097 – Win Donors with This Content Strategy with Aviv Russ

Episode Transcription

David Pisarek: This podcast episode is made possible by Wowdigital.com, your trusted partner for non-profit and charity website and design.
How do some non-profits create compelling digital content that drives real change and engagement? Today, we’ve got the inside scoop from a true expert Aviv Russ.

Welcome to the Non-Profit Digital Success Podcast. As usual, I’m your host, David. In this episode, we’ll discuss digital content strategy for non-profits with Aviv Russ.

Aviv is a seasoned storyteller and digital strategist with over a decade of experience in producing digital content. Transitioning to social justice, Aviv founded Groundwork, a progressive messaging strategy firm. His impactful content has influenced vaccine persuasion, the 2020 Atlanta runoff, the 2022 midterms, and local school board victories.

He looks forward to new campaigns this election year. Aviv is a girl dad, boxing hobbyist, and home chef who enjoys a good spirit and cigar when the time calls for it. Aviv, thank you so much for taking time from all the stuff that you’re busy with and joining me on the episode today.

Aviv Russ: David, thank you so much for that incredible introduction. So happy to be here.

David Pisarek: My pleasure. Okay, so we’re going to be talking about digital content strategy. Let’s just start off with the basics here. What are some of the key elements to a successful content strategy that non-profits and community groups should be thinking about?

Aviv Russ: These are great questions. I’m so excited to talk about them with you.

So, I think starting from like a macro perspective, the big thing to understand is that your organization’s presence online is in a super crowded space, and people aren’t necessarily looking for you; they just come across you in their daily media scope.

When you create your content and spread your message, you’re not just competing with other organizations; you’re working against all the other content out there. So, you want to be able to grab their attention really quickly.

You know, the good news is social media has lowered the bar of what style of content can be, and it’s easier than ever to produce engaging visual content that gets people interested in an authentic way but the toughest part is going to be your storytelling. So the key here with your storytelling is to persuade, mobilize, and build trust.

We want to do at least one of those things, and the thing I always like to start with for groups is to make sure that we’re clear about your mission and your goals. Like, if we can define your organization’s mission and goals and objectives, all the narratives that we spread can ladder up to that idea.

By doing that, we’re going to produce people with an emotional appeal, something that brings in people’s hearts, their joy, and their excitement, engages them, and builds on your organization’s core values.

David Pisarek: Yeah, I love that you touched on something that I talk about very frequently, which is the “know, like and trust” factors.

If you have strong enough connections with your audience, if you get to the root of why you started your organization, and then the issue that you’re trying to solve, you can really clearly articulate that you’ll be able to more easily create those emotional connections with people to get them to care about your organization enough to either donate, share some content that’s kind of like the low bar there, or volunteer their time to help do more stuff, be an ambassador.

And that’s really what you want to do, is you want to get people really caring about you so that you can do more of the stuff that you want to do.

Aviv Russ: No, exactly. Most people today treat their social activism as a bit of a hobby. It’s not something you’re actively pursuing. It’s something like a part of your social media content diet.

So, when you get to people, you really want to catch them quickly. And I always like to tell clients, “You’ve got maybe a second to get people’s attention. If you’re scrolling and flipping, you got to grab them quickly. If your content or your message has a climax, you could even start with that.” It goes against the ideas that you have in traditional storytelling, but you want to be able to know they’re going to pay attention. I want to know how we got to that idea at the very beginning, and then they’ll stay and watch a 30-second video.

David Pisarek: Imagine you’re scrolling through, and what you see in your feed is, “We just raised $50,000 last week with a car wash. Here’s how we did it.”

And then you go through like that’s leading with the main point, the climax, the biggest part of that episode or that topic or that idea. You hook them. You want to really get them engaged.

Aviv Russ: Yeah. You want to bring them into this idea. I also think it’s critical not just to talk about, “Okay, we did this thing,” but strategically, you’re going to be building a content calendar.

So, you know that on Sunday, “We had that car wash and raised that money.” The week before, your content should be explicitly stating what’s happening that weekend. You’re going to have behind-the-scenes content of the car wash event. That gives people an insight.

Maybe just select interviews with people that are a part of building that event, people who are participating in it. That’s how you batch all of your content when you have your calendar set out. That’s a great example. It’s built around these tentpole events, and then you strategize your narrative and your message around that.

