# Getting Bloggers to help tell your fundraising and campaigning stories

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2010/07/06/getting-bloggers-help-tell-your-fundraising-and-campaigning-stories/
- Published: 2010-07-06T17:27:56+01:00
- Author: Kevin Baughen

**Following the [tweets](http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23iofnc) from the Institute
of Fundraising’s National Convention this week has reminded me just how fast the
world of digital communications is moving.  **

There are still lots of sessions on using social media to support fundraising and
campaigning as well as interest in specific areas like crowdfunding and using blogs
and bloggers.

This reminded me of an [article in Third Sector](http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/news/Article/980495/charities-getting-bloggers-board)
I’d seen in February which shared the story of how some charities are engaging bloggers
as part of their media campaigns.  The author, Helen Barrett, illustrated the different
approaches being tried by larger charities such as Cancer Research UK and Action
Aid (use a third party agency to help engage bloggers on a charity’s behalf) and
Amnesty International UK (who prefer to keep communications with supporters in-house
and try to embed the social media approach internally).

## Advertisement

I found the examples interesting but the learnings are even more powerful if added
to the outputs from the Convention above:

 * Social media isn’t a standalone activity – it should be integrated with other
   campaigning, brand or fundraising activities
 * Getting bloggers on board is about building a relationship with them first rather
   than treating them like a journalist working to a print deadline (check out [CharityComms](http://www.charitycomms.org.uk)
   for more detail on this).  And ultimately accepting that it may be a two-way 
   relationship in the future
 * That said, when the right messages do go viral – through social media generally
   or specifically through bloggers – they can be hugely powerful (see recent post
   on [Sussex Road Safety Video](http://bottomlineideas.wordpress.com/2010/07/01/what-we-can-learn-from-the-simplest-video-campaigns)).
   Marketing guru Seth Godin’s blog generated[ over 600,000](https://analytics.postrank.com/2009/feed/df2e636d08d10cf761d41bff3af1fec0)‘
   engagement points’ in 2009.  That’s real people engaging with his content, not
   just page views.  Any topic he discussed would therefore have been seen and copied,
   linked to, recommended, tweeted, liked on Facebook etc. a huge number of times
   beyond this.

For the rest of the article head over to the new [Penguin Blog](http://bottomlineideas.wordpress.com)

 * **[#BeGoodBeSocial](https://fundraising.co.uk/2010/10/28/begoodbesocial/)** (
   28 October 2010)
 * **[Does asking all your social media contacts for donations actually work?](https://fundraising.co.uk/2011/02/10/does-asking-all-your-social-media-contacts-donations-actually-work/)**(
   10 February 2011)
 * **[Irish charities ‘behind’ with social media](https://fundraising.co.uk/2011/05/18/irish-charities-039behind039-social-media/)**(
   18 May 2011)