Trends in Nonprofit Communications with Kivi Leroux Miller

Hello, my friends. I'm running a brand new special live training called How to Stand Out on Social Media in 2023. What you will learn, the three most critical changes to the social media landscape in the past year, the pros and cons of meta verified for Facebook and Instagram, the best features of each platform to help you stand out on social media, the power of LinkedIn for nonprofits and how calls for data privacy have affected social media advertising and reach and what we can do. If you're interested, sign up. It will be given live on April 24th. Go to non-profit social media trends.com and register today. Hello and welcome to non-profit nation. I'm your host Julia Campbell and I'm going to sit down with nonprofit industry experts, fundraisers, marketers and everyone in between to get real and discuss what it takes to build that movement that you've been dreaming of. I created the nonprofit nation podcast to share practical wisdom and strategies to help you confidently find your voice, definitively grow your audience and effectively build your movement. If you're a nonprofit newbie or an experienced professional who's looking to get more visibility, reach more people and create even more impact than you're in the right place. Let's get started. Hi everyone. Welcome back to the nonprofit nation podcast. I'm your host Julia Campbell. Really excited to be here with you today and we're going to talk about trends in nonprofit communications, specifically the findings of the 2023 nonprofit communication trends report, which is now available on nonprofitmarketingguide.com. It's in its 13th edition and it's become the go to resource for nonprofit marketers and comms professionals to determine what's next and not only what's next, but how to take the trends and actually make them actionable. So I am lucky to have with me today, Kivy Lero Miller and she's the founder and CEO of nonprofit marketing guide probably needs no introduction at all. She's a popular and trusted speaker, the award winning author of three books on nonprofit marketing and communications. She serves as the president of the Lexington farmers market, the treasure of the Davidson County local food network. And I love this. Kivy co founded a baking business with her teenage daughter called rabble and rise baking company. She also has seven rescue cats as of this recording, maybe more, including a tripod, which I don't know what that is. We have to talk about that. So welcome, Kivy. Thank you. Thank you, Julia. I'm excited to be back with you. Oh, it sounds like you have a lot going on. How are the cats doing? Always. The cats are awesome and a tripod is a three-legged cat. We had a guy come up who had his little legs shot off. Well, it was still on, but we had to have it taken off. So he, he, he gets around to spine on his three legs. He's one of the crew now. And he plans for more cats. There were no plans for more cats after the first two. So we live in a very rural area and they are the walk-ons. We call them the walk-ons. So they show up. If they're pleasant enough, we agree to take care of them. And that's, that's how we got seven. We got a mama and some babies and then socks. The tripod showed up and was super friendly and got himself shot. So there we go. But yeah, we are desperately trying to not adopt anymore. We'll see how that goes this spring. This is the danger zone. We're entering the danger zone for the kittens, you know. Well, keep us updated. Do you post pictures of them on social media? Well, Saks has his own Insta. I'm just saying because he gives the tripod and there's a whole tripod community on Instagram. There's a community for everybody, including tripod cats on Instagram. But yeah, not really, not so much on the rest really. Just socks. Well, I wanted to have you on to talk about the very newly released not-profit communications trends report, which is something that I download every year and read it. I think it's so helpful because not only is it about trends, which of course we love to read about, but it also helps contextualize them and put them into action. And you do have some really, you know, tangible recommendations. So I want to hear about why you started doing this report, like what was the thinking behind it and really who is it for? Well, like you said, this is our 13th year and kind of back in the day, I would say the reason we started it is because most of the marketing trend information was for the corporate world and small business world. And I really wanted something that was reflected at the nonprofit sector. So we started it for that reason. And then as the report developed over time, we started to see that there was a lot more trends information on fundraising and development teams. And again, that's not really what my focus is. My focus is the communications and marketing folks working in our sector. So the report has really become the report for them and really about their work life and their job responsibilities. And so we cover a lot of tactical topics like social media and email, but we also cover a lot about what it's like to work in the sector and communications and marketing, how to grow your team, how to deal with a lot of the struggles, particularly most of these, you know, most of our communications directors are younger women. And so we do a lot of mentoring and coaching about how to just make it work in the sector because I really want to keep these young, smart, talented