When I teach workshops, there are certain stumbling blocks to smart social PR strategy that come up frequently. As the workshop facilitator, it’s my job to help participants understand how to overcome these challenges or, at the very least, find a way to deal with them that’s not quite as painful.

This post was originally published on shonaliburke.com

Founder and publisher of Waxing UnLyrical, Shonali Burke is President & CEO of Shonali Burke Consulting, Inc. Based in the Washington, D.C., area, she loves helping for- and non-profit clients, both small and large, turn corporate codswallop into community cool. She also loves ABBA, bacon, cooking, dogs, and Elvis. Wouldn’t you like to be in her kitchen?

The post Seven FAQ’s on Social PR Strategy appeared first on Socialbrite.

Find inducements & show them the payoff

This is the second part of a two-part series on making the case for your social media plan and initiatives. Also see:
• Getting your board on board with social media

Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, social media managers.

Getting your board engaged and on board with social media can prove to be a challenging task at many nonprofits. But your board members want to make a difference and have a real-world impact, right? Otherwise, why are they there.

So we’ve assembled this short list of ways board members can help support your organizational goals via social media.

• It is important to start small with your social media requests and to frame their initial engagement with social media around organizational programs that they understand are important to support. For example, you might want to ask them to do three LinkedIn updates around your upcoming gala or benefit. It’s important to be very specific about the asks and have them understand what the end goals and deadlines are.

• Because their engagement will likely start off involving only specific programs or initiatives, it’s important to write messaging for them that they can easily share with their networks. Providing them with sample posts and engagement language is always a good idea and will increase the likelihood that it gets shared.

• You will want to encourage them to personalize the posts (you can write it out for them) by adding how excited they are about a particular program or event, and their personal thoughts about the content. This type of sharing is most effective because it goes beyond the reposting of organizational information but also includes the most important part: sharing their passion and enthusiasm with their influential network, which can be the hook their colleagues and friends need to learn more, donate, attend an event, or get involved somehow.

Opening the conversation about social media to your board

1Start with your social media plan and ensure that your CEO is clear on what you want and what you’ll be asking board members to do. Your CEO is the board’s default sounding board, so it’s important that s/he be clear and know what initiatives you’re proposing to them and how they can help.

2Before a board meeting, have a conversation with the board member you feel will be your greatest ambassador to the rest of the board. This person could be either the head of your board’s communications committee or, if there is none, just a person who you know is already a good messenger or advocate. Talk to this board member about your plans for board participation and ask them for feedback. This way you can anticipate concerns and questions early, and then you already have a de facto board advisor, which boards like since they generally appreciate being consulted with.

3At the board meeting, ask the board ambassador to sit with you and support you during the presentation, perhaps leading a part of the discussion that centers on how board members can take initiative. These types of conversations can have greater sticking power and impact when coming from a board peer instead of a staff person. Also, board members can apply peer pressure in a way that communications staff cannot.

4Discuss a first set of initiatives (perhaps for the upcoming quarter) and explain to them how and when you will be reaching out to them for support. Explain to them the benefits of their outreach and how you all plan to learn and benefit from these experiences.

5Follow up and send a thank you email. Then promptly follow up with something they can add support to. Use your board ambassador to send out a message and showcase their “share” with the other board members. Gentle peer pressure can be a useful tool.

6Let them know that you’ll be following up periodically to see how the outreach has been working. Explore ways they can evolve their outreach that matches their comfort level and advances your communications and social media goals.

Social media outlets for board members to focus on

• LinkedIn. LinkedIn is one of the most promising social media outlets for use by board members. You’ll find that most board members have a LinkedIn account, with some board members using it with more frequency than others. Either way, it’s an outlet that most are familiar with and it has a great ability to immediately reach their network.

• Facebook. Facebook can be a great personal tool since you’ll find many board members using Facebook to connect with colleagues, friends and family. Many nonprofit leaders also use Facebook in their professional capacity. So encourage them to post via Facebook as a way to connect their networks of friends and colleagues to your organization. It’s important to be selective on which items you ask them to post, but encourage them to personalize, personalize, personalize. They’ll get a higher degree of engagement and responsiveness.

