It was a pleasure working with Mary Ann on her UK-based nonprofit, site, Able Child Africa. The site has one main goal: to inform/promote donations. The project helps children with disabilities in Africa reach their fullest potential. This post shows the results of our social media strategy call. 

In the strategy call we covered:

- How to make donating to causes more engaging

- Which campaigns are currently doing so effectively (I pointed her to I Want a Goat)

- How to communicate authority on the site

- How to create a visual hierarchy on each page*

- Best practices for looping in social media elements

Just a month after our call, Mary Ann sent an email thanking me for helping her with the site. I cruised over to take a look at the changes. I was thrilled with the results.

This is the site before our conversation:

The site one month after our strategy call:

What makes the second site better in social web terms

The first site did what it needed to do at the time when it was first built. While the web changes quickly, there some elements that are immutable. Unfortunately, simply throwing social web icons on your design (if it needs updating) isn't going to do the trick. In this case, a restructuring was the answer. 

In the second version of the site you see:

- Clear hierarchy of information

- Concrete calls to action (Join Our Mailing List)

- Video

- Search functionality

- Fresh content tied into the front page (so when she writes a new blog post, it hits the front page stream)

- Social media icons and streams seamlessly incorporated

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Of course, it will be some time before we know how much these updates will impact the number of donations (bottom line, that's what charities exist to do - get money from donors to care for the children and families with which they work).

I've asked to follow up with Mary Ann in a few months but what you can do (besides donating, if you're moved to do so) is cruise over and check out the site. Leave a comment and say hi to Mary Ann. I'm so happy with what she's creating on the social web.

I'm honored to have contributed to this project - by empowering Mary Ann to create a site she loves.

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Quick interview with Mary Ann

GB: Was there any one piece of advice that made the biggest difference? 

MA: I think it was the practical specific advice on making it interactive – you helped me make the step from idea bubbling around in my head to a practical approach to changing the site quickly

GB: How would you describe the experience [of working with me]? 

MA: Really helpful, targeted and practical.  After the call I had a list of 4 key ideas and some reference points from which to develop concrete action.  I liked the fact that you quickly thought of other examples to help me visualize your ideas.

*the best book I've read on the topic of UI/User Experience: Don't Make Me Think - I may make that book required reading before bringing on any future client. It's that good.

**Great work to Steve Watson for executing the strategy in the Able Child Africa site redesign. (Also, nice hat.)

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About the author:

Gwen Bell runs a social web practice based in downtown Boulder, Colorado. She excels at intuiting a client's needs, reflecting them back and creating a strategy for the web around said needs. Put it this way. If the web were an ocean, she'd be the surf instructor reading the waves. (And showing you how to mount your surf board without losing your shorts.)

If you'd like to hire her, please provide the scope of your project when making your request. There is currently a 30-day wait list for new clients.