But you’re not just creating, “Oh, we did a car wash thing, and something happened.” No, no, it’s a week’s worth, or two weeks’ worth event, possibly. If you raise 50 grand off of it, that’s a big deal, and you need to be able to emphasize how it’ll change people’s lives in the aftermath. But you’re building to that event; you’re making them a part of it.

David Pisarek: Absolutely. And you’re talking about content mapping, right? Like, that’s what I’ve got over here.

So I’ve got this board on the wall behind me here, and we do content workshops. This is our internal one here, but we do this with our clients where we’ll sit down, we’ll spend maybe about an hour once a year, and we’ll figure out what is the content for your whole year. We’ll map it out by month, and then we’ll go, “Okay, this is what we’re doing this month. These are the channels, these are the platforms. Here’s the messaging. Here’s what the topics are,” and we’re not left scrambling.

Our clients are not left scrambling, trying to figure out what is it that they’re going to write about this month or talk about or plan or whatever makes it so much easier. Just spending a little bit of time and putting some thought and effort into it.

Aviv Russ: And that’s the key part, it’s strategy. If you just went with digital, if you’re just making stuff, you don’t have a strategy.

You need to talk about internally the key things you’re trying to do for a month, six months, whatever the period of time is. You need to establish what are the events that are happening, what are the social events, national holidays, political events, and seasons. And then you build around that because, you know, maybe you did this thing, but it’s connected to National Pancake Day. “Okay, great. National Pancake Day.” You’re going to have radio and TV talking about that already.

So, you’re just globbing onto this already existing piece, and it helps you develop a larger connection. It helps you grow without putting more effort into it.

And that’s always the key. Just be consistent. Working across platforms and giving people a lot to glove onto, a lot of opportunity to find you.

David Pisarek: Absolutely. And I’ve worked in non-profits for about 16 years. We’ve worked for the last eight years with non-profits through my agency.

We’ve got clients kind of spanning budget ranges, but the one thing that kind of really rings true across the board for the most part is that the comms team, the marketing team, is “this” small compared to what it really should be.

Anybody listening to this, you’re probably resonating, going, “Oh, yeah, you know what? We need another three employees, but I’m the only one doing it.” Or “I’ve got like one or two people that are doing this with me, maybe a volunteer, an intern.” So how can small teams with limited resources efficiently plan and produce content?

Aviv Russ: This is something I work with people a lot on, and I think it is so important.

The first thing I always hear too is, “We have to figure all this out, and we have to get it done quickly, and we don’t have any of these tools.” I’m like, “Okay, hold on. We need to pause.” A lot of the energy that people are getting or feeling is like this external pressure to deliver, to provide, to finish. But if you don’t have a groundwork (plug for my company, Groundwork Agency), if you don’t have that established, you’re not going to be able to run very far; you’re just going to be going from thing to thing to thing.

So, let’s establish that firm groundwork. Let’s do all that and provide you with, like we’re talking about, a content calendar, templates, and framework. What are your content pillars that are laddering up to those operational organizational goals? If you can establish those, and you can, it takes planning and time, and it takes saying to the rest of the company, like, “I need to do this now so that I can do everything else you want the rest of the year.”

If you do that now, you’ll be able to build out the plan, the timing, the strategy, and a budget. You know, a budget and a schedule are interconnected; you can’t really have one without the other. And in the interim, while you’re trying to get up and you need that time to establish, I tell people, “Repurpose some old content.” Just get some things out there that are already existing, schedule them to be put out, and just have a presence.

But don’t try and take away from what your creative and planning energy needs to be focused on right now and then moving forward.

Something I always hear about is, “I need approval. No one’s getting back to me. I gotta wait. I gotta wait.” These comms departments that are so small sometimes are really locked into having somebody else’s approval before something is done. I really try and encourage, in my own world, like, just own the content creation strategy. Just go.

Once you have a strategy approved and moved and everyone’s on board, you can’t be nitpicking the details of every post or the wording. Your team needs to be able to go, go, go.

That curation outside of your team is only going to slow down the overall operation. And the Internet moves really fast. You got to stay ahead of it.

