Super thrilled to announce the launch of a new look to DanPortnoy.com. A few months back I talked with the crew at OutThink about what it could look like, it’s function and expectations of what it could do. I chose the workshop because it’s where trial and error happen, research and development and very little judgement happens in the workshop.
Here’s Joseph Hinson (aka Cptn Safety) putting the whole thing together in just 53 Minutes!! He’s like a wizard or a genius.. or a genius wizard!
Let me know what you think and let’s connect if we haven’t already.
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Portnoy Media Group uses the influence of social networks to expand your organization's voice and tell your story. We connect people with your mission and enable your brand to be shared, discovered, and connected. Work with us as we empower your organization to dramatically extend your online presence and increase donations.
This is how to ask for money – give vision to your tribe!
This concept is simple (Tell your Story) but it’s not easy. Every September, I look forward to hearing Scott Harrison tell me all the really incredible things that friends of charity:water have been doing over the last year. Seeing peers, families and kids get exited about making an impact in a community half way around the world is incredible – plus it doesn’t hurt when cute kids are putting on a lemonade stand for water projects either.
Conventional (or entrenched) wisdom would say that we need to make sure there’s a regular appeal letter, a response device and we need to wait 3 weeks to see how it does. Get some data returned and then look how else we can “engage” our print audience.
Can you imagine if charity:water did that?
I can’t – it would be against their DNA. They’ve never been a conventional charity, YAY!
Check out their website (it changes during this campaign- because it’s how they got started, they’re using every piece of communication to reinforce their position)
This design is so simple and extremely intentional. It’s pretty but the primary function of the webpage is quick connection and helping site visitors become participants in water projects.
But that’s them…. and you work at a more conventional charity and to mix it up too much could be disastrous.. What can we learn? Here’s a couple of tips.
Tell your story
Don’t just tell the stories of those your impacting make sure your organization doesn’t get lost in the shuffle. It’s crucial to share your impact but make sure you’re consistently sharing with your audiences about why you’re active and why you’ve chosen this work versus others.
Film, Film, Film
Hire/partner with a filmmaker – and I don’t mean the guy down the street with a camera. I mean a professional that works withclients all the time. I’ve found that the best filmmakers to collaborate with have big dreams and don’t feel that client work is their endgame. They are pushing themselves and their company to be bigger, as a result, they are always learning and a position of learning means that they’ll have a careful eye on how to make your next film project. (PS if you’re nervous about it, I’ve got a great list of companies that I enjoy working with – just email me dan@portnoymediagroup.com)
A Clear Ask
One of the new trends is to kind of ask or soft ask. (Have a response device in a mailer but don’t draw attention to it.) It’s confusing. Ask your tribe or don’t. Give them information and thank them, tell them a story or an update but when it’s time to ask don’t “shuffle your feet”. “Do or do not. There is no try?”- Yoda Don’t apologize for raising money to save someones life! When you pause or don’t ask with confidence it can communicate a lot of extra negatives. Either you’re being a good steward with your funds and you can ask with confidence for the ability to carry on this work or you’ve abused this relationship and you’re unsure if this should continue.
Adjust Across Platforms
The web needs to reflect your campaigns. This sounds simple, and it is, but too many times the website is taking a backseat to the agency running a print campaign. remember, you can get more data in 30 minutes from a facebook post (with a vibrant community) than you will on how a mailer responded. (it’s easier for charity:water – to my knowledge they don’t have a regular mailing list, just email)
Community
How are you building it around your project. You have to show the peer to peer influence – don’t just give me some stats – that’s lame. Show me how a human was impacted and made an adjustment in their life for your cause. That will help your community know that this is the kind of action you’re looking for. Read Dan and Chip Heath’s book “Switch” they call it: Highlighting the bright spots.
Ditch the Text
How much text on the charity:water homepage is above the fold? Not that much. Bold statements and a video. This short film will do more than 3 pages of text could ever do to communicate a story. Now look at your website. I run into a lot of NPO’s trying to communicate everything that they do all at the same time. That’s not story telling, it’s asking people to drink from a fire hose and how long would you hang around if that’s all you could do. It’s not connection – it’s offensive. Don’t be offensive.. but you know that already.
Congratulations to Scott Harrison and the team at charity:water for hitting another homerun. I admire your work and you’re all top shelf in my book.
Breaking this information down and getting it working for your organization is what Portnoy Media does best. So if this is feeling like a lot and you’re interested in telling your story better and developing community around your brand – give us a shout. Nonprofits, over 40% of your annual revenue is less than 120 days away!!
Office Number 626.487.9823
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Last week we were highlighted by Fox Business’s Small Business Center.
“Remember how you always snuck into your older sibling’s room to borrow the coolest tapes and CDs? With that in mind, Dan Portney created The Drop in 2006, a subsidiary of Portney Media Group.”
The article, written by Katy Finneran, highlights four businesses that are using Twitter design elements for engagement.
