Elijah van der Giessen

I help nonprofits build community.

What’s Eli up to? — August 26, 2011

What’s Eli up to?

The blog’s been dead recently, but I’m not dead yet.

Here’s a quick summary of my work life over the last six months:

The day gig

I’m the Creative Services lead at the David Suzuki Foundation. Shockingly (to me) I’ve been at the Foundation for over 4 years now. Who knew that I’d settle down? I guess I’m not immune to being in my 30s.

Events

I’ve been working as a consultant to Constructive Public Engagement. We’ve done two events:

It’s great to organize events and run around with an army of volunteers again. It makes me nostalgic for my years at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival.

Public speaking

Now that I’m old and wise and have done some stuff I’m being asked to do some public speaking. Some recent gigs include:

I’ll also be leading a workshop on word-of-mouth marketing using social media at the IMPACT! Youth Conference for Sustainability Leadership (a mouthful!) in Guelph this September.

Volunteering

I’ve been the organizer of Vancouver’s Net Tuesday for the last two years. Yowza! This monthly meetup connects nonprofits with their allies in technology and marketing.

I’m also exercising my Salesforce and fundraising muscles by volunteering with OpenMedia.ca and recently helped the Vancouver AFP chapter by facilitating a session to help focus their social media strategy.

In summary: fun!

Social Media Marketing Unplugged in Calgary — May 6, 2011
2010 in review — January 3, 2011

2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Fresher than ever.

Crunchy numbers

Featured image

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,300 times in 2010. That’s about 3 full 747s.

 

In 2010, there were 29 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 25 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 2mb. That’s about 2 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was April 12th with 147 views. The most popular post that day was Net Tuesday May 4: Event-based fundraising.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, twitter.com, meetup.com, netsquared.org, and nettuesday.ca.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for facebook causes canada, facebook causes, netsquared, free friends asking friends fundraising platform, and facebook causes in canada.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Net Tuesday May 4: Event-based fundraising April 2010
3 comments

2

Facebook Causes donations no longer accepted in Canada May 2010
2 comments

3

Net Tuesday June: How to turn your party into an EVENT May 2010

4

About April 2010

5

NetSquared Camp Vancouver: not an announcement April 2010

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING UNPLUGGED at SFU WOODWARDS — Sat. Jan 29, 2011 — December 22, 2010

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING UNPLUGGED at SFU WOODWARDS — Sat. Jan 29, 2011

I’m tickled to be one of the speakers at Social Media Marketing Unplugged. You should come!

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(One-Day Conference – Master Real-World Social Media Marketing with 6 Top Practitioners)

If growing a successful business and marketing campaign is your goal for the new year, then this conference is not to be missed.

Register by Dec 20 and Save Up to 50% — Only Limited Space for this Offer. Find out more at http://www.socialmediaunplugged.ca

(Members of Net Tuesday Meetup receive an extra $20 off : Use Promo Code: nettue when registering.)

The growth of your business depends on how effective you are at marketing yourself, your products and your services. Traditionally, marketing has been an expensive endeavor that favours businesses with large marketing budgets, but that is no longer the case in the new social media economy. Small businesses with low to zero marketing budgets can effectively reach their target customers by leveraging the power of social media tools — Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Blogs, etc —  and compete on the same level with the big boys.

It’s no longer about how big your marketing budget is, but, rather, how well you are at utilizing social media tools to strategically construct effective marketing campaigns that translate into engaging customers and sales.

At the upcoming conference, Social Media Marketing Unplugged, conducted by 6 top social media marketing practitioners, you will gain the know-how, through real-world examples and case studies, to take your business and marketing campaign to new heights.  Limited Seating. Register Early to Avoid Disappointment!

Media Marketing Unplugged

A One-Day Conference Focusing on the How-To’s of Social Media Marketing

SFU Woodward’s, Vancouver

Saturday, January 29, 2011

9:00 am – 5:30 pm

Website: http://www.socialmediaunplugged.ca

Contact us: info@sociamediaunplugged.ca

___________________________________________

About:

Conducted by industry experts, at this one-day conference,

not only that you will learn how to effectively leverage the

power of social media tools for marketing, but also real

world examples and case-studies on how successful social

media marketing campaigns are developed, strategized and

implemented.

You will come away with a clear road map of knowledge &

techniques to plan, develop and execute effective social

media marketing campaigns.

Visit our website & watch a video on the power of social media.

Speakers:

For more information about the speakers, visit our website.

Topics:

– Why social media marketing

– Building trust and customer relations

– Planning and developing social media marketing strategies

– Implementing effective social media marketing strategies

– Social media for social change

– Measuring and determining your ROI

– Social media advertising

– Monetizing social media

– Social media and mobile marketing

– Case studies

Limited Seating. Register Early to Avoid Disappointment!

Early Registration is on now! Register Now and Save!

http://www.socialmediaunplugged.ca

Proposed Net Tuesday – Nonprofits and video — September 19, 2010

Proposed Net Tuesday – Nonprofits and video

I’m plotting a topic for the Net Tuesday November meetup, and Ben Johnson suggested “video.”

What do you think? Are you interested in this topic? And do you know of any Vancouver nonprofits who are going interesting work with video? Please let me know in the comments or by emailing eli@vandergiessen.ca

Potential items to be presented and discussed:

  1. Youtube grants for nonprofits
  2. Youtube captioning and translation
  3. How to convert to actions using your videos (annotationscall-to-action overlays, sign-up forms)
  4. How to recruit video production assistance (volunteers, interns, etc)
  5. How can video help advance the mission, and is it worth the time? Examples from fundraising, advocacy, education.
NetSquared Camp volunteer meeting – Tuesday, August 3 — July 29, 2010

NetSquared Camp volunteer meeting – Tuesday, August 3

Date: Tuesday, August 3
Time: 6:00pm – 7:30pm
Location: 302 Water Street, 4th Floor: Water Street Arts Society.

RSVP: http://n2campvolunteers.eventbrite.com/

We’re entering the end-game of NetSquared Camp. So it’s time to have one last face-to-face organizers meeting. Can you come?

We’ll have lots of logistical details to sort out, from lunch session leaders to where to do the session pitching to who’ll be doing the morning intro.

PLUS, we’ll be assigning volunteers! You get to pick the best positions if you attend the meeting!

Volunteer assignments:

  • front desk registration
  • session reporters
  • setup and teardown crew
  • lunch discussion leaders
  • internet help desk
  • gophers

Hope to see you there!