David Pisarek: Yeah, I love that idea of repurposing content. Just because you posted something two months ago doesn’t mean you can’t reuse that. How many people actually would have seen that, right? Social media (and I say this all the time) is really fickle. Just because you’ve posted something today, it’s in the feed for maybe 10-15 seconds before it’s like, “Lifetime is really gone,” unless it really picks up and gets traction. Really, for the most part, it’s gone. Reuse it.

If you’re creating blog posts on your website, take that blog post, throw it into AI and say, “Hey, give me 15 social posts out of this thing.” You’re gonna have to edit it a little bit. But a large part of the work, probably 60-70% of the effort, can be done for you that way.

Aviv, what are some of those tools for organizations that might be on a limited or really small budget?

Aviv Russ: There are a lot of great tools. AI is a great one to start with and say like, “Yeah, you can get a ChatGPT account for like $20 a month. It’ll help break things down.” It’s not a solution, but it’s a good assistant, and a good assistant can be pretty valuable for 20 bucks a month.

It changes things, updates materials, and, depending on how you work and operate, is incredibly comprehensive. Google Suite is incredibly comprehensive, and I think most places use it.

There are amazing templates that you can find that will help you just jump into what it is you’re doing. I personally use Notion as a free project management software. I write all notes, I move my CRMs through it. I have a whole system, and it’s visible and shareable across organizations. People love Airtable; I mean, I’m just naming stuff that I like to use.

SurveyMonkey is great for getting valuable feedback and information from your audience. Another way to do that, too, is just taking polls with your content. That’s an engaging way to get the community involved, drive dialogue, and bring some insight into what it is you’re doing. Loom is fun, Canva is fantastic, and, you know, MailChimp for just getting out there.

All those are key pieces that you want to make sure are in your tech stack. And they really can help you just move more quickly without having to search for these things every time you’re getting started.

David Pisarek: Yeah, I think it’s important to figure out whatever tool actually works for you. Try a whole bunch, see what’s actually working for you. Something that you’ll actually really use over time because that’s the thing that really matters.

Like, you can look at Monday, Asana, ClickUp, and whatever the tool happens to be, but the one that you’re actually really going to use is the one that you should be using.

I mean, I think it’s pretty obvious to say that, but I figured, “You know what? Let’s just say it so everybody’s on the same page.” Pick a tool, try it, and if it doesn’t work, move to the next one.

Aviv Russ: Yeah. And I think the thing people get caught up with, because all these tools, what they’re going to do is they’re going to tell you, “You can do this and you can do that. You don’t need it.” Especially if you’re starting, find something that just delivers the MVP (minimum viable problem). You don’t need more than that until you do.

David Pisarek: That’s exactly it. “Okay, we’ve got a calendar. We’re figuring out, here’s the content. Here are the people that are responsible for it, we’ve assigned it.

We know who’s going to do what, the dates that they’re going to do that for.” The more in advance that you can plan things, the better off you are because you’re not going to feel really stressed, like a week before Giving Tuesday, that you haven’t done anything. Let’s plan that out. “That’s gonna happen every November,” and start planning it in August. You really don’t have to wait.

Then there’s the actual production, creating the content, creating the social, the blogs, the emails, the posts, the videos, the this, that, whatever. What can organizations do to check and ensure that their content is engaging and that it actually really resonates with their audience?

Aviv Russ: You know, depending on where you’re posting this stuff, you can usually get some good feedback from the servers.

If you’re on Facebook or if you’re on Instagram, they tell you, “People drop off here and there,” and I think reading that and doing an audit of your content output is really important to be able to understand what it is you’re getting.

This is a bit of an audit, and “Take care of it on the back end.” But I would say there is a great app in Appify. It is a really smart tool built at very minimal costs that you can use to scrape your own content. Then, it’ll provide you with all the details, such as how many shares, likes, dates, and times.

And then you can feed that into an AI tool and ask it like, “What’s the best performing, what’s all the information?” Because it’ll come out in a big line of numbers and words. That is a very effective, high-impact way of taking what you’ve already done and learning from it on the back end. Now that auditing, that’s great to be able to do because of what you’ve already done.

But when you’re talking about making this stuff, I think there are two different things to talk about, right? How do you want to make it physical? Are you going to shoot it? Are you using stock footage? Are you going to leverage UGC content?

