Charities - Don’t Wait Until It Gets Urgent!

Published April 17, 2014 | By Elaine Fogel

I recently received an “Urgent: Your support is needed” email. It came from a charity whose annual municipal grant was reduced by 10% for the next fiscal year. How bad was it?

In the second paragraph, the CEO states that the organization has experienced a 30% cut in municipal funding over the past eight years! He asks me for help - to contact city officials and advocate on the charity’s behalf, and to show up at a city budget meeting to voice my opposition to the budget cut. As I read his plea, my instinct told me that something was wrong with this picture.

So, I did some research and uncovered a very disturbing fact. Continue reading →

What Social Marketing is NOT

Published June 27, 2011 | By Elaine Fogel

I keep finding incorrect uses of the term, “social marketing.” There are countless blog posts, articles, books, and such that deem to showcase their authors as experts in “social marketing.” Sorry, guys, but here’s what social marketing is NOT:

It is NOT Social Media Marketing, nor does it have anything to do with using social media channels to promote products, services, brands, businesses or organizations or engage customers. However, one can use social media channels in a social marketing campaign. Get it?

According to the American Marketing Association:

Social marketing is marketing designed to influence the behavior of a target audience in which the benefits of the behavior are intended by the marketer to accrue primarily to the audience or to the society in general and not to the marketer.

Many social marketing campaigns are initiated by nonprofit organizations and government agencies. Check out these examples of social marketing:

Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids

Lock Your Meds

So, please help enlighten people to the difference between social marketing and social media marketing by sharing this post!