Matrix Group International

Author: Joanna Pineda

  • Top 5 Ways to Improve Your Facebook Page Reach

    Top 5 Ways to Improve Your Facebook Page Reach

    Have you noticed that the likes and interactions on your Facebook page are decreasing? If so, you’re not imagining it – organic reach on Facebook brand pages fell by 52% last year alone, and Facebook has even admitted that only about 16% of your fans see your updates. Yuck!

    Why is this happening? With an overwhelming amount of content being published to Facebook every second and a limited amount of real estate in each user’s News Feed, Facebook tries to tailor each individual’s feed to deliver what it believes to be the most relevant and interesting for that person. It’s not too surprising then to hear that Facebook prioritizes posts from the friends and family that you interact with the most, and posts from your friends that are linked with your interests. All of this to say, it’s now harder than ever for updates from brand pages to be prioritized and seen.

    In addition, Facebook is a business.  They’ve found that many brands are willing to pay to boost their posts in order to reach more people, providing Facebook with a nice little (ok, large) revenue stream.

    But what if your budget doesn’t support boosting Facebook posts? Don’t worry – it doesn’t mean that you can’t improve your reach without getting out your organization’s AmEx card. Here are five things you can do to improve your Facebook page, reach more people, and get more likes and comments, without spending a penny:

    1. Always include an image with your link posts. The best way to make sure your link shares are prioritized and seen is to include a large preview image (1200 x 630 for the best display on high-resolution devices). The Facebook algorithm demotes links with low resolution photos or links with no photo at all, meaning your fans will probably never see the shared content.
    2. Know what’s even better than images? Video! Social video generates 1200% more shares than text and images combined. Wow! When uploading videos to Facebook, make sure that it’s an original video that you upload directly to Facebook, not a YouTube embed. Facebook prioritizes posts with native video that it can auto-play and caption.
    3. @ mention people and organizations. Get people to tag themselves in your updates. Doing this gives your post more velocity because they will show up on other people’s and organizations’ timelines and feeds. Plus, people get notified when they are @ mentioned and tend to like those posts.
    4. Be original and keep a dialogue going. When sharing posts from other people or other organizations, make sure you are including an original comment. Facebook likes to display posts that have been personalized in some way by the poster, that encourage new thought and dialogue. Also be sure to respond to comments and engage your audience, because this is social media, and consistent, thoughtful responses and dialogue is what will keep them coming back for more.
    5. Encourage direct visits to your Facebook page, and ask your fans to turn on notifications. Direct visits, or visits where people went to your page directly, and not in a feed, indicate special interest and affinity. When people do this, Facebook will tend to prioritize your posts for those people. Encourage direct visits by promoting your Facebook page and specific posts on your website and in emails. Also be sure to ask your fans to turn on notifications for your posts, and even to select “show first in news feed” under the follow options on your brand page, so they never miss a post.

    Bonus tip: Always keep a pulse on the social media and search algorithm updates, but don’t let them rule you. Test, tweak, and test again to see what works best for your organization and your audience.

  • What Employees Want From Office Space: Flexibility

    What Employees Want From Office Space: Flexibility

    About a year ago, I was facing a big office space decision. Do we stay in our current office or move? Keep the current space design or blow it out? Our landlord paid for a fancy architect to come up with new layouts and designs. In the end, we decided to stay in place, sign a short lease and use a modest budget to think about what the next generation Matrix Group office space should look like.

    I held meetings with staff, we visited other offices, and we scoured design magazines and blogs. After a year of discussions and moving furniture around, here is what we’ve learned:

    It’s not about offices, workstations or open space. It’s about flexibility. Turns out most of my staff like being in an open, airy area. BUT, on a regular basis, they want the option to work from home, be isolated so they can concentrate without interruption, or crash on a project with 2-3 other team members. It’s not unusual to find the IT team huddled in one of our huddle spaces during a launch. Or the new biz team meeting in Tatooine (one of our conference rooms) when crashing on a proposal.

    Small meeting rooms can meet a lot of needs. Previously, we had two small meeting rooms and one large one. The large room is used infrequently – a few times a month when we have staff meetings and for large meetings. We replaced the finicky projectors with large TVs and Chromecasts and never looked back. We use the small conference rooms for group calls with clients, troubleshooting teams, and as isolation rooms for people who need quiet time.

