Everyone experiences a variety of negative comments online, whether it is on a social media site, blog, review site etc. The effect of the comment depends on how you choose to respond to it. Ragan.com has a few articles that explain the importance of how to answer a comment or question made online and the proper way to do so. Here is an article from Ragan about 5 Ways to Handle Negative Facebook Comments. Now just because this article is about Facebook, does not mean that the points do not apply to any other medium that allows comments. The content is still very relevant to any forum online.

Visual content. What does that include? Well, photos and videos are a good start. Now where and how are you sharing this content? On Twitter? YouTube? Facebook? How about Instagram or Pinterest? If you don't have accounts with any of those mediums - you might be missing out on potential customers or reaching your current ones to keep them engaged. 

Recently Progressive Insurance has gone under fire of public scrutiny. Matt Fisher posted on his Tumblr account about his sister recently passing from a car crash she was involved in back in 2010. His sister, Katie, was killed by a driver who ran a red light. 

What is the best day to tweet, update your Facebook page, post a blog (if you are only posting once a week) or post within any of your social media mediums? The short answer is: Tuesday.

Facebook has changed the layout of pages several times in the past year. Recently Facebook changed the settings on fan pages, with 5 new features. You can now post a promoted post on your wall, assign admin roles, schedule future posts, new insight features and the "Like" button has been redesigned to become more mobile friendly. Promoted posts are the latest buzz when it comes to Facebook - and causing some issues. You will be able to create a post and promote it for a small amount and see how many more people it reaches. With new changes to the admin section, admins should be able to efficiently manage the page and creators of the page can control how much admins have access to. 

Here are a few Facebook post ideas for YMCAs! Increasing membership and keeping members interested in a Facebook page can be challenging. Post interesting, relative content to keep members coming back for all their YMCA updates. Create interaction with your members on your Facebook page with some of these great post ideas: 

Pinterest is the newest social networking site to hit the internet. Pinterest allows users to "pin" their "interests" to boards that are centered around a theme. For example, let's say you are planning on redoing a room in your house. There is a list of interests that Pinterest has, where the pins are already organized in a newsfeed form. If you have the patience to scroll through the pins, and you click on the "Home Decor" link, then you will find a variety of different "For the Home" decor. There are pins for every decorating taste.

What is a call-to-action? A call-to-action, or CTA, is a statement intended to catch a reader's attention by inspiring them to click the statement and fill out your form. By filling your form out the reader is able to have access to useful information. CTAs need to be relevant to the content you are providing. There are several different words or phrases you can use to create hype around your CTA. Those phrases could be, Download Now!, Enter Here!, Subscribe me now! etc. 

The world is turning to mobile and we all need to stop, take a few moments and try to access our own websites for mobile usage. On average our team sees statistics that reflect 10% + of a YMCA website’s traffic viewed on a mobile device. Sometimes as high as 20%. This means that 1-2 people for every 10 are on a smartphone or a tablet.

Take a moment and go to your YMCA website on your mobile device. How does it look? If it’s not so good maybe it’s time to start planning to be “mobile friendly”.

Here are some things to consider......
    •    By 2013, more people will use their mobile phones than their PCs to get online (Gartner, 2010; Google Mobile Optimization Webinar 2011; Cisco, 2011)
    •    71% of users expect a mobile site to load as fast as a desktop site (Compuware, “What Users Want From Mobile”, 2011)
    •    57% would not recommend a business with a bad mobile site (Compuware, “What Users Want From Mobile”, 2011)
    •    79% prefer mobile sites for product reviews (Adobe Systems, “Adobe Mobile Experience Survey” 2011; eMarketer, 2011)


As a YMCA you can take this slowly. First put together a plan of action - here is a quick list..

1. Review your website statistics. Identify the top 5 most visited content areas.
2.  Rank them from 1-5.
3. Create a budget to work with to convert your site to be mobile ready. $3500 is an average figure you can usually get a strong first generation mobile site built for.

Once you have these steps taken care of you are ready to dive into creating a mobile site and stay ahead of the curve.