women, primarily in the sector. And so we just want to be really real with them about what the work life is like. So the report covers a lot of that kind of work too. That's really why I love it. It's not just about, okay, how many nonprofits use Facebook and how do they use it. It is about how to succeed as a communications professional in the sector. And there's a lot about adequate staffing and resources and wellness and well-being, which I really appreciate. How to say no is a big section in this year's report because we just have a lot of natural people, please, or types. They self-identify that way. And that can get you in real trouble when you're trying to be strategic and have too many different priorities running your face. So what was your biggest sort of overarching takeaway from this year's report? Well, you know, the the the stat that kind of threw me the most is kind of silly that it threw me, but just how different it is post pandemic for where people are working. So this isn't any big surprise about why, but the sheer shift really struck me. So before the pandemic, about a third of nonprofit communication staff were either working at home or in hybrid, which means two thirds were working solely in the office. And now three years later, only 5% of nonprofit communicators are working solely in the office, 95% are either working solely at home or hybrid. So, you know, I think we all understand why that's happened, but I don't think there's been a full reckoning in the sector about what that actually means, especially for communicators who are so dependent on their colleagues to get them information and content. And now we've gone from two thirds being in the office with their programmatic colleagues down to 5% being in the office constantly with their colleagues and has a real impact on people's ability to get their jobs done. I can imagine and their ability to connect with colleagues or get questions answered or tell stories or get all of the communications materials that they need. So that, yeah, that is pretty surprising, especially just from any of those that I've heard, but it's surprising, but not surprising entirely. I think we know why, but at the same time, I don't think the sector has really planned well. Isn't managing strategically for that, which, again, is not a big surprise, but it is what it is. And I think we all have to recognize that and deal with it. So in a blog post published on nonprofit marketing guide, Christina lays out five themes that need addressing based on the trends. So she wrote, well, I'll read all five of them and then I would love to talk to you about each of them because I think they're still important. So she writes, we think it's time to one, find your voice and role in your larger community. Two, fully reevaluate your use of social media, including video. Can't wait to talk about that one. Three, reinvest in email and address technology integration issues. Four, set new norms around communications work requests and internal collaboration. Five, plan now for communications team growth and retention. So let's go over these themes. So number one, find your voice and role in your larger community. Can you tell us about that? Yes, I think we all, most of us feel like it's just one shitshow after another, right? Whether it's climate change or police brutality or natural disasters because of climate change, like stuff that's just happening constantly. I think people are really worn out and tired, but I think that also means that it's hard for nonprofits to say silent on the issues that are really happening in their broader communities. Like you can't just say, oh, you know, we only deal with this one little slice of life here. I don't want to talk to you about anything else because that's not the reality that the people on your mailing lists and are following you on Facebook are dealing with. So I'm not saying that you need to jump into every single issue that's happening, but I also think that the reaction from a lot of nonprofits during these times of heightened crisis, whether it's the start of the war in Ukraine or whatever, is to just stop communicating, right? They don't want to say anything wrong, but they just shut up and really exit the conversation entirely. I think that's a disaster long term because I don't think we're going to have fewer crises. I don't think, I don't feel, I don't know about you, Julia, but I don't feel like we're headed into this like easy breezy time for the next decade, right? So I think nonprofits have to figure this out and I think what that means is really speaking internally about how you're going to make the decisions about what issues you speak up, when you speak up, when you don't. And then even if you don't feel like you have anything to say, what I advocate is people really curating content on these different issues they don't work on from other colleagues in the nonprofit sector so that they can present those people as a resource. So even if you have nothing to say about police brutality or the war in Ukraine or the fires in California, if you have people on your list that are going to be living those issues and concerned about those issues, then why don't you at least share a couple of links to other nonprofits that you believe are good voices on those issues. I think that is a better way to stay in the conversation than to just shut up entirely and not speak. I mean, can you remember at the beginning of the pandemic? Oh my gosh, I was still getting the same