    Good design and lack of clutter are inspiring. Over time, office space just degrades. We accumulate junk, the walls get dinged, and stuff gets dingy. It’s so important to step back and give the office a fresh look. In our case, we didn’t have budget for a complete overhaul, so we cleaned the carpets, repainted some walls, bought some new lobby furniture and came up with new artwork for the walls. We also encouraged the staff to declutter their spaces; it’s amazing how much stuff I tossed just from my own office! When I walk around the office, I can feel the breathing room we created just by tossing a lot of junk we had stopped noticing!

    Rethinking how we communicate. On any given day, I have staff working from home or working in a location other than their desk. So how does the poor receptionist find people when they get a call? How do I find someone I need to consult on a project? In our case, Slack has been a godsend and a game changer. Using Slack, we can communicate directly with other staff. Even better, we have Slack channels for each client and each team (e.g., the MatrixMaxx team or the new biz team) so we can easily collaborate, share, and keep each other updated. The expectation is that all staff stay on Slack if they’re working. So it doesn’t matter if you’re working in the kitchen or Tatooine; you will respond if you get a Slack message. Most of us have Slack on our phones as well, so it’s easy to respond to quick questions. Yes, Slack has reduced the amount of in-staff email we send out.

    I’m almost done with the my office redo and the new wall stickers and artwork are coming next week. So stay tuned for a blog post with before and after photos. I’m loving our office and loving the conversations we continue to have about next generation office space.

    How about you? Do you love your office space? What’s working? What do you wish you could have and do?

  • 9 Tips for Holding a Successful Training Session

    Holding a training session can be tough. You have to give your audience all of the information they need in a limited time frame, without overwhelming them or, let’s be honest, putting them to sleep. It can be quite the task and balancing act.

    At Matrix Group, we conduct a lot of training. Over the years I’ve held hundreds of trainings and MatrixMaxx product demos. While my sessions aren’t always 100% flawless, I like to think that I’ve gotten pretty good at holding a successful training session.

    Recently, I gave some of our staff a training session on giving training sessions. Here are the 9 top tips that I shared with the Matrix Group staff on how to make your training sessions successful:

    1. Know your material – This one may seem obvious, but be well prepared and don’t try to wing it. Make a quick bulleted list for yourself of the key points that you want to cover, and, if you do the same training regularly, it might be worth your time to create a standard presentation template that gets customized for each individual training.
    2. Know the audience’s goals – Ask yourself: What are they trying to get out of this training or demo? What information is the most important and useful to them? Do they want an overview, or a deep dive into one or two areas?
    3. Learn about the organization(s) you are talking to – Ask them questions about how they currently do certain things ahead of time, so you can better prepare. Also, be sure to know about any unique customizations the client(s) may have in place when holding a software training.
    4. Prepare sample data – It often goes a long way for the client to see data like their own. Note a couple of examples that illustrate your points, and populate some sample data where necessary.
    5. Slow down – Don’t be afraid of a little silence and don’t rush through the material. You may know the information like the back of your hand, but your audience doesn’t, so make sure you are giving them enough time to let things sink in.
    6. Practice – A little practice makes a big impact, especially if you are conducting a training on or using new material. Formulate a plan for what information you are going to cover, go over your examples and illustrations and think about what you are going to say for each one, then practice, practice, practice.
    7. Speak clearly – Try to avoid “ums” and “ahs”. The previous two tips will also help you to do this. Also, if you are giving a training remotely, keep in mind that conference phone lines tend to muddle things, so take extra care to enunciate.
    8. Periodically prompt for questions – Before changing topics, ask if there are any questions. This gives the more shy audience members an opportunity to ask questions.
    9. Be clear on who will be taking notes – It can be hard to take notes while also conducting a training, without breaking the flow of your presentation. If you have someone else from your organization helping out with the training, be clear about who will be responsible for note taking ahead of time.

    As with anything, practice really does make perfect. But hopefully with these tips you’ll be able to knock any training session out of the park, whether it’s your first or your 50th.

    Have any other tips for how to ensure that your training sessions are successful? I’m all ears!

  • How to Have a Really Great Search on Your Website

    How to Have a Really Great Search on Your Website

    We hear this a lot from people who manage websites and navigate websites, “the site search sucks!” So what can you do to make search not suck on your site?