And then there’s the part of it, like what is it and why is it going to be engaging? So, I can start by talking about the making of it, filming. You don’t need more than a phone and a decent microphone; you’re going to want that. Those two pieces together add up to anything you need to shoot on your own.

For a small organization, plan it out, get lots of angles, get lots of shots. Make sure that it’s here. Keep your characters framed cleanly.

I always recommend now, if you’re doing social frames for 1×1 or vertical, you know, “you want this shot, you don’t want this shot anymore,” frame for that idea where you’re interviewing or performing the work.

Think about what’s the best angle, “Is this corner really good? Isn’t this Vista really nice?” You know, you want something visually stimulating and then capture more content than you need, and it’s simple to shoot.

Find some ways of getting some visual transitions and interesting imagery. Yeah, it’s going to be quick, but you don’t just want a talking head on there for 30 seconds. You want images, you want examples. Like if it’s an event, make sure you’re capturing a b-roll of what’s happening around you from different perspectives.

I definitely encourage people to do an interview first. Use the interview to help guide what else you need to capture. That’s a really good step because then you’re not just arriving and getting whatever you can. You’re getting a clear set of ideas, all made on the spot.

And then, in the video itself, how are we engaging with people? What are the key moments? We talked about at the very beginning that the first moment should be something visually stimulating or engaging.

So we want to grab people’s attention. We want to show them this big event. If it’s that car wash we talked about, maybe the first shot is a really happy kid doing the car wash.

They’re covered in soap. “That’s interesting. I didn’t expect to see that. I’ll stick around for another second or two,” and then maybe a big text on the screen. “We had a car wash this weekend. Come check it out. We raised $50,000. See how we did?” All of that leads to a story. You talk about something; you get somewhere with it.

You don’t just want to make a video for awareness. It has to have a call to action. You want people to donate, volunteer, and all that.

Very beginning, I think interactivity—asking people questions to get them engaged in the comments—is a big way of getting your content to be a step above. Not just, “We shot it, we put it on. Nothing happened,” you know? You want to have a goal with it.

David Pisarek: Yeah. And I think there’s a lot to be said for digging into the data.

So, take a look at the video. If it did okay, redo it in a different way and post it. See how that version of it does.

And you can start to figure out the A/B testing, essentially. What’s the right format? What’s the right intro, the hook, the messaging, the style of the captions, or whatever it happens to be? So you can start to go, “Okay, we’re going to do this twice. Next time, we’ll post them a week apart on the same day of the week.” It’s not going to be during any, like, long weekends because that can really throw numbers way out of whack.

So you want to try to be as similar as possible. It’s the same day of the week, the same time of day that you post, and take a look at that. And you know what? Maybe it’s different days of the week that you need to test as well. Different times of the day. And over probably about a six-month period, you’ll really be able to zone in on the right style, the right concept, the right messaging, the right hashtags, the right day, the right time of day to be able to maximize your exposure across the platform.

Aviv Russ: Yeah, that is absolutely the next part of where I was heading with giving a very good summary of it.

It’s A/B testing, understanding your audience insights. Taking in the survey, taking in that data, and taking the time to analyze it, and integrate it into your process, it’s really valuable. It’s there for you too. It’s not as though this is hidden or hard to gather. It’s there for you to use. And not making use of it puts you at a disadvantage from, like I said, all the other operations that are trying to get your online attention.

David Pisarek: Not gonna lie, it is gonna take time to do this right. So, you really do need to plan some time in your calendar, block off, maybe every Friday afternoon, you want to take it a little bit easy or whatever.

Dig into the analytics and throw data into spreadsheets; you can really easily create charts and stuff out of that data.

Ultimately, if you don’t have time because you’re wearing 37 different hats in your organization, get in touch with Aviv and let him help you out with this. Maybe he can help you with the strategy or implement some automation to generate the analytics for you or systems or processes, things like that.

Okay, so while we’re talking about metrics, what do you feel are the best practices for measuring effectiveness in your experience working with other organizations? I know we talked about A/B testing and stuff, but is there anything else?

Aviv Russ: I have worked most heavily with randomized control trials, which are expensive and time-consuming. They’re not quick or easy to get through.

