. I will also be making a tutorial on how to download ALL of your Facebook photos and images so you don't lose them.

It's tough to make an impact. Outstanding content is more likely to be retweeted, increasing your reach and audience.

As a marketing channel, Twitter’s no longer optional. Everyone’s using it, which means you need to be too.

But because everyone’s using it, you can get lost in the crowd. It’s tough to make an impact.

The only way to stand out, is to be really good at Twitter. Your tweets need to be A+. Or even A+++:

Outstanding content is more likely to be retweeted, increasing your reach and audience. Your best bet for increasing Twitter reach is to get more of them, and the best way to do that is to post better content.

To help you out, we’ve put together eight quick tips that’ll make your tweets more twitt-ilating.

Shall we?

We also put these tips into a checklist for your office wall. Grab it here.

1. Know your audience

Hint: It’s not everyone. You want your tweets to hit home with the right people, so you’d better know what those people like.

Brittany Berger wrote all about the benefits of social listening. She says it lets you:

• Find out what your customers really think
• Re-evaluate your brand’s strengths and weaknesses
• Supplement hard data with genuine opinions
• Get customers’ views of your competitors
• Find new campaign ideas

Target specific keywords and hashtags that suit your ideal buyer. See what they’re talking about and update your content strategy accordingly.

Just listening will give your social marketing a boost

CLICK TO TWEET

Great marketers can even use monitoring to generate leads.

Let’s see how they do it.

How to listen

Option 1: get familiar with Twitter’s Advanced Search.

It lets you narrow your search to find exactly what you’re looking for. Like a regular search, but more advanced. If you’re listening for generic terms or popular phrases, this helps you eliminate some of the noise.

The best part is you can save your searches – up to 25 per account. It’s like having custom hashtags, just for you.

Create a handful of useful searches and revisit them each week. This is an easy way to follow conversations in your specific niche.

Option 2: use a monitoring tool. These take all of the work out of social media monitoring.

Set up alerts just like you’d build an advanced search. Receive daily reports about conversations on social media, plus real-time alerts when keywords are trending.

For social media, our favorite tools include Hootsuite, Social Mention, and Mention (of course).

2. Talk with your followers, not at them

Buffer’s Kevan Lee says you need to know the difference between “voice” and “tone.” Think of voice as your brand’s personality – a core part of its identity – and tone as your brand’s mood from day to day. As they explain it:

“Voice is a mission statement. Tone is the application of that mission.”

Voice doesn’t change – this is how you want your brand to be represented, always. But tone changes with context.

You also can’t always be selling. Twitter is a giant chat room. Most people are there for conversation, jokes, or education. You can’t spend all your time talking about yourself.

Here are some suggestions to help you balance promotion with other content:

• The 80/20 rule: 20% of your content can be promotional, but 80% of your content should be interesting and engaging to your audience.
• The 5-3-2 ratio: Five relevant pieces from others, three non-promotional from you, then two promotional posts.
• The 4-1-1 rule: Four pieces from others – plus one retweet – for every promotional tweet you send.

Focus on offering value to your followers – that’s what matters. Choose a ratio that makes sense to you, and try to keep to it.

3. Use relevant hashtags

Hashtags are Twitter’s way of bundling information together by keyword. People following hashtags are interested in that content. If your content suits one, you’ll reach an audience that’s keen to engage with it.

If you want to get the most from hashtags, check out Danielle Prager’s hashtag best practices. Some of her key tips are:

• Never use more than three hashtags per post.
• Keep them short. #LongStringsOfWordsAreAnnoying.
• The more precise, the better.
• Make them easy to remember and easy to spell.
• If you’re creating a campaign hashtag, be original.

Finally, a word of warning: don’t try to piggyback on irrelevant hashtags; you’ll look foolish.

4. Know when to tweet

Twitter is time-sensitive. Even with Twitter’s new algorithm, only the beginning of the user’s stream is affected. And it’s optional. That means you’re still relying largely on timing to get your content seen.

It may feel like the whole world is constantly online, but some times of the day are busier than others:

The best times of the day to tweet.

Image courtesy of QuickSprout

Think about television ads. Primetime spots are the most expensive, but they’re not right for every product. Toy brands prefer after-school slots, when their target audience is watching. Likewise, you’ll make the greatest impact on Twitter when your target audience is engaged.

Use tools like Audiense, Followerwonk, and Mention to find out when your target audience is engaged. Prioritize tweeting at these times, for maximum impact.

ways-to-make-tweets-more-impactful

5. Add calls-to-action

You want engaged followers. Every retweet is an opportunity to reach a whole new audience. But people don’t engage with content just because they feel like it. Tell them what you need from them.

Dan Zarella analyzed over 2.7 million tweets to see which CTAs led to the most retweets:

The best calls to action for retweets

“Help,” “retweet,” “please,” “how to,” and “follow” are among the most retweeted words. If you want to see engaged Twitter followers, you’d better use ‘em.

Twitter power use Madalyn Sklar uses CTAs extensively to boost her posts:

Use calls to action to help increase Twitter reach

Madalyn loves Twitter chats, and CTAs help her spread the word about her #TwitterSmarter

6. Realize less isn’t more

Twitter is a “microblogging” site. It would make sense that Twitter content should be shorter than posts on other social networks. Not exactly.

Buffer and SumAll teamed up to make this monster infographic showing the optimal length for posts on various social networks. For instance, Facebook posts with around 40 characters see the highest engagement. For LinkedIn, you’re aiming for 25 words.

The perfect length for social media posts, according to SumAll

Image courtesy of SumAll

Even though Twitter places a premium on characters, the sweet spot for Twitter copy is between 70 and 100 characters.

To improve your copy, Cornell University made this funky A/B tester to predict which of two tweets should get more retweets.

7. Use images

Buffer found that pictures triple the rate of retweets, and nearly double the rate of likes. And because images take up Twitter real estate, your message becomes more prominent with a picture.

But what if you don’t have good, original images to share?

Create “quote pictures”

One Twitter study found that pictures lead to 35% more retweets, and that quotes increase retweets by 19%. I’m no math magician, but 35% + 19% = billions!

Or maybe it doesn’t work like that.

The point is, combine quotes and images for maximum impact.

There are plenty of tools that’ll help you do this. Canva, Pablo (by Buffer), and PicMonkey are all popular choices. Quote pictures are simple to make, and are sure to increase engagement.

8. Be personal

Don’t tweet like a robot. This is social media, and users enjoy a familiar touch.

CLICK TO TWEET

When appropriate, name the person tweeting. It gives a more personal feel to your tweets.

Name the person tweeting to give a personal feel

Harvard Business Review says that “empathy” is the key indicator of whether a company “gets” Twitter or not. They say empathy consists of “reassurance, authenticity, and emotional connection.” Basically, the best brands on Twitter don’t sound like brands. They sound like people.

Your tweets don’t need to save the rainforest (although great party trick, if you know how), you just want to seem human.

So there you have have it

Eight quick and easy tips to make your tweets more impactful. Start using them right away.

Want more help building your Twitter reach? We’ve got ya!

twitter marketing

Patrick Whatman

Content Marketer @Mention

Patrick Whatman is a content marketer for Spendesk, Mention, and other growing businesses. He lives in Paris, loves music, and writes his own brand of cultural criticism for fun. Tweet him @mrwhatman where he mainly talks digital marketing, American sports and New Zealand trivia.

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