Posts Tagged ‘social networking’

Just what we needed—another social network | Weekly Roundup

September 3rd, 2010 by Elizabeth Ricca
  • A warm online welcome to the latest arrival on the social networking scene: Ping, a music network from Apple. Ping probably won’t be immediately relevant for most nonprofits, but it depends—if music lovers are one of your audiences, you might want to keep an eye out as it grows.
  • Just when you’re thinking email is nice and predictable, Google changes up the game. Priority Inbox, a new feature for Gmail, uses a smart algorithm to pop the most important messages up to the top of the list. It brings up an important question for nonprofit communicators: how can make your org’s emails valuable and interesting enough to earn a priority spot in your recipient’s mailbox?
  • Don’t take it for granted that your website visitors want to receive your e-newsletter. On Future Fundraising Now, Jeff Brooks shares an example from New York Public Library illustrating why it’s important to make the case for why your emails are worth it.
  • Foursquare’s first cause-related badge—which you can earn by checking in when you get tested for STDs, as part of a campaign run by MTV—offers an interesting example of how nonprofits and causes can work location-based media into outreach efforts.
  • You know you need to measure your social media results—but are you measuring the right things? Find out with these tips from Beth Kanter on how to track your data in ways that are meaningful and relevant.

A weekly roundup of interesting reads from the online world of nonprofit communications. Follow me on Twitter @elizabethricca for more noteworthy links.

Leave a Comment

Bookmark and Share

Finding your audience – a lesson from the World Cup

June 24th, 2010 by Madeleine Milan

As you may have noticed – thanks in part to people in team jerseys staggering out of bars at 9:30am over the past few weeks – the (soccer) World Cup is taking place at the moment.

Being British, I’m used to watching World Cup matches in big, beery crowds. It’s all part of the fun: there’s nothing quite like the camaraderie you get from watching your over-hyped, overpaid team crash out of the tournament yet again with a large group of sweaty and disappointed strangers.

So as the World Cup approached this year and I realized I might not be able to find such a crowd in New York, I was dejected. “After all,” I thought, “there can’t be that many people in New York who want to go to the pub and bellow at the England soccer team at 10:00am on a weekday.”

As it turned out — I needn’t have worried. There are plenty of people in New York who want to do just that. All I had to do was find them, and with the help of friends and some googling, find them I did.

For nonprofits, finding supporters for your cause might sometimes seem about as difficult as finding British soccer fans in the Big Apple — particularly if your cause is very specific.

But as I’ve seen this week, there’s an audience out there for almost everything, it’s just a question of finding them. One call to a friend led me to meet more  soccer fan friends – asking your existing supporters to forward your latest online campaign could introduce you to many of their like-minded friends and family. A quick Google search led me to a bar full of fans – a quick search of Meet-ups and Facebook groups might reveal new prospects ready and eager to join your cause.

But be careful: finding your audience is only the first step. Just like the England team, if you don’t deliver on the promises that lead new prospects to join your cause (like, oh say, being the best English team in the last 10 years or having a genuine chance at winning this thing), you’ll quickly have a disappointed and potentially rowdy crowd on your hands…

Leave a Comment

Bookmark and Share

So, Facebook, what’s new? | Weekly Roundup

April 23rd, 2010 by Elizabeth Ricca
  • Facebook is making my head hurt this week. Let’s start with the easy one: language changes. If your organization has a Facebook Page, you’ve probably noticed the button formerly known as “become a fan” is now a “like” button. Facebook hopes this will lower the bar for engagement. Time will tell…
  • …and quickly, because Facebook has also created a “like” button that can be used on any webpage anywhere. This is just one of many new changes and initiatives announced this week at Facebook’s developer conference, helpfully summarized on the Fast Company blog. The implications are still emerging, but they’re big—Facebook has just made a serious bid to be the owner of your online identity. For nonprofits, expect the game to start changing as your website and your Facebook presence become ever more closely linked.
  • Happily, the second annual Nonprofit Social Network Benchmark Report (produced by NTEN, Common Knowledge, and ThePort) is here, just in time to help us figure out whether all this Facebook hoopla is even worth it from a nonprofit communications perspective. Download a copy, and see how your nonprofit’s social networking activity stacks up against the sector at large.
  • Ning, a popular platform for building white-label social networks, has announced plans to discontinue their free service in the next few months, affecting thousands of online communities (and many nonprofits—check out Manny Hernandez’s post urging Ning to offer a program for nonprofits and educational networks). In spite of the bad news, Robin McIntyre on Social Media Bird Brain points out an opportunity to make lemonade: think of this as an important reminder to plan for the unexpected, and factor long-term strategy into your short-term social media plans.
  • And, of course, the biggest news of the past week: grammar! The AP Stylebook has officially changed its guidelines from “Web site” to “website”. The future is here.

A weekly roundup of interesting reads from the online world of nonprofit communications. Follow me on Twitter @elizabethricca or check out my Delicious bookmarks for more noteworthy links.