A/B testing and understanding your audience insights on platforms like Facebook can be absolutely free to you and will deliver what you need to get started to understand, “This works. This doesn’t; let’s move on and build from there.” That helps you grow, and that’s a very good baseline metric. Other than that, there are great research tools like Global Progress that have randomized control trial tests that will help you better understand your messaging—what parts of it really deliver the impact you want? Can I measure persuasion? Can I measure the building of trust? And I have found that to be incredibly insightful.

Not just because you’re getting big information but also because you gain partnerships that help analyze it with you. By adding that level of partnership to your operation, you build strength and gain more tools without having actually to hire a data analyst.

David Pisarek: And something else that you can do and should be thinking of is, what are those other topics that exist?

So, as you mentioned earlier, like International Pancake Day or World Chocolate Day or whatever, how can you tie your messaging, your branding, and your story into those other things? Maybe your organization deals with mental health. There’s International Alzheimer’s Month and Alzheimer’s Week and things like that. Where are those things? What are those pieces that you can bring into the conversation? What are the hashtags associated with those?

So, if somebody is looking at those, what are those key tags that you can then bring in? ” Beautiful” and “Love ” are two really big ones. Can you create any messaging around those to take advantage of what people have?

Aviv Russ: Absolutely. Part of that template and that calendar we talked about is not set in stone, but part of it is to have an update like, “Okay, this month, the top branding hashtags are X.” Keep them refreshed, keep looking at them.

Everything is changing, so you want to keep yourself up to date on the latest trends and on different platforms. It’ll be different on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. So, you do need to have that level of nuance to what you’re spreading and explaining, and then find like-minded groups or influencers online to partner with to help amplify your message.

You’re not just one person trying to solve hunger. There are dozens of organizations and influential people who share your message, who have the same energy and maybe have been doing it in a different way, in a different place than you. Why wouldn’t you connect? It’s not a zero-sum game.

I have found that you really do have opportunities to build community across platforms with different collaborators. That kind of connectivity is good for you, good for them, and lifts everyone.

David Pisarek: Absolutely. Partnerships, whether they’re with other for-good organizations or corporate businesses or local small mom-and-pop shops, all of that is going just to help elevate.

And don’t worry about it. If your goal is to give shoes to all the homeless people in your state, there are other organizations that are trying to do the same thing—partner with them. Your message gets bigger.

Aviv Russ: Exactly. You can find new ways of collaboration.

Sometimes people feel like the Internet is set in a way, that you have a locked-in way of understanding it, but it’s dynamic. You can do so much. You don’t have to feel like you’re in one lane. Jumping in and finding new people—there are so many ways to reach out. Go through your DMs, talk to people, and find connections.

I have found such great experiences just reaching out like, “Hey, you seem to do this thing. I’m about to do this thing. Do you want to work?” Absolutely. And I’ve gotten wonderful writers from Facebook and Twitter, people who are commenting on social events everywhere, to be like, “Oh, I’ll do that. I’ll help you.”

And what’s most interesting is that even if they’re not directly in your space, but they are smart and adjacent to it, they probably want to help. And if they have the time, they will. And that’s what makes the Internet and social media so generous in that way—you really can build those connections.

And most of the writers I work with, whether they’re working on TV shows or doing their own big thing in Hollywood, they take time to do this because they agree with it.

It helps, you feel good. People flourish when they’re helping others. That’s part of how we grow and how we improve our own quality of life. So, you’re only giving people a chance to flourish and help.

David Pisarek: I love that. I absolutely, wholeheartedly agree with you on all that, Aviv, for sure. So if anybody wants to get in touch with you, what do they need to do?

Aviv Russ: You can go to my website, thegroundworkagency.com, Reach out to me at [email protected]. Find me on LinkedIn. I’m happy to talk to anybody.

You know, I’ll do a consultation. I want to hear what you’re doing. Working with people and helping them achieve what they want gets me excited and out of bed in the morning. Finding new people who are doing great things is just the most exciting thing.

David Pisarek: Love it, love it. Thank you so much for joining, Aviv. It’s been great having you here on the Non-Profit Digital Success Podcast.

To everybody listening, if you want any of the links, resources, Aviv’s email, etc., head over to our podcast page at nonprofitdigitalsuccess.com. Click on this episode for all the details.

And until next time, keep on being successful!