    Here at Matrix Group, we believe a good site search is the result of many things:

    • Good search technology. There are many products on the market, from the free Google custom search, to the very pricey Google Search Appliance, to commercial products like SearchBlox and open source products like Solr and Lucene. Your vendor can help you navigate the products and find one that is right for you. We like SearchBlox and here’s my Director of Software Engineering on the many reasons why we prefer to implement SearchBlox these days.
    • Effective site search setup. I’m working with a client on a search project and here are just some of her organization’s requirements: she needs her search to index multiple websites, allow filtering of the results by category and source website, index members-only content, support featured results, and allow some content collections to be prioritized over others. A good search solution supports all of these requirements and more. A good search partner helps you develop effective requirements and can implement the solution properly.
    • Good, deep content. Our association and nonprofit clients rarely lack good content, but it is important to take stock of your content, archive what’s outdated or redundant, and keep only the best online. I ask clients to meet as an organization and come up with the topics that they want to be known for on the web, and then audit their content to see if they have ample content on that topic. For example, if I ran Worldchefs and I wanted my site to be known on the web as the place to go if you want to be a culinary chef, I would make sure we have the following types of content:
      • How to be a chef
      • The training you need to become a chef
      • How it takes to become a chef
      • Training for chefs
      • The qualities of a great chef
      • Are great chefs born or made?
      • Etc.
    • Good content preparation. It’s not enough to have good content. Your content has to be optimized for search. Here are some example of best practices: descriptive and unique title tags and H1 headlines on all pages, properties populated in PDF documents, all content available to be crawled, and categories populated and displayed on the page and in metadata.
    • A good understanding of what good search results look like. Sometimes, clients tell me their search sucks. So I ask them to give me examples of 20 searches that people conduct on their site and what great search results look like. If they can’t tell me, we work together to define it. Only then can we refine the search technology, weight the content, and customize the results for the best results.
    • Search analytics. How will you know that your site search is working (or not working?) if you don’t have good analytics? Did you even know that you can have search analytics? Here are some examples: you can track the volume of searches, the search terms being entered, the number of results, and so much more. If you have analytics, be sure to look regularly at what people are searching for and then conduct those searches yourself. Are the results what you expect and want visitors to see?

    My biggest concern with site search is that people complain a lot about it but organizations are rarely willing to invest the time and money to have a really great search. Search is undervalued in that way. I hope that with this post, more organizations understand what goes into having a really great search.

     

  • An Executive Director’s Guide to Getting the Most Out of Your Next Conference

    I recently had coffee with Carol Singer Neuvelt, Executive Director of NAEM. NAEM is a professional association that empowers corporate leaders to advance environmental stewardship, create safe and healthy workplaces, and promote global sustainability.

    Carol says that one of NAEM’s biggest member benefits is its peer-led educational program, during which members share what they’ve done at their companies.

    “How do you make sure members get the most out of these conferences?” I asked Carol.

    Turns out Carol has three rules for getting the most out of a conference and she doesn’t hesitate to remind her members of these three rules at every turn.

    1. Learn something. This sounds so obvious, but how many of us decide to learn something? Carol says that if we go into each session with an open mind and a keen intention to learn at least one thing, the conference will be a success.
    2. Participate in the conversation. Carol says passively attending a conference is not enough. We should ask questions during sessions, interact with the speakers and attendees during the breaks, post comments on social media, and otherwise make our voices heard.
    3. Make a friend. This is my favorite pro tip from Carol. She’s basically telling us to get off our phones and make a new friend. At lunch, during dinner, at breakfast, during a reception. Introduce yourself, explain what you do and why you’re at the conference, and look for ways to connect with others.

    I loved these tips so much, I had to share. They’re so obvious and yet so wise and so needed. I hope you’ll think about these tips as you head out to your next conference and encourage your staff and co-workers to do the same.

  • What Does Digital Transformation Mean for an Association or Non-Profit?

    What Does Digital Transformation Mean for an Association or Non-Profit?

    What does digital transformation mean for an association or non-profit? What does this transformation look like?

    These were two of the questions posed by Teri Carden, Founder of ReviewMyAMS and organizer of AMS Fest 2017, held a couple of weeks ago in Chicago. AMS Fest is a conference devoted to bringing together Association Management Software (AMS) companies and association executives looking for a new system to power their organizations.

    I saw lots of scribbled answers about using data to make better decisions, paying attention to data, having advanced analytics, next generation data maturity, etc.

