A decade ago, some thought that libraries could be expected to waft into antiquity, but in an article in theNew York Times, Susan Benton, president and chief executive of the Urban Libraries Council is quoted as saying of libraries that both “physical visits and virtual visits are off the charts.” For example, just at the central facility for Boston Public Library, the number of physical visits alone increased between 2012 and 2013 by almost 500,000 to 1.72 million in 2013.

Image courtesy of CCAC North Library via Flickr

Broad—and deep—engagement with community members is a fundamental building block of a successfulHeart & Soul Community Planning project. We’ve worked hard to advance authentic engagement because it makes all the difference to building stronger communities; it is a means to an end in our work, and it is also an end in itself for the trust it builds, the ideas it sparks, and the new connections it creates.

Image courtesy of mikebaird via Flickr

Last year, more than 3 million people pledged $480 million to Kickstarter projects, successfully funding 19,000 of them. Studying more than 45,000 projects, assistant professor Eric Gilbert and doctoral candidate Tanushree Mitra were able to hone in on phrases that are correlated with successfully funded, as compared to nonfunded, projects.

Image courtesy if LibraryArchives via Flickr

The rise of Twitter has resulted in a new campaign awareness strategy and online event known as a tweet chat. Organized around the use of a hashtag, such as#HealthTalk or #PovertyChat, nonprofits worldwide are adding tweet chats to their editorial calendars. Scheduled to occur at a specific time for usually an hour or less, nonprofits use Twitter to have live conversations on topics relevant to their mission and programs. When done well, nonprofits can gain exposure on Twitter, solidify their brand as an expert resource, and increase awareness about the issues they advocate.

While Snapchat’s user base has been growing by the millions, unfortunately, only a tiny fraction of its active users are brands. This is because Snapchat presents a few unique challenges to brands looking to leverage the app as a marketing tool. Despite its lack of an advertising platform, some brands are successfully using Snapchat to reach the coveted teen demographic. With this guide, your brand can, too.

Image courtesy of GarrettHeath via Flickr

Advertising to children has a long history and has transformed significantly over the eras. But have these changes always been for the better?

Here’s a look at a long history of advertising aimed at children, a marketing tactic that has evolved considerably over the ages.

Image courtesy of wwarby via Flickr

For decades, women have held many positions in the museum field, working as curators, development specialists and press secretaries. But in recent years, women have assumed the director title in droves. As of 2012, 57 percent of museum directors in the United States are women, according to the American Alliance of Museums. In Washington, about 50 percent of museums and historical sites are now led by women, with many helming active, popular museums with regional and national appeal. In the past six years, five of the region’s most prominent museums have gained a female director.

At the end of the day, the purpose of a piece of marketing is to get people talking and/or excited about the film being marketed. In a more pinpoint fashion, the point of releasing an image or a trailer or a clip online is to get people talking about the film by having film sites write about the release of said image or trailer, which in turn acts as “free” advertising for the film. But generally speaking, that blog post is going up just as quickly if the goods being offered are a handful of photos or a four-minute sizzle reel.

With 51% of Facebook’s referral traffic now coming from mobile and more than two-third’s of Twitter users being mobile, many nonprofits are finally starting to come to the realization that their social media campaigns are doomed unless they embrace a mobile-first approach to online communications and fundraising.

When Scottish Ballet premiered Hansel & Gretel, they launched a free iPad app to act as a digital programme. Scottish Ballet's iPad app is a digital programme that also acts as a sales tool for forthcoming shows.

Image courtesy by Sofia Salom via flickr.

Before he started to dole out social media advice for entrepreneurs like you at Inc.'s recent GrowCo conference in New Orleans, Dave Kerpen, chairman of Likeable Media and now founder of offshoot Likeable Local, had a few things he wanted to get out of the way. First, he said, social media is not free. Second, it won't bring you immediate results. And, third, it can't make up for a bad product or service. If you can cope with all that, you're ready to learn how--and why--Kerpen still recommends you get involved.

Image courtesy of Czarina Alegre via flickr.

You want to grow your audience, but you have limited resources, so you target your marketing efforts at the groups most likely to respond to it. Almost everybody does it wrong, often alienating core customers and defining their offering by the needs of a completely imaginary group of people instead of the community around them.

Image Courtesy by LeWeb13 via flickr

Professor Ann Collins Johns at the University of Texas at Austin was just as peeved as many people were about President Barack Obama’s knock on art history majors. So she did what any self-assured art historian would do and wrote a letter to Obama on January 31, shortly after the President’s remarks, and sent it using the White House website. Then came the surprising part: Obama responded with a handwritten note on February 12.

Image courtesy by butupa via flickr

Instagram’s current tool set makes it very challenging for nonprofits to convert their Instagram followers into donors. Over time through powerful visual storytelling a nonprofit can build a strong brand and grow their Instagram following, but without the ability to link to a donate page inside of Instagram, it’s difficult to inspire your Instagram followers to do more than simply like and comment on your photos.

If you wrote a blog, and no one came to read it. Did you write a blog? Google’s new Panda algorithms have made it more important than ever for bloggers and content creators to make their content discoverable and shareable (as opposed to simply creating content that is powered for search engine spiders). From 2000-2011, keywords and link exchanges were top-of-mind for all content creators, he explained. But today, your Google search rankings are raised or lowered depending on whether your content is favorable to and discoverable for consumers.