emails. Like, does no one know there's a pandemic? I know it was very weird. Right, like they either didn't talk, right? Or they kept mailing and they never mentioned it. Or they mentioned it to say, our staff are now working at home. It might be hard to reach us. Like they didn't really engage. And so that's really what the first trend is about is really encouraging people to find their voice within their communities and to really be a part of the conversation that everybody else is already having. Even if it's not your particular niche. Why do nonprofits love silos so much? We love it. We just want to work in our own little silo always. Right, but it's also just it's comfortable to stay in your lane. It doesn't mean you're going to change the world though. And that's what nonprofits are supposed to be doing. So I encourage you to get out of your lane a little bit. Get out of your comfort zone a little bit. What's important about this is the acknowledgement that everyone is so afraid of saying the wrong thing. And maybe getting a complaint or getting a bad email from your list of 5,000 people and one person emails you an angry response. And then all you do is think about that one person. But what do we think about nonprofits finding their voice in the larger community of their issue as well? Because what I see is they don't actually talk about things like equity or social injustice or just anything that they're speaking on. They totally frame it in their own little corner of the world and they don't talk about the greater implications even just for the issue that they're working on the cause that they're working on. Like how can we start to do that better? Right, like I'm afraid to even mention other organizations that are working on my little issue because then people might want to support them and not us. That's basically what a lot of people are saying. And that is a massive confidence and management problem right at the start. Right, that's not something communications can help. If you don't have the confidence in what you're doing and the role you're playing, like why are you even here? Wow, I mean, it's pretty strong. It's pretty strong. If you can't find your voice and stand up for what you believe in and tell me exactly why I should care, then you're not going to be very good at your job in communicating and marketing and bringing new people in. And getting new stakeholders engaged and ultimately bringing about the change that your nonprofit exists to create. Exactly. I love that. All right, number two fully reevaluate your use of social media, including your love video obsessed because oh my gosh, I am just there so much to unpack here. So yeah, let's get it started. What do we mean fully reevaluate your use of social media? Yes. So part of this comes with a little bit of age, right? Those of you that know me, no, I'm in my fifties at this point. So I've seen a lot more than maybe some of you they're listening today. But if you remember back like 20 years ago, there was this idea that most of us watched or read the same newspapers and TV broadcast news channels, right? There was and then it sort of cracked open wide with cable and the internet. And now the regular sort of standard mainstream media is completely fractured. Like nobody watches any one thing. No one relies on any one source. Like you really curate your own set of news sources based on what you already believe, right? So I believe now that social media is kind of at that same place. It used to be that Facebook was the equivalent of ABC NBC CBS and it's just not true anymore. You know, five years ago, I probably would have still said this 10 years ago. I was certainly saying you have to be on Facebook. You must be on Facebook nonprofits. And I just I don't believe that anymore. I just don't. And so if we're not saying that there's any particular channel where you have to be, then if you only have the capacity to really be on one or two channels, which is the boat that a lot of nonprofits are in, let's be honest, then who are you going to pick? And I don't think it has to be Facebook anymore. It's the equivalent of, you know, we've always done it that way. So we're going to keep doing it that way. That's a lot of why people are on Facebook still and investing their time there. And I just I don't buy it anymore. What do you think Julia? Do you agree? No, yeah. Well, meta verified just came out and caused such a huge stir. Although I don't know why because it's not even available for business pages. It's just for personal profiles. People are acting like, you know, the era of free social media is over and it's been over for a very long time. And even when it was technically free and ads were not a thing, you still have to consider your time and your capacity and your bandwidth and your resources. Yeah, if you say yes to one thing, you're saying no to something else. So saying that social media is free is like saying, you know, like a cat is free having seven rescue cats, right? It's not. Yeah, they are not free. Let me tell you, it's not free. They're not free. Yeah. And you're absolutely right. And we know again from the trends report from historical data that nonprofits say overwhelming social media is the most time consuming channel. So exactly. It is not free. If you were to ask people to really tally up their hours and then, you know, times that by their salary, it ain't free people. Just to really drill down on this point and your recent email about the trends report. If