• Twitter. Twitter is a great tool to connect with other organizations, potential partners, journalists, thought leaders, and influencers. It will be helpful to find out which of your board members can retweet for you and tag other thought leaders or influencers in their networks who would benefit from the post.

•Blogging. A great goal around blogging is to encourage board members to write at least one blog post per year. The post could be tied to initiatives you are trying to support or could be a way to generate new supporters. The title of the post could simply be along
the lines of, “Why I got involved in XYZ organization and why you should, too.” It’s a powerful way for you and them to recruit new supporters and even take that first step in helping them outline ways they can start a conversation with potential new board members or donors.

• Email marketing. Do your board members already do outreach to their networks via your fundraising team? If they do, they should be including your organization’s social networks at the bottom of their emails.

Engaging board members in social media can be a bit of a hot topic. Have you asked your board members to engage in your organization’s social media efforts? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments!

The post How to entice your board into the social media waters appeared first on Socialbrite.

We live in an age and place where technology allows us to increasingly automate countless daily tasks. But just because we can automate something, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to do so. Especially if those tasks require tact. For example, scheduling an update on Facebook to go live at an optimal time doesn’t require tact. But what that update says does.

Cross-posting the same content across various social media channels seems like a great idea on its surface. You have a great piece of content, why not kill four birds with one stone by posting to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest with a single mouse click?

After all, this feature is available in every single social media management tool. Isn’t cross-posting an industry “best-practice?

The reasons why cross-posting may not be ideal

1. Technology – Many times third-party tools post in ways that are meaningless to both sender and receiver. For example, on Facebook and Twitter, updates say “via Tweetdeck” if you’re using Tweetdeck (PostPlanner allows branding). Also, tools like HootSuite create an album for photos posted on Facebook called “Hootsuite Photos”. Again, meaningless.

1. Culture – Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are very different communities with various different uses that talk about very different topics. For example, finding and nurturing valuable partnerships makes sense as a focus on Twitter, but not on Facebook. LinkedIn is where you discuss professional topics in a professional manner, not so on Twitter or Facebook.

1. Caring – When I see any kind of update on Facebook that’s posted from HootSuite or Tweetdeck, I think, “This person is either not present or doesn’t care.” Admittedly, this is my own subjective experience, but I imagine many other Facebook users feel the same.

1. It hampers sharing – Research shows that cross-posting hampers engagement on Facebook, but not on Twitter. The reason is that, while the use of third-party tools and posting short URLs is encouraged, Facebook users post content natively and are less likely to click on short URLs.

The solution in a nutshell

Ask yourself if the time saved outweighs the negative impact of cross-posting (yes is a valid answer). If not, find ways to repurpose or optimize content for each channel based on their culture and technology.

You might find that with a little creativity and preparation, optimizing each channel really doesn’t take as much time as you’re expect.

Why kind of content do you cross-post? Does it work for you?

The post 4 reasons why cross-posting is a bad idea appeared first on Socialbrite.

Gathering at MIT seeks to inspire & enable community action

It’s been a crazy month of travel, with my giving talks at the Women’s funding Network Summit and the California State PTA convention in LA, a Google conference on Internet freedom in D.C., and now I’m in Boston for the next two days participating in an important gathering at the MIT Media Lab put together by the Knight Foundation.

Called the Tech for Engagement Summit, the invitation-only gathering brings together 70 leaders and innovators in new technologies for a collaborative working session. The overall goal, we’ve been told, is to explore and to buttress technologies that can be used “to inspire and facilitate on-the-ground action” at the community level. That requires strengthening the network of practitioners working in the space, reviewing the state of tech for engagement and coming up with opportunities to collaborate and work together in the months ahead.

In 2008 I wrote a 110-page book for the Aspen Institute on Civic Engagement on the Move: How mobile media can serve the public good (free download). And I’ve been involved with the Knight Foundation for years (and was among the first round of winners for the Knight News Challenge), so I admire convenings such as this that cut across sectors (business, social enterprise, government, nonprofit, academia) to get us to some common solutions to lift up our communities and make sure we have a strong foundation for citizen engagement at the local level.

