Billy Attar
We know you guys love your nonprofit marketing tools – especially when they are free! Billy Attar of Pipl is here today to share some tools we haven’t even heard of. Let us know what you think and share your favorite tools too! ~Kristina
Guest Post by Billy Attar of Pipl
We marketers are always on the lookout for new tools to make our work easier.
A lot of what we do revolves around social media and reaching out to people (especially true for nonprofits), so having the right tools is key.
Here are seven tools to help you research and optimize your nonprofit marketing campaigns. As an added bonus, all of these tools are free.
1. Facebook Open Graph Search
Facebook’s Open Graph Search is an easy way to learn more about groups of people. You can get ideas for creating content, planning events, campaigns, etc. by researching what groups of people with similar interests like.
Why it’s great
- It’s easy to use – simply type into the Facebook search box
- It’s flexible; you can search people, pages, groups, places, check-ins, photos
Some examples
Pages liked by people who like a specific page and live in a specific city:
Maybe the ASPCA should consider serving Dunkin’ Donuts at their fundraising events
People who have a specific job type, like a page, live in a location:
Places liked by people who like a page:
Jon Loomer has some great examples of what you can do with Facebook’s search.
How to get it
Facebook’s free search is available only to US based users for now.
2. Followerwonk
Followerwonk analyzes Twitter users. You can see how influential a user’s followers are or search for users based on keywords in their bios.
Why it’s great
This is all about influence – increasing yours and finding those who have it.
It’s easy to use and has some great data visualizations. You can also connect your Buffer and Followerwonk accounts to optimize your tweeting schedule based on your followers’ Twitter usage.
Some examples
Twitter follower analysis and tweet schedule optimization:
Twitter bio search with influence rankings:
How to get it
You’ll need to sign up for Followerwonk & Buffer for the tweet optimization, but both are free.
3. Import.io / DataMiner
These two tools help you gather data from the web.
Import.io scrapes information from web pages (like names, addresses, whatever is on the pages) and outputs the data into a table. This is a great way to generate lead or donor lists (you can scrape a business directory for instance).
DataMiner is an extension for Google Chrome. It’ll scrape data from any page open in your browser.
Why they’re great
They’re both relatively easy to use (Data Miner is a little more complex) and they’re big time savers.
Some examples
Import.io has two great case studies for generating leads: here and here. You can scrape the same information using DataMiner as long as the pages are open in your browser.
How to get it
No signup is necessary for Import.io. You need to have Google Chrome to use DataMiner.
4. Pipl
I can’t create a list of marketing tools without mentioning the free tool the company I work for offers.
Pipl is a people search engine and people data API. It turns partial information about a person, like an email address, social network username, phone number or name and adds all the information it can find about the person (job title, contact info, social profiles, address, etc.).
Why it’s great
- You can use it to find and add information like social profiles or email addresses to your donor lists.
- It has an API to integrate into your site or software and there’s a search engine if you’re not technical.
- It’s free for nonprofits.
An example
We’ve integrated our API into Excel spreadsheets and our signup form to enrich and qualify lead lists and users. We’ve also created mashups with other APIs for quick market research.
Search results for a person’s name in the Pipl search engine
How to get it
Anyone can sign up, nonprofits can apply for a special free API key.
5. Buzzsumo
Buzzsumo has two interesting tools in its free plan – content analysis and influencer search.
Content analysis shows which posts are shared most by topic. It’s easy to find the types of posts people like, which helps if you use the skyscraper tactic to create content.
The influencer search finds the most influential bloggers by keyword.
Why it’s great
It helps you generate ideas for your content with minimal effort.
It’s a great way to find influential people to reach out to.
Some examples
Finding the most shared blog posts by topic:
Finding the most influential bloggers and blogs by topic:
Look who’s ranked first 🙂
How to get it
Buzzsumo’s free plan offers enough for basic research, though you’ll have to register for a free account to remove your daily search limit.
6. Tagboard
Hashtags are very important to social media marketing. They double engagement on Twitter as well as lead to big increases on other social networks.
Tagboard makes finding the right hashtags for your posts easy. Type in a hashtag to see how often it’s used on different social networks, which other posts have used it and get hashtag suggestions.
Why it’s great
Everything you need to know about a hashtag is on one page. You get results from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Vine, Google Plus and Flickr.
An example
Here are the results for #nonprofit:
How to get it
It’s completely free, just enter a hashtag into the search box.
7. Pablo
Ever wanted to create professional looking images for social media without using a graphic designer? If so, then you might really like Pablo.
Pablo lets you quickly design images for your social media posts. All you need is a background image and some text to create a professional-looking graphic.
Why it’s great
Editing is simple and creating nice images only takes a few seconds.
An example
Here’s an example I created for this post:
How to get it
It’s free and there’s no signup needed.
We all like to have a routine for our different marketing activities. When you have the right tools, your routine becomes much more effective. Of course, it doesn’t hurt when those tools are free.
Billy Attar is the Director of Marketing at Pipl and is addicted to marketing, everything tech and coffee. You can catch up with him on Twitter at @billyattar.
