Build Your Own Dashboard to Monitor Your Nonprofit's Brand

As nonprofits get more comfortable integrating social media into their communications outreach, they still face an uphill battle in how to track their brand through a user-friendly dashboard. Sure, there are paid services like Radian6 that will help organizations filter out the noise so you can listen to what different audiences have to say about your brand, but these services can be pricey. What affordable and easy options do nonprofits have to track their brand online in one central space? Carie Lewis of the Humane Society of the United States, pondered this too and came up with a great, free solution using iGoogle. In a nutshell, Igoogle lets you setup your own dashboard to monitor your organization’s brand by pulling in several RSS feeds.

Here’s a sneak peak of HSUS’s dashboard and what they are “listening” for.

• Brand - mentions of your nonprofit, including acronyms, misspellings, etc.
• Current Issues - what people are talking about that involve your nonprofit right now.
• Detractors - people or other nonprofits you know dislike your nonprofit or issue but talk about you (the opposition).
• Competition - nonprofits or people in the same space as your nonprofit.
• Staff Mentions - prominent people in your organization like your Executive Director.

HSUS Monitors Their Brand Via:

• Google Alerts
• Tweetmeme -  tracks the most popular tweets about a subject.
• Technorati - tracks blogs that mention certain keywords.
• Blogpulse - a blog monitoring tool.
• Digg - highlights most popular articles on the web.
• Boardreader - shows forum posts by keyword.
• Filtrbox - a paid monitoring service that tracks social media conversations.

Carie’s Tips for Getting Started:

1. Start with a blank iGoogle page.
2. Choose the 3 column layout.
3. Open a new browser window. Do a search on Technorati for your org name. You'll see a "subscribe" link. Click on it.
4. A window in Google Reader should open. Copy the feed URL in the top left corner.
5. Go back to iGoogle, and click on "add stuff" and add feed or gadget.
6. Paste the URL into the box and save.
7. You'll be taken back to your iGoogle page, where you should see a new box with the content from Technorati mentioning your org name.
8. Repeat these steps for each site, then each tab and voila you have your own dashboard to monitor your nonprofit's brand.

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Comments

[Lauren Vargas]

The tools you have listed are a good start for conversation monitoring, but please do not count out Radian6 just because you are a non-profit. The tool does have a price tag, but the content retrieved surpasses Google Alerts in a timely manner. Our doors are always open to talk with non-profits and find a solution perfect for you.

Lauren Vargas
Community Manager at Radian6
@VargasL

[Carie Lewis]

Thanks Alyson, saw this come up on our iGoogle Dashboard :)

-Carie from HSUS

[Charles]

Fantastic. Frogloop really adds value. And, I might add, keeps Care2 on my mind even though we can't quite be a client at this point. Good job.

[Ivan Boothe]

ReadWriteWeb just covered an interesting new tool -- Favstar -- that lets you follow, by RSS feed, who favorites (stars) your Tweets. As MarshallK writes:

"Why is this useful? Well, I had no idea that widely respected PR pro Constantin Basturea was thinking about me until Favstar showed me that he favorited one of my recent tweets. We haven't exchanged words in months - but his thinking of me makes me think about him. I know now that I could reach out to him about the subject of that tweet or some other matter and I'd already have a place somewhere toward the front of his mind."
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_to_see_when_your_tweets_are_favorited_by_rss.php

Seems like a great way for nonprofits to see which silently-favoriting supporters might be ready for some personal outreach.

[Kari Chisholm]

Great idea. But there's a lot of data that you'd want to track that isn't just RSS data. Or am I missing something? Any chance of seeing a screenshot of what you're talking about?

[Allyson Kapin]

Thanks Kari, I will pass along your screenshot request to Carie at HSUS.