An all-star cast of participants

Knight has pulled together an impressive list of participants, including:

• Susan Crawford, Visiting Stanton Professor of the First Amendment, Harvard Kennedy School
• Scott Geller, CTO and President, Points of Light Digital
• Urs Gasser, Executive Director, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University
• Marci Harris, CEO of POPVOX (whom I recently interviewed)
• Joichi Ito, Director, MIT Media Lab
• Nancy Lublin, CEO + Chief Old Person, DoSomething.org
• Michael Smith, SVP of Social Innovation, The Case Foundation
• Christopher Hoene, Director of the Center for Research and Innovation, National League of Cities
• Jennifer Pahlka, Founder & Executive Director, Code for America
• Max Schorr, Co-Founder and Chief Community Officer, GOOD
• Micki Krimmel, Founder, NeighborGoods
• Damian Thorman, National Program Director, Knight Foundation
• Ethan Zuckerman, Director, Center for Civic Media, MIT Media Lab

Looking forward to connecting with everyone here. Not sure how much live-tweeting there’ll be, beginning late this afternoon and ending late Friday afternoon, but here’s the hashtag: #tech4engage

The post Exploring how to strengthen tools to engage citizens appeared first on Socialbrite.

Guest post by Sarah Robinson
Fierce Loyalty

The strategies and approaches for community building are changing. And gaining fierce loyalty from your community is becoming increasingly difficult.

There is just so much out there competing for the attention and heart of your members that doing things the same way you’ve always done them will no longer yield the results you are after.

To help you shift your lens on creating and maintaining a nonprofit community, here are seven ways to create a fiercely loyal nonprofit community:

1Decide why you want a community. If the only reasons you can come up with are “so we can ask them for money” and “so we can ask them to volunteer”, hit the pause button. Communities that are created for the sole purpose of being a one-way communication channel don’t last long and they never become Fiercely Loyal.

2Understand the needs of your community. People who want to be part of a community usually have three primary needs: 1) Belonging, 2) Recognition and 3) Safety. Note: Not everyone who supports your organization wants to be a part of a community. Allow them to be individuals.

3Stand for something bold. Taking a bold stand 1) allows you to rise above all the noise in today’s marketplace and 2) attract a very distinct group of people who want to be associated specifically with you and your nonprofit.

4Create multiple connection points. And by connection points, I mean opportunities for two-way communication. Gone are the days of non-profits pumping out one-way messages. Use blogs, social media, live-stream videos and in-real-life gatherings to connect with your community members and give them the opportunity to connect with each other.

5Create a culture of “We”. I often hear nonprofits complaining about “those donors” or “those volunteers,” which tells me there is an Us/Them culture at play. What if you only used the word “we” as in “We are all supporters of this organization. Some of us just happen to work in the office.”

6Keep evolving. Many nonprofits already have a solid, predictable community, so it’s tempting to move into a holding pattern. If you want a Fiercely Loyal community, resist this temptation. Channel your energies into creating opportunities for your community to develop Pride, Trust and Passion- not just for your nonprofit, but also for the community they belong to.

7Love your community. I mean really, really love them. Not just because they can do things for you but because each member truly matters to you. Be interested in them; pay attention to them, get to know them. Treat them the same way you treat other people you value in your life.

These seven strategies are not expensive or fancy. And anyone at any point in their community building process can put them into play. Those who do will get the payoff of a rich, dynamic and fiercely loyal community.

What would you add to the list?

The post 7 ways to create a fiercely loyal nonprofit community appeared first on Socialbrite.

Target audience: Cause organizations, NGOs, nonprofits, foundations, social enterprises, political reformers, educators, journalists, general public.

Over the past three years, as regular readers know, Socialbrite has put together dozens of guides and compilations of resources and tools for social change advocates. See the bottom of this article for a few, and our Sharing Center is all about social tools for social change.