    To be honest, these answers leave me cold. If an organization has great analytics and uses it to make better decisions, has it been digitally transformed?

    Webster defines transformation as “an act, process, or instance of transforming or being transformed.” The verb transform has multiple meanings:

    1. to change in composition or structure
    2. to change the outward form or appearance of
    3. to change in character or condition

    To transform something, therefore, is to make it new or completely different. If organizations do something different or differently, it has not necessarily been transformed.

    In my mind, an organization has been transformed when it no longer recognizes itself. When it engages in activities and behaviors that would have been unthinkable five years ago. When its decision-making and governance have been upended. When it attracts and retains a different class of members and staff. When members say “I don’t recognize my association.”

    And while a transformation is not necessarily positive, I think the only type of transformation we should concern ourselves with is the kind that is positive – the kind that results in growth, and ushers in a period of self-renewal.

    Data and data analytics no doubt play a huge role in any digital transformation, and even paying attention to data may represent a big change in some organizations. But analytics is only a means to the transformation that many organizations seek and desire today.

  • When Redesigning Your Website, Don’t Confuse Goals with Requirements

    When Redesigning Your Website, Don’t Confuse Goals with Requirements

    I read a lot of RFPs and I attend a lot of website redesign kickoff meetings. The most important questions I ask are, “Why redesign? Why now?”

    I usually get answers like:

    • Our website needs to mobile-friendly
    • The website needs a faceted search
    • Our site search sucks
    • The website isn’t user-friendly

    While these are all perfectly good reasons, I think of these statements as requirements, not goals.

    When Matrix Group is working on a project, we strive to understand the measures of success. If we launch a site that is gorgeous, user-friendly, mobile-friendly and has a great search, will we have been successful? Sure… BUT is the new site generating membership leads, encouraging downloads of research, generating more revenue, raising awareness through better ranking in search, and ultimately bringing in more members and customers?

    Those are the goals we want to ferret out during kickoffs and discovery. How is the new site ultimately supporting the strategic and growth goals of your association?

    In my mind, we won’t know the answer for six to 12 months after launch. That’s scary. It’s so much easier to say the new site is a success because the board loves it and it’s easier to update. But after spending $50,000, $100,000, $150,000 or more and countless staff hours, don’t you want to be able to point to more quantitative results related to your mission and strategic plan?

  • How Google Docs and Google Slides Changed Biz Dev at Matrix Group

    How Google Docs and Google Slides Changed Biz Dev at Matrix Group

    A few years ago, Matrix Group Creative Director Alex Pineda suggested that we ditch PowerPoint and move to Google Slides. The reason? Collaborating on a PPT file is really hard. We used to pass around huge files via email or rely on the network share. Alex came up with a beautiful template and the rest is history.

    Today, when the marketing or biz dev team is working on the slides for a webinar or pitch, we all gather in one room (the remote folks call in from home), get on a conference line, share the slides and get to work. It is mind-boggling how awesome this experience is. We’ll talk about a new slide, Leah will create it and Alex will make it beautiful. Or I’ll move slides around while Leah is proofreading. In real-time, at such a low cost – it’s ridiculous. No Sharepoint, no programming.

    18 months ago, we decided to give Google Docs a try for drafting proposals. It was fabulous except for one thing. The Google Docs Table of Contents didn’t have page numbers; I guess Google assumed everyone would be viewing documents online. Ugh, this was a dealbreaker because the new biz team creates PDF files of proposals and sends them on to clients, prospects and consultants.

    Then, about a month ago, we realized that Google Docs now has page numbers in the Table of Contents. We decided to give Docs another try. But when should we try? I don’t know about you, but there’s never really a good time in a busy agency to switch to a new system, especially one for authoring proposals.

    But then we had two weeks (a luxury!) on one proposal and we decided to give it a go. We migrated our proposal language and styles, then Alex got to work. He added more color, added editable graphic elements, updated the default font to be our official font, and created graceful table layouts.

    Last week, five of us worked on the proposal in real-time. I wrote up the solution. Nick updated the bios. Bryan checked to make sure all elements were in place and worked up the timeline and budget. Leah proofed and edited. Alex used his designer’s eye to make the proposal gorgeous. “Yay,” Alex said, “I can finally make our proposals look amazing!” Gosh, even the PDF of the proposal looked great.

