Entries in Social Networking (94)

Friday
19Mar2010

What Social Media Strategy Looks like for Safe Place

DateFriday, March 19, 2010 at 06:12PM | by AuthorJill Foster
It was a sunny SxSW Saturday last week where people came together for Zoetica Media's brunch and brainstorm session -- with one nonprofit in mind:  Safe Place.

Community and a Strategic Starting Point
The goal was to look at Safe Place's community, internally and externally, and offer a strategic starting point for this nonprofit's social media plan.

They are doing vital work in the Austin area. Their team provides shelter, a 24 hour hotline, and educational services to those impacted by sexual violence and domestic abuse.  

I haven't discussed this topic very much, especially in a brainstorm setting like this. Despite that discomfort, I was motivated by just how compelling a discussion group can be in the face of greater community impact.

Key Questions: A Social Media Plan Takes Shape
Who really is a community partner? 
How do they engage with eachother?

These questions were at the heart of discussion.  And Narissa Johnson, Safe Place's communications director, observed some interesting results from the conversations.  

In this onsite video interview, we talk about what most stood out strategically for taking her social media plan to the next level.

What do you think about these ideas? What would you add for moving her social media plan forward?

 

Jill Foster blogs at Live Your Talk, on resources and stories to help professional women be excellent communicators through social media and public speech. She is co-founder of DC Media Makers and founding editor of Women Grow Business.

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Wednesday
17Mar2010

Tweetlytics: Monitor Your Organization's Impact on Twitter

DateWednesday, March 17, 2010 at 06:34PM | by AuthorAllyson Kapin

Has your nonprofit been frustrated with the lack of comprehensive analytic tools for Twitter? How can organizations on a budget be expected to truly measure their impact and engagement using social media, if they don’t have the tools to properly analyze it? Thanks to Shana Glickfield of the BeeKeeper Group, I discovered a great new tool called tweetlytics that provides detailed analytics and slick graphical renderings of data then many of the other budget oriented Twitter analytic tools don’t have. Here’s how it works.

Organizations can sign-up to monitor between five and fifteen campaigns at a time that they are promoting on Twitter. Campaign Managers tag multiple keywords for each of the campaigns that they want to analyze. For example, if I were setting Tweetlytics up for a group like Planned Parenthood, a campaign would be Save Roe. Some keywords I would tag and track for the Save Roe campaign within Tweetlytics would be prochoice, Roe Vs Wade, Planned Parenthood, as well as opposition keywords like anti-choice, prolife, etc.

Once the campaign is up and running, Campaign Managers login and generate reports. Reports can also be delivered to your inbox daily and include:

  • Total tweets and links about campaigns.
  • Top Twitter users who mention your campaigns. Campaign Managers can also click on the link and see the actual tweets.
  • Top hashtags

Click to read more ...

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Monday
08Mar2010

Top Nonprofit Leaders to Follow on Twitter

DateMonday, March 8, 2010 at 04:46PM | by AuthorAllyson Kapin

In the past year, registered Twitter accounts have grown more than 1,500%, according to Biz Stone, Co-Founder of Twitter. With such an explosion of new voices, that’s a lot of tweets and noise for nonprofit campaigners to filter through.  So if you can only carve out 20 minutes a day to follow nonprofit leaders and thinkers discussing nonprofit issues on Twitter, who would they be? Tough question, right? There are so many smart folks. Here’s my top 10. Feel free to add your top picks too in the comments section.  Note: I have kept the list to only include one person per organization. And don’t forget to follow @Care2frogloop – Frogloop’s very own Twitter feed.

@jocelynharmon – Jocelyn, who has been working in the nonprofit sector for over a decade tweets about online fundraising and how to connect with donors, email marketing, and online advocacy. Jocelyn is also the Director of Nonprofit Services for Care2.com, the company who runs the Care2Frogloop blog.

@kanter – The go-to expert on social media for nonprofits.

 

@mobileactive – One of the best sources for information on integrating mobile into campaigns.



@NancySchwartz – As a nonprofit marketer, Nancy tweets about online and offline communications including email copywriting, fundraising strategy, and nonprofit resources she discovers.

 

@nptechblogs – Tweets about the latest articles from the top nonprofit blogs.

 

Click to read more ...

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Thursday
25Feb2010

Is Your Nonprofit Reaching Diverse Activists and Donors

DateThursday, February 25, 2010 at 10:53AM | by AuthorAllyson Kapin

The demographics of the US are changing. An estimated 40% of the US is comprised of people of color, according to 2008 US Census data. Yet many nonprofits online lists aren’t diverse. Why aren’t nonprofits cultivating diverse activists and donors (a topic Jocelyn Harmon of Care2, Shireen Mitchell of Digital Sistas, and Ivan Booth of Rootwork and I will be discussing on our panel at NTC on April 10th)?  People of color care about the environment and climate change, women’s rights and equal pay, healthcare reform, labor reform, human rights, etc. Yet outreach and cultivation to diverse communities are typically done around election time, instead of as part of our regular campaign outreach work. This is a big mistake.

“Many people of color's lives are impacted by social justice issues everyday, some significantly more than others. Many are committed and have died for the issues they believe in. They are committed activists and nonprofits should be cultivating them,” said Shireen Mitchell, founder of Digital Sistas, a nonprofit that focuses on promoting women's equality in technology and a public speaker on this issue.