To celebrate Internet at Liberty, a conference on protecting protecting freedom of expression on the Internet that Google is organizing in Washington, D.C., this week — and where Socialbrite is running the social media workshops — we’re launching a new section today:

The Social Advocacy Toolkit features new and updated informational guides, tool roundups and resources for global activists, social good advocates, political reformers, NGOs and anyone looking to use online tools for social change. It includes tactics for effective campaigns, guides to the best monitoring and metrics tools (many of them free), lists of enabling platforms and organizations and other resources to help galvanize your campaign.

Below is a new guide that we’ve put together to help social change activists with their advocacy efforts, which we’re adding to the toolkit. Check out the Social Advocacy Toolkit for much more.

10 tools for activists & social change advocates

Asana: A leap ahead for productive teamwork

1Asana is a work-collaboration software suite that came out of beta in April 2012. “We built this company to change the world,” said founder Dustin Moskovitz, one of the co-founders of Facebook. Asana offers a simple, word processor-like interface to give people working together on a task a central place to discuss the project, share files and keep track of to-dos in real time. It’s free for teams of fewer than 30 users.

Alternatives: Yammer, Microsoft Sharepoint (for larger enterprises) and see our Collaboration roundup

PopVox: Advocate your cause in Congress

2You might remember our recent article on PopVox, an online service that individuals and grassroots organizations can use to lobby members of Congress on behalf of a cause. CEO Marci Harris founded the nonpartisan service based on her knowledge of how Congressional staffers interact with the public. For a cause to be effective, it has to be made concrete on behalf of or against a specific bill. PopVox helps you do that.

Geo-bombing with Google Earth

3I was blown away when I saw Tunisian activists from the collective blog Nawaat.org (The Core) link video testimonies of Tunisian political prisoners and human rights defenders to the Tunisian presidential palace’s location on Google Earth. Now, as you fly over the Tunisian presidential palace using a Google Earth KML file, you will see it covered with videos about human rights abuses that strongman Ben Ali tried to prevent Tunisian citizens from watching by blocking YouTube and DailyMotion. Visit earth.google.com/outreach for more examples. We’d like to see more organizations to take up “geo-bombing.”

Mapping tools: Show, don’t tell

4Any campaign or cause organizations with tech talent should consider following the steps of charity: water, which does a remarkable job of documenting their clean-water projects for individual donors through the use of Google Maps. Paull Young, their director of digital engagement, told me: “We’ve been marking all our water projects with GPS since we were founded in 2006. We had a developer crank for a few weeks late last year to create this new mapping solution. It’s not incredibly technically difficult, the hardest part is getting data from the field. You might also want to check out our Dollars to Projects reporting for even more in-depth personalized mapping.” Also doing a good job with Google Maps: A Child’s Right.

Note: Google began charging for its previously free Google Maps API last year, leading to an exodus to the open source OpenStreetMap, which we expect will continue to get better and better.

Tableau Public: Infographics made simple

5You may have noticed the Infographics Everywhere trend that’s sweeping the Web, probably spurred by the fact that infographics has been democratized — you no longer need to be a graphics guru to make a swift-looking graphic. Why not boil down your cause or campaign to a couple of key infographics? The tool we like best is Tableau Public, because it’s good and it’s free. For visualizations, Wordle and Many Eyes create great-looking word clouds. But before you plunge in, see this fantastic set of Data Visualization and Infographics Resources from Smashing Magazine — and make sure what you create isn’t info porn.

Statf.ly: Create a metrics dashboard

6What’s a campaign without a metrics dashboard, to tell you with data-driven evidence what’s resonating with your community — and what’s falling flat? There are a few newcomers to consider: Statf.ly (we like the 30-day free trial and $19/month pricetag), Sparkwi.se and Metricly. It’s worth the investment. See which one works for you and gives your campaign traction and tweak your campaign on the fly.

Dropbox: Life in the cloud is sweet

7I’ll be straight up: My hands-down favorite productivity and collaboration tool of the decade so far has been Dropbox. What was life like before the cloud? Oh, yeah, it was a pain to get stuff done. Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring your photos, docs and videos anywhere with an Internet connection — and share them easily. Any file you save to your Dropbox will automatically save to all your computers, phones and even the Dropbox website. Never email yourself a file again! Dropbox gives you 2GB of storage space for free, plus 500MB more if you refer a friend who signs up. It can get pricey when moving up to Dropbox for Teams, so see what your budget allows.