people are not on Kivies mailing list, get on the mailing list nonprofit marketing guide. Dot com and I'll put it in the show notes. But I love first of all, the subject line, three things I'm thinking hard about, like brilliant subject line. But number three stuck out to me because I've been yelling this from the rooftops, but I think you really put a fine point on it. You wrote pick social media channels based not only on audience, but also where your content is strongest. And you went on to write, you know, many of you are exploring social media strategies based on reaching new target audiences, which is great. But you also need the right kinds of content for those channels to actually work for you. So tell me about this because I completely agree. Okay. We always preach about how social media is the relationship, right? It's all about the relationship. But when you look at the part of the relationship that nonprofits are providing on social, it's really about their content strategy. Very few nonprofits have enough of a brand personality to live off of that alone. They have to really treat this as a content marketing strategy. So what are you putting out there and does it work in that channel? And so, you know, I think everybody wants to do the video heavy channels because that's where the traffic is. That's where the younger audiences are. But if you are still struggling with getting people to do video in your organization for whatever reason and there are plenty of them, then that is probably not going to work for you. You know, I think that is why so many people are leaning towards Instagram right now is because there's still a fair amount of content flexibility. You can play with the video all you want there. But if you just want to post the photos or the little infographics and even on stories, it doesn't have to be video. You can play with the stickers. Like you still have a lot more content flexibility for how you send out your message on Instagram. I think that's why people are headed there is because of that flexibility, honestly. What did the trends reports say about video and how do you think nonprofits can start to get more comfortable with video? Well, I think they are getting more comfortable. One of the things we saw in this year's trends report is I think in 2019 about 20% so they weren't doing video at all. And that is now down to just 5%. So everybody is doing something. But I think there's still being fairly conservative about how they're using video. So nonprofits are using video for storytelling. They're using it for interviews, some direct to camera talking, but they're not really using it to do behind the scenes or to really do that kind of internal reporting. I guess that I would really like to see people do more often where they're really taking people into the work. They're telling us they're not doing that as much. And I would really like to see a comfort level where people will truly take people behind the scenes and show them their work and show them the impact of their work and what they're trying to change in the world. It's this hesitation around a video. This is a huge point of contention with me and a lot of my clients, especially. I have a client I'm working with right now, love them. I'm trying to get them just to make a basic fundraising video with the executive director holding a phone up and recording like a real to say, we need your support on this particular giving day that we're working on. And the amount of stress and meetings and talking points and everything else has been. Yeah, it's been interesting. So trying to get nonprofits to be more comfortable with that off the cuff kind of scrappy video is challenging because we want to control all the, want to control all the elements of it. Yeah, and I think it goes back to our initial conversation about they just want to like stay centered in their lane. It's like, okay, well, if I put my set my face out there, what is some getting somebody's going to criticize my hair or my nose hair or what? I mean, I don't know. Like people are just they're just so afraid of what reaction people might have to it that they can't get past that. And I do think that's a bit of a generational thing, but it's not exclusive to generations. We do we know we coach lots of communications directors at nonprofit marketing guide and there are plenty of 20 some things that are just as Larry about being on camera. So it's not exclusively a generational thing. But it is a fear thing. And I think we just we have to be honest with how afraid people are looking bad sounding bad saying the wrong thing feeling just feeling like an idiot breaking out into a cold sweat on camera. Whatever it is. Yeah, no, that's such a really good point. I think I love that this is being pulled out in the trends report and there are action items around it. So number three, just moving on. So we can get to all five of them. I love this one reinvest in email and address technology integration issues. Okay, where do we start? Yeah, and this is such a hard one because it's really not something the sector can do alone. But the idea here is that email is really the one thing that you still have the most control offer. You certainly, I mean, I think a lot of a profit still to understand the level of the algorithms playing on whether your stuff lands in the inbox or not. You know, they still ask me about what spam words to use. I'm like, we are sober beyond what you're putting in your subject line. This is really about