I recently met Art at the Social Media Underground 2 held at CocoMSP in Downtown Saint Paul. A few people suggested to me that I interview a nonprofit blogger and it seems I’ve found a gem. Â Normally I write the bio for Tuesday Blogversation, but Art’s self-written bio was much better than I could have come up with. Thanks Art!
Art Coulson (@UpWithTheMooses and @redbirdmedia) has been blogging since 1984. Only back then they called it writing police briefs at the newspaper. And that web was on a football field-sized Goss Metroliner printing press. Art was a journalist for 23 years and left the Pioneer Press shortly before its sale in 2006. He and his wife own Redbird Media & Design, where they do all manner of communications for local businesses, nonprofits and tribal governments. Art also is communications director for a local government and serves on a South Metro school board. Because he is not busy enough already, Art blogs for and oversees the social media efforts of several Twin Cities nonprofits. He also publishes seven ink-on-paper newsletters for nonprofits for free (yes, free!), supporting them through advertising sales. He likes the printed versions of the newsletters because, well, retro is in. Art and his wife have two daughters and live in Apple Valley.
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How long have you been blogging?
I think I set up my first actual blog on Blogger back in 2005. But before that I was a newspaper writer and editor for 23 years, so I did my share of “blogging†on alternative platforms over the years.
How long with non-profits?
I have been helping nonprofits with their communications, both online and in print, for the past four years, since I left the Pioneer Press.
How many organizations do you blog for currently?
Besides my personal blog, I also oversee or contribute to the blogs of six nonprofits, two government agencies and one tribal government.
Are they all local?
Depends on how you define local. I work on them all from my perch in the Twin Cities, but the tribal blog is based in Northern Minny. We also have clients whose reach extends across several states.
What are some challenges in writing for so many blogs?
I am trying to develop the bench strength of most of these groups and eventually would like them to assume total responsibility for their own blogs and social media channels. For now the challenge is finding the right balance of training them to handle their communications and just doing it myself.
A blog can easily become irrelevant to its established readership, how do you stay relevant?
These blogs have very specific readerships – tribal members, clients or funders of nonprofits, etc. They are connected, engaged and interested in the information we provide. We stay relevant by engaging in the conversation where it is already happening and by writing about topics that are useful, timely and unlikely to be covered anywhere else.
Why nonprofits?
That’s where my heart took me. I serve on several nonprofit boards and often lamented that these groups could not fulfill their promise to stakeholders to update websites and publish newsletters in a timely manner. I figured there must be something I could do to help them, given my experience in media and communications. My company also works for some of the Twin Cities’ larger corporations, which helps to “fund†my work with the nonprofits.
What kind of privacy restraints are put on you by an organization?
None, really. We write posts and share information in other formats in consultation with the groups, so I suppose if they don’t want me to put it out there, they just don’t tell me about it.
How do you get away from constantly asking “Give us money” yet keep the importance of donation in front of readers?
We don’t use the blogs and other media channels for direct solicitation. We will mention fund-raising events, as appropriate. These groups mostly use their blogs to share news, and upcoming events and use other, more established channels for fund-raising.
Since you blog for so many nonprofits, how do you stay on top of the latest news of each organization and verify its accuracy?
We meet regularly to discuss what is happening. Because I also help them with Twitter, Facebook, video and photo sharing and other social media, I stay pretty plugged in to what is happening with the group. Accuracy isn’t a concern – we want to make sure we get details right, but I don’t have to worry about these groups putting out bad information intentionally.
Each nonprofit has a specific audience they want to reach, whether it’s donors or supporters or the general public. How do you ensure the content is geared towards each nonprofit’s specific audience?
I work very closely with the nonprofits and discuss with them their target audiences, their messaging and how to best link the two. We discuss the tools that are available and which are likely to be most effective at carrying particular messages to each intended audience. I show them how to leverage content across platforms and how to write/photograph/videotape each message so that it is most relevant and interesting to the audience.
How do you overcome the challenge of writing in so many styles?
I don’t really try to be Hemingway for one group and Flannery O’Connor for another. I tend to write conversationally and directly for whichever group I’m writing for. The one real variable for me is the group’s tolerance for humor. IRL I tend to be a bit of a smart-azz, so I sometimes have to tone that down when writing for a client with a more serious bent. But I also urge all my clients to be open to a bit of humor and personality in their posts. No one wants to read a bunch of dry pronouncements from the front office.
How much of your content is given to you by an organization’s staff?
Quite a bit is provided, in raw form. Then we “process†it for whichever platform we’re producing content for. We contract with a dozen freelance writers to help us with the various sites we write for, as well as producing stories for print newsletters and videos for YouTube channels we set up. We also do a lot of original reporting to add depth to the information.
How closely do you work with an organization’s staff on a regular basis?
We meet at least monthly, and correspond by email several times a week. We stay in pretty close contact.
How do you build readership without being spammy?
In most cases, we start with built-in audiences and try to grow them organically. The idea isn’t to have a million readers for some of these blogs, it’s to reach as much of the intended audience as possible, whether they number in the hundreds or the thousands. We also make sure that all of our various social media channels are linked together – Facebook and YouTube send out automatic tweets to alert followers to new content, as does the blog. The blog links to all the other channels and features the latest content from them. We try to be very self-referential when we set these social media accounts up. And we like to have as much automation as possible to be sure we don’t miss opportunities to tout new content.
What blogs do you enjoy reading?
The blogs I read run the gamut. My favorite local blog is lazylightning.org by my friend Bill Roehl for its mix of local news, sass and South Metro restaurant reviews. I look at Fark, failblog and peopleofwalmart for a daily chuckle. I read Jim Romenesko’s media news blog for the latest from my former industry. I read indianz.com for news about native communities and issues. I read/listen to Aquarium Drunkard and minneapolisfuckingrocks for new music. Ars Technica, BoingBoing and Mashable help keep me up-to-date with geeky stuff, scifi and related topics. Other daily reads: Politics in Minnesota, BuzzFeed, Consumerist and Macrumors. Some of these are aggregation sites rather than actual blogs, but they all look the same in Google Reader, right?
Which blogs do you help write?
I help with the blogs of the Frogtown Rondo Action Network, Eastside Neighborhood Development Co., North Minneapolis Comprehensive Community Development initiative, Blake Road Community Collaborative, Native American Community Development Initiative, Ramsey County Regional Rail, East Metro Recovery and the Fond du Lac band. I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone. Some of these have been up and running for a while; others are just now getting started.
Here are some that he had sent me earlier
http://aurora.newsletterpartnership.net/
http://theeastsidepride.org/
http://blog.regionalrail.org/
http://www.eastmetrorecovery.org/
http://www.youtube.com/user/MPLSNorthsiderAnd his personal blog: http://mooses.thecoulsonfamily.net/
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Tuesday Blogversation is a weekly series on iamdez.com featuring bloggers of all kinds from the Twin Cities (Minneapolis / Saint Paul) area. If you’d like to be considered for an interview please send mail to dez [at] iamdez [dot] com or get ahold of me on twitter. Some of the questions for this week’s Blogversation came via Art Allen.