CitizenTube: Get visibility for your cause videos

8CitizenTube is YouTube’s News and Politics Blog. You’ll find important breaking news videos from citizens and other newsworthy videos from news organizations, activists and politicians. You are creating your own media, right? Why not get it seen by YouTube’s legion of viewers? See a different version of it here, and follow @CitizenTube on Twitter.

Buffer: Cross-posting nirvana

9If you’re running a cause campaign, there aren’t enough hours in the day, right? So think productivity. Shonali Burke, who recently left Socialbrite, told me: “Buffer is killer. It lets you send updates to Facebook, Twitter, etc. straight from your Google Reader or a browser. You can also post them directly from Buffer. Spread them out over the day. I’m just loving it and using HootSuite less. I tend to do most of my reading via Reader, and it’s super easy to star the posts that interest me, then sort by starred items, and then add to Buffer.” The basic version is free, for up to 10 posts at a time; for heavy users, you can get the paid version.

GroupMe: Keep in touch with your team members

10If you’re at an event — a conference, a street protest, a peaceful march — with other team members, you know how difficult it it to stay in touch and to coordinate plans. Socialbrite recently gave GroupMe a test run and came away impressed. GroupMe is a free group messaging app. I like it because it’s both instant and asyncronous — that is, your teammates will see your updates instantly or when they next check their mobile devices. Call up GroupMe and invite others in your posse to join your private group. Type your update and send it to the group, as you would an SMS message, and they’ll see it in a chat thread. One of GroupMe’s key features is that it’s cross-platform: You don’t miss a beat whether you have an iPhone, Android, Blackberry or another kind of smartphone. In addition to the ability to share messages, photos and locations like the other apps, GroupMe also allows old-fashioned conference calls between group members.

Alternative: Facebook Messenger

Other tools worth a shoutout

The tools above aren’t the only ones that should be in your advocacy arsenal. Consider some of these as well:

• See our writeup on Digital Democracy and its Handheld Human Rights mobile platform for human rights in Burma/Myanmar.

• GeoChat, from InSTEDD (Innovative Support to Emergencies Diseases and Disasters), is a collaboration tool that allows anyone to chat, report and get alerts on their cellphone and to map data on Google Earth, Google Maps or Virtual Earth. It uses SMS, email, and Twitter.

• Ushahidi and Frontline SMS are must-have mobile tools for anyone working with remote communities or in disaster relief areas. And they have broader uses as well.

• Join.me is a cross-platform screen sharing app that lets you give control of your computer screen to someone else.

• Shortstack, says my partner John Haydon, “is my number one choice for creating amazing Facebook Page custom tabs. You can create photo contents, reveal tabs, photo galleries and more. Check out this example of what you can create with Shortstack.” It costs $15 a month to start.

• NodeXL is a tool for finding connections between people or organizations. Mostly for geeks as it’s a bit daunting.

• If This, Then That is another interesting tool I just discovered. It helps you create certain actions when a task is triggered, like “send me a text message when my organization is mentioned on Facebook.”

• Jing from TechSmith, Screenr and Screenflow for Mac are three of the best tools for creating screencasts.

Guides for social change advocates

Here are some of Socialbrite’s other guides for social change:

• Change-makers share 10 of their favorite tools (JD Lasica)
• 12 open source tools you should be using (Kim Bale)
• 12 awesome platforms for social good (Katrina Heppler)
• An educator’s 5 top tools for social change (Barbara K. Iverson)
• Top 5 tools for the entrepreneurial journalist (Dan Pacheco)
• A change agent’s top 5 tools for social change (Allyson Kapin)
• A developer’s 5 favorite social tools (Nathan Freitas)
• 6 productivity tools for social change (Katrina Heppler)
• Complete guide to creating a video project (Tim Davies)

Related

• Making media: Tools & resources for nonprofits and social change organizations (Socialbrite)
• 10 top collaboration tools for your organization
• The Socialbrite Sharing Center
• Directory of cause organizations (Socialbrite)

The post 10 top tools for cause campaigns appeared first on Socialbrite.