how you're managing your email list and engagement and all of that. So that's one whole conversation. And we spend a lot of time talking about we spend more time talking about email list management for engagement now than we do about what to actually put in your emails, I think sometimes. But you know, the other question is just whether you can adequately segment your list. So you're sending the right content to the right people at the right time. That means you have information in your database, your CRM about who these people are and what they care about and what they're doing. And the reality is that so many nonprofits still don't have their email list integrated with their donor database, integrated with their event participation database. It's a hot mess and they don't really know who's doing what it's a lot of uploading and downloading and bad data. And it's just a mess and it makes it really difficult to do really solid email marketing when you have a messy database. How often should nonprofits be emailing? That's like the third real question. I love it. Yeah, which I don't care. I'll touch all the rails. So I say they need to do it at least twice a month to everybody on the list, right? But if you're segmenting different people will be getting different amounts of email and that is appropriate. That is what should be happening. The most engaged people on your list, you should probably be emailing every week, which, you know, people's eyes just pop out their head when I say that. But if you're only emailing once a month or even those of you that are only emailing once a quarter, it's bad news. It's bad news because you're not building your reputation with the different email companies that run inboxes and run your sending. And they can't they got to see you enough to know that you're, you know, a good actor and not a spammer. And if you're just like you're only emailing a bunch at the end of the year, like forget it. The majority of your stuff is going into spam. What's a good open rate? That's a trick question now, Julia. You know that there is no such thing as a good open rate anymore because of the Apple privacy restrictions. Yeah. Yeah. So what's happening is people that are on that new iOS privacy setting. The computers are basically opening those emails before the human beings are opening them. That's really oversimplified, but that's essentially what's happening. And so you're getting opens that are not actually opens. So we, you know, I think you can still compare to yourself in theory, like last week, send versus this week, send versus two weeks from now. I think you can sort of compare against your own open rates there. But to try to hit a benchmark now is sort of ludicrous. We're really pushing people to really think about the click rate is the most easy basic thing to look at and to really structure email so that you are giving people opportunities to click. And then again, to go back to your list and look at your engagement rate, which is the number of people that have opened any email from you in the last three months, for example, that is sometimes a number you have to dig for. But those are the two things you should really be looking at is the overall engagement rate of your list and your click through rates. And what kinds of emails should we be sending? Like, I know I have, you know, an opinion about maybe the ratio of fundraising appeals to advocacy appeals to, you know, newsletters, to events. So like how, what's the, what's the ratio? I think it really depends on your goals and what your cause to action really are, but we have seen plenty of data, not from our particular trends report, but from other folks in the sector that are issuing these reports that are analyzing their own customer databases. So, you know, the M&Rs of the world, neon, et cetera, you know, they will tell you that you need to have a good mix of what they call usually cultivation emails over direct asks and that the more kind of informative content you can give people, the better your asks will ultimately do. So I think it depends on what you're asking people to do. I really encourage people to limit the amount of content at any one email, stop trying to cram a thousand words in there. Once a month, I would much rather see you send 250 words a week and do it every week. And so it's a negotiation with people, you know, when I tell them that they're sending a thousand once and I tell them to do two 54 times, you know, we usually land it in the middle somewhere until they get comfortable with that. Oh, no, that is so that's so good. Actually, this is a good segue into number four, because number four is set new norms around communications, work requests, and internal collaboration. And I think what throws a lot of communications professionals is that they do get so many requests for things to throw in the email, things that put up on social media. So can you touch on the how like how do we set new norms around work requests and how do we create this better internal collaboration? So there's this entire section in the report where we really dive into why it's hard to say no as a nonprofit communications professional and do its hardest to say no to and sort of all the implications that come from that, including people wanting to find a different job and leaving your organization. It's hard to say no to the boss about these things. But to go go to your original question, I mean, I think the reason, you know, we do see these long emails, like people know