Pablo Picasso’s most readily accessible painting isn't in a museum. It hangs in a New York restaurant—a restaurant that is housed in a building whose owner reportedly thinks that the painting is a piece of junk and wants to get rid of it. Because "Le Tricorne" is a painting, it's not a physical part of the Seagram Building. So even though it's now owned by the New York City Landmarks Conservancy, it's not covered by the landmark designation—and Aby Rosen, a real-estate developer whose company, RFR Holding, owns the building, wants to move it.

If you've ever found museum to be a snore, then you'll be glad to hear that at least one--the Tate Britain in London--is adding robots, animation, and Minecraft to their repertoire. It's part of a brand new competition that better marries the in-person feeling of museum-wandering with the immersion of digital. Called the IK Prize, it pits four groups of digital artists against one another in a contest to change the way you interact with museums.

Image courtesy of Studio Roosegaarde via flickr

New York’s nonprofit theaters are acting more like for-profits, and there’s no greater sign than the return of “Cabaret” at Roundabout Theater Company. But hard times mean that their mission is being tested. Faced with uneven ticket sales that have yet to rebound fully five years after the recession, nonprofits are taking unusual, even drastic, measures.

Image Courtesy of Alan Cleaver via flickr

The principles that apply to creating a superior Super Bowl television ad are the same that apply to any marketing situation, just kicked up a notch or two. First of all, you need to break through and get the viewer’s attention. Second, you need to communicate something that is both relevant and authentic to the brand. Some meaningful story must be embedded in the execution. And third, viewers must be able to get the point, understand what it is that’s being sold in such a way that it changes, or wholly supports, their belief about the brand in a positive way.

Content marketing is becoming an increasingly sought after skill in the world of online marketing. Traditional link building for SEO purposes is becoming a riskier business, and with the amount of online noise, it is harder than ever for your content to stand out from everything else that is happening on the internet.

From 6 second vines to 30,000 word guides, content marketing principles can be applied to just about anything that you need to promote online, regardless of the medium.
 

Image courtesy of molly golly via Flickr

Jason Sadler, 31, now Jason SurfrApp, is based in Jacksonville, Florida, and appears on social media wearing corporate T-shirts for a fee.

Q. How did you get the idea to have companies pay you for wearing their T-shirts?

A. Clients at my web design firm were asking about social media, and since most companies already have a T-shirt, I realized that would be a good promotional vehicle. I started IWearYourShirt.com in 2009, to offer funny photo and video campaigns featuring corporate T-shirts.

Stage 17, launching a public beta next month ahead of a wider roll-out later in the spring, targets a mostly female demographic of tech-savvy, cultured 25-to-54-year-olds, an audience segment its founders believe are underserved for digital video content — and one that matches up neatly with the influential demo that has long been responsible for the majority of Broadway ticket sales.

Image courtesy of Ryan Hoard via Flickr

Many of these messages contain trigger words--they alert me to marketing language or truth-stretching. Sometimes, trigger words tell me the person is not being sincere (for example, when they say "sincerely"). As such, I try to root out this kind of language from my own email communications.

Image courtesy of SocialBlzSolutions via Flickr

2014 will be an exciting year for nonprofit technology. Numerous communications and fundraising trends are on the verge of going mainstream and nonprofits committed to early adoption have a number of new tools and strategies to pioneer this year. Social media will remain a top priority for nonprofits in 2014, but 2013 helped solidify social media as a mandatory set of communication tools. It’s no longer cutting edge, but rather an integral component of a successful online communications and fundraising strategy similar to website and email communications.

Every organization, every discipline, dreams. When we close our eyes we picture ourselves practicing our craft at the peak of excellence: teaching, provoking, spreading joy, having profound impact in our communities. But even dreams have limits, based on our experience of what is possible. Dreams come in different types and sizes. Different scales.

"Content is King" might just be the most over-used marketing phrase of the last few years (sorry, but it is), there's no denying just how important content is as the foundation to an enterprise's marketing mix. Whether your goal is to gain traffic, leads, or sales, effective content marketing tactics attract, entertain, captivate, teach, and build trust. More simply, content turns brands into thought leaders.

Image courtesy of Podknox via Flickr

California’s famous innovation factory, which counts Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google, Reed Hastings of Netflix, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger of Instagram, and Peter Thiel of PayPal among its alumni, has discovered that arts are the future. “Stanford is aware that it’s educating leaders,” explains Stephen Hinton, a professor of music and the director of the Stanford Arts Initiative. “And leadership isn’t just about having technical skills and economic savvy, but about having a broad range of skills.”

Google AdWords just keeps getting better. AdWords is adding features that are super useful for arts organizations that sell tickets online. Here are three you should be using — and all three can be used on a Google Grant account:

Image courtesy of pasukaru76 via Flickr

Scientists studied why internet stories go viral and confirmed what Buzzfeed and Upworthy already know: In the hierarchy of digital contagion, content that evokes powerful emotions floats mercilessly to the top.
 

Image courtesy of leonelcunha

Contrary to popular belief, people don't always like new things. Sometimes people don’t even agree whether something really is new or not. Take the question of “the new” to theatre artists, some of whom have been working in the profession for decades, and the response seems to be contradictory: Theatre is bursting with new technology, the likes of which we are still not clear on how to deploy effectively—and yet there is nothing new about theatre. We tell stories.