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A dear friend recently asked me to do the honor of being a judge at the Frebby Awards. Funny name? Yes. Valuable? Also yes. So, just what are the Frebby Awards? The Frebbies are the product of Paprika Studios, and are designed to recognize the “Best of†the web in Fresno, CA. Broken down into six main categories (Inspiration, Commerce, Communication, Action, Connection, Informational) and the just-for-fun category Frebby Favorite, nominees will be judged on creativity, effectiveness, expertise and innovation.
Know an individual or business in Fresno deserving of an inaugural Frebby Award? Nominate them here. The deadline to enter is this Wednesday, September 15.
Frebby. Fun to say. Fun to do.
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Today marked the launch of the latest Deidox film “Deidox | Dawn” This film is an expansion on the Deidox brand with it’s previous 3 films showing jobs and people in the midst of the struggles. The latest film gives a profile of Dawn, a mother of three discovering her unexpected purpose. I’m quite sure that this is a role that we are constantly surrounded by and yet don’t take a lot of stock in. Check it out for yourself and see what you think.
Also launching today was an update on the homepage of Deidox. Since it’s inception, the Deidox site has been bleeding edge with big visuals, slick java scripting and a powerhouse of Search Engine Optimization. With this launch the entire Deidox team wanted to see if there was a better way to communicate all that Deidox is about and what they’re doing.
We needed to convey the message that there were many films and what they were about. After spending some time research what was available in the java script banners we decided on a player that showed the main pictures but allowed large buttons for the other panes. Many times the additional buttons don’t show enough area or are automated to only show a certain point. We wanted more control over it, and found it with our selection.
For this project Portnoy Media Group was again allowed to collaborate early on to guide and research from the early stages of filming Dawn’s story. This allowed the sensitivity and the strategy to walk through the launch. Also in the mix for this project was the incredible work of Out:think Group (Their recent projects include: the redesign Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop Blog, Hugh MacLeod’s Gaiping Void site and Shark Tank’s Barbara Corcoran’s site). Tim Grahl and Joseph Hinson were instrumental in making the launch happen and were massive collaborators in the design and layout. After initial designs were agreed upon, the guys at Out:think went right to the heavy lifting transforming the site to the beauty that it is now.
We also spent time adjusting the individual film pages. There was a lot of thought put into what would provide the best user experience and bring the least amount of visual fatigue. A fair amount of comparison was made with other websites that offered digital distribution. The aim was to keep everything with in a click or two to make sure that the user experience was simple, although the technology wasn’t.
Huge thanks to the guys at Out:think for another job well done and also thanks to the guys at Deidox for allowing Portnoy Media Group to be involved.
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2 Months ago I got the chance to sit down with upcoming director, Gregg Helvey. We talked about message, social media in film, and personal branding. He struck me as a talented guy getting ready to launch his thesis film, a lot happening and a very bright future. Last month I got a chance to see Gregg’s work at the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles and was absolutely floored. His film, Kavi, is an incredible snapshot into the life of a boy and his family at the brick kilns of India. This 19 minute piece is full of great camera movement, believable characters and fantastic pacing on this narrative film.
After watching the film, (It won the audience award at the IFFLA) myself and the Media Group partners (specifically Outthink Group) were quick to snap into work to make sure that as many people as possible could hear about this movie. Using social media to augment the film impact and using the gorgeous design of Blue Ember to enhance the web presence of www.kavithemovie.com
The journey of collaboration only got sweeter as we got word that Kavi had been nominated and then won the Academy Award for Best Student film. Huge Congratulations go to Gregg Helvey and his crew for such a tremendous win!
You can also see Director of Photography John Harrison’s work in Deidox )
Check out the Trailer below
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New York Times Best selling author and every Human Resource managers ace up the sleeve, Tim Sanders launches the Dirty Dozen Rules to Email Etiquette. As Chief Solutions Officer at Yahoo, Tim dealt with a lot of email and in this offering Sanders walks through the best steps for managing your companies “mood factor”. For this project The Portnoy Media Group had a chance to work with Rapture Studio in Pasadena, CA to integrate a database driven blog to support all the content on the best practices of email over the next couple of years. Integrating powerful tools like having blog posts actually get emailed as soon as they post is a fun feature to connect HR Managers and other business leaders with reminders about email best practices. Check out Email AtoZ.com and don’t forget to subscribe to the blog.
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Director of Photography and general cinematic wizard, Marc Ritzema launched his brand new site today. With the help of The Portnoy Media Group we were able to focus on some key features for Marc’s site. We moved Marc from a standard flash based site to a more indexed database driven site (more…)
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It’s March Already! So much happened in the month of February that it’s thrown off our space/time continuum. We relocated to Sunny Southern California to better work with some clients. And heres the updated address:
556 S. Fair Oaks Avenue, Suite. 101 #318
Pasadena, CA. 91101
ph. 434.426.8523
The dust is still settling and as the shelves get filled with our vast collection of Precious Moments Dolls we plan on rocking the southern California business community with New Media Expertise
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This week THE DROP received a full redesign to more of a magazine layout. After a lot of thinking about how our readers were interacting with the site, one thing was painfully obvious:
There was too much content for readers to grab in any orderly fashion. (more…)
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