they shouldn't be sending out all this content on email, right? But when you've got five different program managers, all asking you to do something this week and they're not collaborating internally. So the first thing that we do there, siloed, and the management of the organization, which we see all the time, is abdicating the responsibility for prioritizing which program is most important this week or next week. The portal communications director is the one that has to make those really organizational strategic decisions about what the organization is messaging that week. And that's not where the decision should really lie. So we're going to talk about the executive level and the communications folks should be part of that executive team, but so often we just see the communications director be like, I was told to talk about these 10 things this week. And I know I shouldn't talk about these 10 things this week in this newsletter because it's going to be 3000 words long. So I'm just going to kind of do my best here. And it ends up being a mediocre result. How do you say no? And getting no is all about knowing what's really most important this week next week next month, right? So having the most strategic conversations you can muster within your organization is what's most important. And getting people to really engage with each other, getting your program managers to talk to each other is what's most important. What I also really appreciate about this report is that you don't approach it like people are working in a vacuum because so much of the content out there is, you know, the top 10 ways to get more engagement on Facebook without taking into account. These communications work requests, the problems of internal collaboration and communications. Maybe you're a party of one. Maybe you're a volunteer. Maybe you're a founder. So I think that's really important and I encourage people to read those sections, not just kind of skip over them. Read them because they're incredibly important and they really contextualize everything that you're doing because you know, if you're working in this workplace where all you're doing is putting out fires, context switching, reacting all day, it's going to be incredibly hard to be proactive and, you know, to create a marketing communications plan that really works. Do you see that with a lot of the people that you mentor in your mentoring program? Absolutely. And I think this is actually one of the benefits of that very early start. We talked about where 95% of people are now working at home or in a hybrid. We used to encourage people to go home to get a few hours of peace where they could do some deep work and thinking. And now they are at home. So we're telling people to really just not return calls to turn off the notifications a couple of times a week for ideally two or three hour blocks because that's really how much time your brain needs to do creative work and deep thinking. If you're only giving yourself half an hour to think strategically what happens is your brain hits a problem and you don't actually tackle that problem because you know you're about to move on to something else. If you sit there and force yourself to deal with it, you can get over the problem, you can solve it, but it usually takes your brain at least two or three hours to really do that. So we really encourage people to block out the time to think, to plan, to be creative, to problem solve. Those are not things that you can do in 15 minute increments. So the nonprofit marketing guide in general is always focused as a company and you know in your content on the importance of adequate staffing and resources in order to get the desired marketing results. And number five of the themes that you found plan now for communications team growth and retention. So let's talk about that. Yes, so we know from our research that to accomplish what the majority of nonprofits expect their communications teams to really do, you need at least two people and ideally three. You can get a lot done with three human beings full time working on communications and marketing. Now that's not development as well. That is comms and marketing pleasure development team. So we really want people to plan for that and to understand that it may take years to staff up, but you're making decisions today about the grants you're pursuing how you're structuring new programs that are coming online. Are you building comms capacity into all of that because I can guarantee your building comms deliverables into all of it. And I am so tired of having to coach communications directors who have this incredible laundry list that their program staff have dumped on them saying, oh, well, this isn't a grant. And then they ask, well, where's the money to implement this? Oh, you're not in the grant, but I've just created, you know, like a third of your workload for this year in this grant, but you're not in the grant. So it's time to realize that your program staff are not doing your communications deliverables. They're partnering with your comms team, but your comms team is really implementing that and you need to write those people in the grant. And that is what is going to allow you to scale up. What are you seeing in terms of trends around retention? I know in fundraising, it's pretty bad in terms of the number of fundraisers who say first that they're going to stay at their same job and second that they're going to stay in the profession. I think it's like less than half. So what are you