Leave a Comment

Bookmark and Share

Social media of Olympic proportions | Weekly Roundup

February 19th, 2010 by Elizabeth Ricca
  • Bet you thought I couldn’t find a tie between the Olympics and nonprofit communications. Well, stand back: on MediaShift, Craig Silverman talks social media with Graeme Menzies, director of online communications for the Vancouver games, who raises some very interesting points about how critical it is to have a flexible approach online tools. Just think: four years ago, as the Vancouver team was putting together its plans and learning lessons from Turino, Facebook was still just for college students, and Twitter was hardly a twinkle in Jack Dorsey’s eye. The takeaway: make sure your approach to social media includes clear goals and a coherent strategy; tactical plans based on specific tools will have a pretty short shelf-life.
  • You’ve written your blogs; crafted your tweets; posted your videos to YouTube. On to the next event: live streaming. Joshua Tabb offers some tips for how nonprofits can make use of live video streaming sites like Ustream.tv on Case Foundation’s blog. (Speaking of which, have I mentioned the live-streaming puppy cam? They’ve gotten so big!)
  • Facebook not quite cutting it for your nonprofit? Set up your very own social network with the help of these great guidelines on building cause-based communities from Geoff Livingston.
  • Jaime-Alexis Fowler has some handy suggestions on NTEN’s blog for making the most of online video, even if your budget and technical know-how is limited. Wield your Flip cam with pride!
  • Not an expert at search engine optimization? Begin at the beginning with these ideas for writing search-engine-friendly website copy from Jason Falls on Social Media Explorer.

A weekly roundup of interesting reads from the online world of nonprofit communications. Check out my Delicious bookmarks for more noteworthy links.

Leave a Comment

Bookmark and Share

In the mood for buzz | Weekly Roundup

February 12th, 2010 by Elizabeth Ricca
  • In case you haven’t heard, there’s a new social network in town. Is Buzz a Twitter-killer? Should Facebook be running scared? No one knows (although some people think they do). While you’re watching the drama unfold, make sure your nonprofit has claimed a Gmail address and that you’ve set up your Google profile.
  • Happy sixth birthday, Facebook. My, you’re awfully big for your age. Check out this very interesting information visualization from Muhammad Saleem depicting Facebook’s growth (did you know that about 200 million people log into Facebook every day? That’s about 2/3 the size of the U.S. population).
  • All this data is making Facebook ads sound pret-ty appealing right about now. If you’ve considered factoring a Facebook ad campaign into your fundraising or advocacy efforts, this detailed how-to from Nonprofit Tech 2.0 is a must-read.
  • Kaitlin LaCasse at Idealware shares examples of a few nonprofits who’ve set up online “dashboards” to monitor progress toward key goals (fundraising, memberships, you name it). Fun with online tools can be practical, too!
  • Your organization has it’s social media game face on. But is your executive director ready to tweet? Beth Kanter shares some examples of EDs and CEOs who blog or tweet, as well as some tips to help you decide when it’s time to push your executive leadership into the deep end of the social media pool.

A weekly roundup of interesting reads from the online world of nonprofit communications. Check out my Delicious bookmarks for more noteworthy links.

Leave a Comment

Bookmark and Share

Social Media and Technology: What Nonprofits Need To Know

October 20th, 2009 by Farra Trompeter

Yesterday, I attended — and live tweeted (#baruchnp) — an interesting panel discussion at Baruch College here in New York, “Social Media and Technology: What Nonprofits Need To Know.” The panel featured some great nonprofit social media heavy-hitters:

  • Allison Fine, Speaker and Author of Momentum: Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age
  • Andrew Rasiej, Founder of Personal Democracy Forum
  • Deanna Zandt, Media Technologist, Consultant, and Author of the forthcoming book: Share This! How You Will Change the World with Social Networking

There were lots of good gems shared and discussed. While most of it was not particularly new for those of us who have been following, studying, working in social media for nonprofits, it all bears repeating. This is still such a new field.

(L to R) Kyra Gaunt (@kyraocity) speaking, with Allison Fine (@afine), Andrew Rasiej (@rasiej) and Deanna Zandt (@randomdeanna). Oh, and that woman typing away on the right in the audience is me (@farra)--tweeting it up.

(L to R) Kyra Gaunt (@kyraocity) speaking, with Allison Fine (@afine), Andrew Rasiej (@rasiej) and Deanna Zandt (@randomdeanna). Oh, and that woman typing away on the right in the audience is me (@farra)--tweeting it up.

(more…)

Leave a Comment

Bookmark and Share

Socializing online | Weekly Roundup

October 9th, 2009 by Elizabeth Ricca
Oops, I forgot: “socialized” is a bad word nowadays. I assure you that the links below were all selected according to free market principles.

A weekly roundup of interesting reads from the online world of nonprofit communications. Check out my Delicious bookmarks for more noteworthy links.

Leave a Comment

Bookmark and Share

10 best practices in social media for nonprofits

August 20th, 2009 by Farra Trompeter

Yesterday, I gave a keynote address at the NeighborWorks Social Media Symposium on Best Practices in Social Media. The conference was great—good people, good thinking, good times in the world of community development.

(more…)

Leave a Comment

Bookmark and Share

Ready… Set… Discuss! | Weekly Round-Up

July 31st, 2009 by Elizabeth Ricca

It’s been an exciting week online — it’s hard to choose just a few links to feature. But the show must go on.

A weekly round-up of interesting reads from the online world of nonprofit communications.

Leave a Comment

Bookmark and Share

R U ready 2 dive in? | Weekly Round-Up

July 24th, 2009 by Elizabeth Ricca

It might rain all weekend, but the sun will be shining for nonprofits online.

A weekly round-up of interesting reads from the online world of nonprofit communications.

Leave a Comment

Bookmark and Share