Furthermore, by not having diverse activists and donors, nonprofits are missing out on interesting and new ways to discuss, approach or address social justice issues with diverse audiences which also brings diverse perspectives, said Mitchell.

During the 2008 Presidential election, voter turnout increased by about “2 million more black voters, 2 million more Hispanic voters and about 600,000 more Asian voters, while the number of non-Hispanic white voters remained statistically unchanged,” according to the US Census Bureau.

Are nonprofits harnessing the social power of diverse communities who care about issues that nonprofits advocate?

“At the most basic level, all nonprofits are trying to change something in the world. It goes without saying that how we go about organizing, communicating and fundraising and whom we engage in our work can have a dramatic impact on our outcomes,” said Harmon in a recent blog post on Diversity, Community, Technology and You.

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Wednesday
10Feb2010

Nonprofit Weekly Picks

DateWednesday, February 10, 2010 at 08:16PM | by AuthorAllyson Kapin

Should CEOs and Executive Directors Use Social Media? 

I get asked this question a lot. Should Executive Directors be tweeting or be active on Facebook? Blogger and social media trainer, Beth Kanter says "It depends."

"There are definitely some benefits to having your Executive Director or CEO being present on social media channels.  They can provide a human face to your organization's work, a unique viewpoint, and serve as a thought leader in your field," said Kanter.

To be successful, EDs need to be authentic and not use ghost writers. They also need to be comfortable with technology and being transparent, Kanter said.

Beth also lists some great ED's who really get social media including Holly Ross of NTEN and Scott Harrison of Charity:Water.

Check out the rest of the article here.

Is Microgiving the New Layaway?

It's no secret that nonprofits have had to get creative to raise money online in this down economy. Joanne Fritz of About.com, takes a look at how donors are relying more on microgiving than ever before. One of the best examples Fritz sites is a comparison of the average donation made during the 2004 Tsunami ($208) and the recent Haiti earthquake ($109). Why? Because a big chunk of donations were raised via mobile which only allows between $5 and $10 donations.

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Sunday
31Jan2010

Nonprofit Social Media Benchmarks Study

DateSunday, January 31, 2010 at 07:28PM | by AuthorAllyson Kapin

Interested in setting Facebook and Twitter benchmarks for your nonprofit but don’t know where to start? Check out M+R Strategic Services first Nonprofit Social Media Benchmarks Study, which includes sample research by groups such as Easter Seals, Oxfam, Human Rights Campaign, League of Conservation Voters, and more.

Facebook Key Findings:               

  • Organizations posted to their Facebook Pages about six times weekly.
  • 2.5% of each organization's Facebook fans took some sort of an action weekly such as contributing wall posts, "likes," or comments.
  • Generating a high fan rate is important, since news feeds carry that activity to potential new fans.
  • Facebook fans grew by 3.75% monthly. However, it’s important to note that 2% of Facebook fans either removed themselves or chose to hide the news feed monthly.
  • The overall fan churn rate is 24% per year, which is higher than the eNonprofit Benchmarks Study email churn rate of 19% per year.

Facebook Recommendations

  • M+R recommends that nonprofits find their Facebook fans' "sweet spot" between too many and too few posts.
  • Measure your organizations stats and engagement now and focus on improving those results over time.
  • Engage and provide interesting and useful info to your fans.

Be sure and also check out Frogloop’s "Five Tips to Ramp Up Your Nonprofits Fan Page."

Twitter Key Findings

  • Organizations tweeted four to five times daily.
  • Twitter followers grew by 9% monthly, much higher than average monthly growth on both Facebook fan pages at 3.75% and nonprofit email lists at 1.4%.

Click to read more ...

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Monday
25Jan2010

Online Communications Planning for Nonprofits

DateMonday, January 25, 2010 at 06:17PM | by AuthorSuki Lee

Is building your nonprofit's online community a priority for your organization in 2010? What about expanding your outreach? Here are my top seven ideas to consider implementing this coming year.

1. Blogs: Building Your Online Community
If your organization doesn’t have a blog, you should consider launching one in 2010. Search engines, Facebook and Twitter reward valuable blog content with expert status and donor support. As your organization’s communicator, you may want to appoint yourself the Editor-in-chief of your blog. Take Frogloop’s Editor, Allyson Kapin, as your muse and build a community of bloggers. Start with your nonprofit's team. Having a venue from which your organization can share its knowledge will expand your audiences, and build a robust internal culture. If writing doesn’t appeal to everyone, you may want to enlist your colleagues to publish photos, audio or video.

2. Building Your Nonprofit’s Community on Twitter
One of the most important roles of a communicator is to build community around your nonprofit. A
good place to focus your efforts is search.twitter.com, where you can see what people are chatting
about, trending topics and join in on the conversation. Developing relationships should involve talking about the great campaigns that other nonprofits are working on as well and responding to @replies. That will make it more likely that others will want to spread the word about what you’re working on, and collaborate with you.

3. The Perfect Match: Social Media Relations and Traditional PR
Success will come to those communicators who engage in both new and traditional communications
channels. Consider building a Social Media Release (SMR) in which you consolidate photos, embedded
video and presentations.

Click to read more ...

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