10 easy steps to help you on your collaboration journey

Guest post by Susannah Vila
Movements.org

To achieve scale and grow impact for your cause, it sometimes make sense to collaborate with other social good organizations.

Creating partnerships — and possibly building a coalition — is likely to increase the amount of resources available to you and the impact you’ll make in the world. Work with everybody – from the public to allied groups to governments to corporations – and let everybody work with you.

Here are 10 quick steps to help you on your collaboration journey:

Set expectations and define goals

1The campaign that you’re bringing other activists and organizations into should be clearly defined and visible. They should understand why they’re joining forces with you. What do you want the final result to be? What are the steps you’ll take to get there?

Determine a time frame

2What is your timeline? Depending on how short or long term your campaign will be, you might want to create a more temporary council or group of some sort instead of a coalition.

Make a list of potential allies

3When you think about it, you may be surprised at how many allies you have in your community. Groups, institutions, businesses and individuals who share some of the same interests as you are all people who you could be working with. Make a list of possibilities.

Research projects they’re working on

4Once you’ve identified organizations with similar goals, research them. Take notes. Educate yourself before you contact anyone. Know the projects that the organization is working on, the projects it previously worked on, and how the organization may fit within your campaign.

Consider organizations with different perspectives

5Don’t neglect “strange bedfellows,” or people whose politics may differ from yours but whose goals may be aligned with those of your campaign in at least the short term. You may be surprised at how frequently diverse groups can come together over a single issue. For example, read about the ‘”strange bedfellows” campaign to fight telecom immunity.

You’re more likely to succeed if the group of people brainstorming your strategy and tactics is itself from a diverse background, as one of them is more likely to see a situation in a novel way and come up with a novel solution.

Make contact — and have a plan

6Make contact. Reach out to them using whatever form of communication (a visit, a phone call, an e-mail) you think is most appropriate based on the group’s access to and fluency with technology. Mention what you’ve learned in your research and why you think your goals and their goals overlap. You’ve already defined the steps that your campaign will consist of, so show them how they can fit into your timeline by presenting it in a clear and concise manner.

Tip!: A formal and public coalition can prove to be more trouble than it’s worth. Consider working in coordination with other NGOs in a more informal, implicit way.

Set up a meeting or event, then keep in touch

7Set up a meeting or event for everyone who has signed on to meet each other. Allow each person to talk about his or her project and discuss how the coalition is going to operate.

Then follow up. Get in contact again with the groups you met with to summarize the conversation you had and to emphasize the next steps.

Create a steering committee

8Create a steering group or coordinating committee made up of a small core of individuals who are willing and able to devote more time and energy than others. If you’re one of these people, accept your own leadership position. If you’re not in this group, support them where you can, and offer them your best advice. Let them make decisions for the group, so that your work can move forward efficiently.

Trust each other

9Trust one another. You’re in it together now, so a little trust and good faith will go a long way. To facilitate that trust, make it as easy as possible for everyone to be as transparent as possible. Use tools that are helpful for collaboration, like Google Docs. We like it because if anyone accesses the document while signed into Gmail, you can see that.

Create a shared calendar

10Create a collective calendar with each organization’s different meetings and events so that anyone can attend anyone else’s gatherings. Make sure no events conflict with each other!

Tip!: Consensus is incredibly hard to achieve. Consider loosening how you define it – can you declare consensus reached even if not 100 percent of your group agrees? Should you make a two-thirds rule?

The post How to partner and form coalitions to grow impact appeared first on Socialbrite.

Or, why your organization needs a content marketing strategy

Target audience: Nonprofits, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, cause organizations, businesses, Web publishers, educators, journalists.

You understand that there’s more to engagement than simple small talk. You also understand that when folks are truly engaged, they tell their friends about the good work you’re doing, which is much more effective than if you told their friends.

So who’s doing a good job of creating an engaged community with content? Here are three examples:

1The American Cancer Society has created an entire community around achieving victory over cancer by talking about “creating a world with more birthdays.”

2Share Our Strength hopes to end childhood hunger by 2015. This mission is immediate, heartfelt and simply stated. Their people talk about the line they’ve drawn in the sand.

