Tweetschats and Pay-Per-Clicks (PPC) for Non-Profits

Tweetchats – a very useful purpose for Twitter.  Michael’s post on the what, why, and how of this interesting means to communicate can get you rolling if you’re not familiar with them.  I wanted to share my thoughts on spending an hour interacting with people interested in a common topic.  On Wednesday October 26, I participated in my first #NPTalk tweet chat (they happen every Wednesday at 2pm Central time) with a collection of folks discussing how to apply Facebook and Google Pay Per Click advertising for Non Profits.

It took a bit for the meat of the conversation to get going; the room was incredibly polite welcoming everyone – even a newbie like me.  I was encouraged to participate by the moderator and host of the discussion – I even posted a question!

I invested an hour – what did I take away?

1. Google Grants – is a program provided by Google to sponsor Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising for Non Profits.  We’ve done a little investigation into the program, and unlike many US based Non Profit sponsorship programs this one looks like the grants are available to Canadian NPOs.  (Many use a US 501(c)3 online database to check eligibility which does not include Canadian Societies – so we’re out of the box straight away.)
2. Like any marketing effort, Pay Per Click advertising should be approached following a strategy and plan to deliver results to your Association.  The Google Grant application will “encourage” you to think about the results you hope to achieve from your use of PPC advertising.
3. Google and Facebook are the most popular sources for PPC amongst today’s group with minimal experience in other PPC sources.  Google has the advantage of a higher level of visibility with increased competition (higher cost) for your advertising.  Facebook has less competition, yet most felt it didn’t perform as well as Google.
4. The experienced PPC hands in the room suggested PPC not be the start of an advertising campaign, but rather an extension after you have optimised the SEO of your existing site and planned your PPC campaign.

Not bad for an hour, plus I met some great people with similar interests – helping Non Profits grow and succeed in a fast paced and ever changing environment.

I don’t know if I’ll be a regular participant in #NPTalk, but you can be sure I’ll look weekly to see if the topic is interesting and make time to read the thread after the event if I’m unable to make it.  I encourage you to keep an eye on SocialNicole – sign up for the newletter, and drop by the #NPTalk chat on Wednesdays at 2pm Central time (that’s conveniently over lunch here in Vancouver).

Stay tuned, we’ll keep you posted on our application and the results with a Google Grant application (be patient – they say it can take up to 4 months to get your results), how we plan to use PPC, and more experiences with TweetChats.

Always interested in hearing your thoughts – have you employed Pay Per Click advertising with your Association; participated in an interesting TweetChat; or have a link you’d like to share?