seeing with communications professionals? Yeah, it's a little bit better for comms. So that's great. But we do see a couple of things that will really turn people off. And guess what? It's not salary. People are in it because they care. Still means you need to pay them while this is not an excuse to lowball all your comms team. But what they really want to care about is, am I working on strategic activities that make a difference? Can I say no? Therefore, the ability to say no is directly related to whether you're being strategic or not. You know, we always say the famous Harvard Business Review quote about being strategic is saying yes to a few things and no to many things. So it's directly related being able to say no and being strategic. They want to be able to say no so they could be strategic. That is what's most important. And they want to feel like there's some element of growth for them personally. And that can look lots of different ways. Obviously salary and benefits, fabulous. But is it a seat at the table managing these decisions? Having control over your workload is more important. And you will see this across employees. It's not just in our sector. It's in the corporate world too. People want control over how they're spending their workday and they want to say and how decisions are made. And so really elevating your communications director to the executive team is more important than giving them a like a $2,000 raise. Again, pay your people appropriately because they will leave you because they do have options. However, think about the role that they play in the organization. Think about their ability to craft their workload and be strategic. That's what's going to retain your comm stuff. Wow. Well, how can we find out more about nonprofit marketing guide, about the mentorship program and all of the great ways to work with you? Nomradthatmarketingguide.com is the website. We do most of our communication over email. We are no longer on Facebook as a company. We are on Instagram and we're starting to reboot our presence on LinkedIn once again. I've tried to do this about four or five times over the last 15 years and always ended up hating it. But I don't know. I feel like LinkedIn is having a moment, Julia. I don't know about you. But I think it might be actually having the real moment this time. So we are investing some more time in LinkedIn as well. The features, especially for nonprofits that they're trying to create, I think that the culture there and the etiquette is just a very different vibe over on LinkedIn. So I'm trying to focus a little bit more on it as well. And we'll just kind of see what happens. See if it lasts. See if it lasts. I left Twitter. See if it takes this time. So I'm no longer on Twitter, which was one, a very sad decision for me, but it needed to be made. And we probably met on Twitter. I met so many fantastic colleagues and could be. Yeah, we still have the accounts, but what we post there is auto posted and I'm not even sure we're auto posting anything at the moment. So I'd be interested to know, why did you leave Facebook just while I have you here? People are probably like, oh my gosh, I'm dying. I really want to leave Facebook. Give me some reasons too. You know, organic reach as a company was nearly impossible. I didn't feel like playing the advertising game. Like the return on investment was just not there. I am still there very much so personally because of where I live. You know, we live in a fairly rural community that is still very much on Facebook. As you heard in my introduction, I'm very involved in our local food network and all of those events we promote via Facebook and Instagram. So, you know, it's not like I as a whole person have abandoned Facebook, but what I'm doing is I'm using it where it's strategically helpful to me. And I'm ditching the rest of it. I'm in it. I'm in baking groups. I'm a Dave Matthews band fan. I'm in D&B groups. You know, that's what I'm there for. I'm using it how it helps me. And that's it. I love it. That's such a really good lesson to leave on. Take what benefits you as a company, a person, an organization and leave the rest. You don't have to be everywhere and you don't have to be on platforms that don't serve you. Yes, quit buying into the promise, but it could be. It could be. It could be. Guess what? It's not. It's just not. So if it's not, if it's not working for you now, it's never going to work for you. Go do something else with your time. I love it. All right. nonprofitmarketingguy.com. Kivy, thank you so much. This has been really, really great. And I know my audience is going to get a ton of, a ton of helpful information. Thank you, Julia. I always love talking to you. Anytime you've got something for us to talk about, you just let me know and I'm here. I'm going to be here. Well, hey there. I wanted to say thank you for tuning into my show and for listening all the way to the end. If you really enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast app and you'll get new episodes downloaded as soon as they come out. I would love if you left me a rating or a review because this tells other people that my podcast is worth listening to. And then me and my guests can reach even more earbuds and create even more impact. So that's pretty much it. I'll be back soon with a brand new episode. But until then, you can find me on Instagram at Julia Campbell77. Keep changing the world, you non-profit unicorn. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