3Epic Change is talking about gratitude – not about their organization – and why you should donate.

Creating a content marketing strategy

Here are a few thoughts on creating a content marketing strategy. Please (and I do mean please) add your ideas in the comments.

• Understand why they donate. The real reason. Not the one your board talks about.
• Understand why they tell their friends. Maybe donating to your cause makes them look more altruistic?
• Know what’s engaging the customers of your competition. Is there something they’re saying that’s not being heard?
• Talk to your employees. Beyond the paycheck and benefits – what’s the real reason they show up every day at 8:30 am?

• Talk face to face. Have coffee with some of your customers. Get to know their whole lives, not just the pain points you address with your product.
• Polarize. Can you sincerely talk about your beliefs to an extreme? Think Greenpeace and the GOP.
• Use your divining rod. Find bloggers who are already passionate about what you do. How are they talking about it? How engaged are their readers?
• Plan. Map out why certain conversations matter and how you’ll start talking.
• Be sincere. People can tell if you’re real. Make sincerity a key element in your strategy.

What else? Please add your thoughts below.

Related

• How to build a sustainable community (Socialbrite)

• The most powerful social media tool out there. Period! (Socialbrite)

The post Are you building an engaged community with content? appeared first on Socialbrite.

A look at how nonprofits are using social media to fund-raise for social good

Guest post by Frank Barry
Director, Professional Services, Blackbaud

According to a study by Blackbaud, NTEN and Common Knowledge, over 92 percent of nonprofit organizations have a presence on at least one social networking site, but most raise very little money through their social activity.

In fact, 87 percent have raised under $1,000 on Facebook since they began using the platform.

A big part of what holds nonprofit organizations back is the fact that they can’t risk full-fledged social media adoption because they’re short staffed and must focus on creating revenue and running programs — helping real people in the real world.

Yet despite the lack of widespread fundraising success, social media is clearly a hot topic in the nonprofit space. Conferences dedicated to helping nonprofits learn how to leverage social media for social good are popping up. Big social fundraising days coupled with workshops and other training events are taking advantage of the groundswell of social fundraising activity. And large online publications like Mashable are even covering social media for social good.

According to Darian Rodriguez Heyman, author of “Nonprofit Management 101” and creator of the Social Media for Nonprofits conference, “In a world where Facebook is the equivalent of the third largest country on the planet, we have to ask ourselves, ‘How can nonprofits leverage the immense word-of-mouth potential that social media makes available to causes both large and small?’ Nonprofit leaders need practical tips and tools for fundraising, marketing, and advocacy if they are to maximize impact online and in general.”

So what is holding nonprofit organizations back and how are the top 1 percent succeeding? It’s clear from the data below that three big things contribute to the lack of fundraising success: 1) lack of budget, 2) lack of staffing, and 3) lack of focus on raising money.

Social media adoption by platform

Heading into 2011, most nonprofits (92%), regardless of organization size, are using at least one commercial social network like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

The industry giant, with 89% adoption among nonprofits, is Facebook. Twitter is the second most popular, used by 57% of organizations, with YouTube, LinkedIn and Flickr rounding out the top five.

Social media adoption by budget

More than half (52%) of nonprofits have no formal budgets for social networks with just 4% allocating more than $50,000 annually.

Social media adoption by staffing

On the staffing side, 86% of nonprofits commit some employee time to social networks, with the majority (61%) allocating a quarter of a full-time employee, and nearly 15% dedicating three-quarters or more of a full-time staffer.

But if you look closely you’ll notice that 86% of nonprofits commit one-half or less of a full-time staffer.

Social media adoption by fundraising

Fifty-eight percent of nonprofits report measuring at least the soft benefits — e.g., increased awareness, education, non-financial supporter participation — of their commercial social networks. Just 9 percent measure return on investment (ROI), or revenue received from donors, sponsors, advertisers, etc.

It’s important to note that 35 percent have raised less than $1,000, and a very thin slice of less than 1 percent of all nonprofits have raised more than $100,000 via Facebook in the past year.

How are the top 1% achieving success?