    I can honestly say that switching to Google Docs has been life-changing.
    • We are no longer passing around large files.
    • We save so much time because we can work at once on the same document.
    • While there is always a document “owner,” everyone can make a contribution.
    • Slides and proposals are now viewable AND editable from my phone!!!

    I still use Word for contracts and tasks orders because clients and attorneys like to work in Word to track changes. Next week, I’ll talk about how Matrix Group uses Google Docs to write up and collaborate on spec documents. Maybe in the future, I’ll negotiate a contract in Google Docs!

    If you haven’t experienced the life-changing magic of collaborating on a Google Doc or Google Slides, now’s the time! And if you’re already on the bandwagon, please share your experiences!

  • Why Your CEO Needs to Attend Your Redesign Meeting

    Why Your CEO Needs to Attend Your Redesign Meeting

    I attend a lot of kickoff meetings. For  redesigns, mobile apps, custom databases, you name it.

     

    The best kickoff meetings are the ones where the CEO, Executive Director, the EVP or President attend, participate actively and provide insight. Why?
    • When the top person in the organization attends a meeting, staff know that meeting is important. Staff show up and pay attention.
    • The CEO usually has a good read on who the organization’s target audiences are and what they need. This perspective usually comes from their frequent interactions with members, partners, sponsors, the media, and Capitol Hill.
    • The top person is also usually the top spokesperson for the organization, they can best articulate the brand, mission and voice. 
    If your CEO opts not to attend, telling you he or she trusts your judgment, still ask for a 20 minute meeting. Ask him or her to rank target audiences and describe what success looks like for your project. Any decent CEO will give you 20 minutes and his or her insight will be an invaluable road map to success.
  • Why There is Still Room for a Small, Local Player in the AMS Space

    Why There is Still Room for a Small, Local Player in the AMS Space

    Last month, some of the largest AMS (association management software) companies (YourMembership, Abila, Aptify and NimbleAMS) joined forces to create Community Brands, which they describe as “a powerful and unified family of brands and a connected eco-system of software and services to better serve associations, nonprofits and government entities.”

    One can quibble over whether or not Community Brands will be a “family” of complementary or competing brands. But for a company like Matrix Group, with our web-based MatrixMaxx AMS, the big question is: In this age of mega-mergers, is there still room for a small, local player? Can we compete with the big guys for clients and talent?

    I’m confident that the answer is a resounding “Yes!”

    Many years ago, the book club at Matrix Group read Small Giants by Bo Burlingham, Editor-at-Large at Inc. magazine. In the book, Bo writes about 14 companies that are small and growing or small and choosing to stay small. In all cases, they have chosen excellence over growth.

    Excellence over growth has always been my mantra. If growth made sense in any given year, we went for it, but never at the expense of technical excellence, customer service, customer intimacy and terrific user experience.

    Sure, in many ways, being small, niche and custom is anti-trend. Aren’t we all shopping at Amazon and big box retailers? Aren’t we most impressed by the companies that have big, booming growth and huge total revenue numbers (often ignoring net income; we rarely hear about that). But on the other hand, there’s a movement to support small, local businesses. Think of the millennials who prefer independent coffee shops, bookstores and clothing shops.There’s a reason they prefer small and local and I’d wager it’s because they get a more personalized, friendly, and tailored experience.

    I spoke with a few clients over the past few weeks and they told me that they like working with Matrix Group because:

    • We have an amazing staff
    • Our work is of very high quality
    • We offer superior technical solutions on the AMS and custom sides of the business
    • We are easy to work with, easy to reach
    • We listen and respond to their needs
    • They never feel like just another client among hundreds or thousands
    • We have a track record of success
    • They know we’ll do what it takes to help them be successful
    • They get customized, personal attention and ideas

    While small companies don’t have a monopoly on the above characteristics, somehow, smaller companies are more likely to take the time to really get to know their customers.

    As for the war on talent, I absolutely love this opinion piece by columnist Gene Marks in Inc. Magazine. He talks about why it’s better to work for a small company over a large company. In fact, I have refugees from large firms who tell me they enjoy have a large voice in the company, having an outsized impact on clients’ success, and easy access to senior leadership.

    For sure, going up against a behemoth like Community Brands will be challenging. But I gotta stay true to my core belief that we can compete with any company and help our clients make the world a better place. I know that Matrix Group and the MatrixMaxx AMS can compete based on technical solutions, customer service, price and customer intimacy. No question about it.