The numbers are interesting and all, but what’s the thing that separates those top 1 percent performers from the rest of the pack? And how can any nonprofit, large or small, put big numbers on the board?

The answer is as simple as 1, 2, 3. Here are three ways for nonprofits to raise big dollars online:

1) Hire or assign someone currently on staff. Nothing good can happen if no one’s working on it. It’s a pretty logical bit of reasoning, but judging by the data, nonprofits don’t allocate much staff time to social media.

Take a look at organizations like Make-a-Wish Foundation, Best Friends Animal Society, Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, American Red Cross, National Wildlife Federation, Humane Society and March of Dimes. Every one of these nonprofits has at least one person on staff that owns their social media program. Some even have full-blown teams. If you’re trying to leverage the social Web and all it has to offer, at some point you’re going to have to put resources on the job.

2) Allocate budget. We all know you have to spend money to make money. Nonprofits spend money on direct mail, email, websites, big events, and much more as part of their fundraising strategy. None of it is free, so why would the effective use of social media be any different?

Those who are finding social media to be an effective fundraising channel spend money on things like custom Facebook pages, Facebook ads, Facebook apps, promoted tweets, professional social media engagement platforms, blogs, content creation, campaign integration and much more. It doesn’t have to be an enormous amount of money, but if you want to raise significant dollars, you have to invest.

3) Add social media components to your fundraising appeals. Now that you’ve put someone in charge of your social media use and allocated some budget, it’s time to get to work, but instead of blowing things way out of proportion, start thinking of ways to incorporate social media into your existing fundraising efforts.

You probably have an end of year fundraising appeal that you distribute through direct mail, email and your website, right? Why not get creative this time around and use Facebook to generate two-way engagement in the form of people sharing why they support your organization, Twitter to tell the masses and YouTube to create a personalized thank-you video for all those who donate?

The key is to infuse your current fundraising activity with social media rather than try to dream up a totally new way of raising money.

Conclusion: Do these 3 things and thrive! Agree or disagree? Please share in the comments.

The post 3 secrets to raising big bucks online appeared first on Socialbrite.

Noland Hoshino, who created the LinkInLog from SMO Books, shares three ways you can use the new LinkedIn Company Pages to bring out the human side of your nonprofit. Recently, LinkedIn has made some changes that allow your nonprofit to have more of a presence on LinkedIn. In the video above, Noland talks about the ways nonprofits can optimize their Company Page and bring more attention to their cause.

For starters, if you don’t have a Company Page that represents your nonprofit, you should create one. One of the newer features that you can use your Company Page for is to send out a message to your followers as your nonprofit organization. Previously, you had to send the message out as an individual who worked at the nonprofit. This allows you to have more of an organizational voice on LinkedIn.

Another way to strengthen your brand and build awareness for your organization is by encouraging your staff, members and volunteers to add the “Volunteer and Causes” field to their profile. Anyone on LinkedIn who indicates that they are involved with your nonprofit will also appear on your Company Page, which creates a greater sense of community around your cause. And, don’t forget about linking up your other social media accounts with your Company Page. By attaching your Twitter feed to your Page, you are providing your followers and people searching on LinkedIn with more ways of keeping up with your nonprofit.

In addition to these tips, Noland recently published the LinkedIn Log, a pocket-size guide book to help organizations get more out of LinkedIn.

Here are some of the topics you’ll find covered inside the LinkedIn Log:

• An easy-to-follow guide to identify your LinkedIn goals
• A simple action plan for building and connecting with your network
• How to Optimize Your Professional Profile
• How to Personalize Your Introductions
• How to Utilize Your Network Connections

How are you using LinkedIn?

Related

• Highlights of LinkedIn’s new program for nonprofits (Socialbrite)

• Nonprofit strategies for getting more out of LinkedIn (Socialbrite)

• 8 simple ways to optimize your LinkedIn profile (Socialbrite)

• Using Twitter & LinkedIn to promote your event (Socialbrite)

• How to use LinkedIn to promote your blog (Socialbrite)

• LinkedIn for Nonprofits

The post How to use LinkedIn pages for your nonprofit appeared first on Socialbrite.