Social Media for Social Good

How to use social technologies to advance your cause or mission

We’ve assembled the following directory of resources for nonprofits, volunteer organizations, educators, community activists, business people, change-makers and others looking to mobilize supporters to take action on behalf of your cause.

Contact us for information about holding a Social Media for Social Good Camp for your organization.

We can’t cover all facets of using social media to effect social change in a three-hour bootcamp, so here are resources to help you drill down in specific subject areas. Also, feel free to follow up with us if you have any questions!

JD Lasica & George Weiner

Social bookmarks

• All the sites & resources mentioned in the above presentation are bookmarked on Diigo at: http://www.diigo.com/user/socialmediacamp/nola

8 handouts — be happy!

The following handouts are released under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial license — you’re free to republish, remix or redistribute them on your commercial or noncommercial site (but cannot charge for them). Please share these with your teams and colleagues! (To download, just click the link and “save as” to your desktop.)

• 12 Steps to Mobilize Your Cause: Summary of the action items you need to conduct a successful campaign (download PDF)
• Team Collaboration: Tools to help you work with other organizations or your own team members in multiple locations. (download PDF)
• 15 Best Practices for the Social Web: High-level principles to help you succeed in social media. (download PDF)
• 12 Social Action Hubs: Selectively plug into some of these online communities and crowdsource platforms to promote a social cause. (download PDF)
• 45 Hashtags for Social Change: Use these Twitter hashtags as you tweet for your cause to gain wider visibility and viral help from the community. (download PDF)
• A Mobile Activism User’s Guide: A 16-page guide introducing you to the world of mobile activism and showing you how you can take your organization mobile. (download doc)
• 10 Mobile Apps for Social Good: Do-good apps for your iPhone or Android. (download PDF)
• 6 Twitter Tips for Change-Makers: A series of tips to help your organization use Twitter more strategically. (download PDF)

DoSomething.org community resources

• How to pitch your project.
• How to start a community action project.
• 11 things to know about event fundraising.
• How to get corporate sponsors.
• Tips for using Google Maps.
• How to seek in-kind donations.
• 11 things to know about branding.

Deeper dive: Monitoring

Monitoring the Social Web: a collection of resources on Socialbrite

• How to build & manage a monitoring dashboard
• 10 paid social media monitoring services for nonprofits
• 20 free, awesome social media monitoring tools
• Guide to monitoring social media conversations
• Top 10 social media dashboard tools
• Do you have a conversation strategy?
• Monitoring blog conversations

Deeper dive: Metrics

How to measure social media: a collection of resources on Socialbrite

• 14 free tools to measure your social influence
• How to measure your nonprofit’s social media success
• Getting started with social media metrics
• How to measure Facebook Page fan growth and engagement
• Actionable analytics for your social media efforts
• Klout: Measure your Twitter influence
• 3 killer tools to measure your Facebook clout
• How to use Facebook Insights
• 11 stats you need to measure on your Facebook Page
• 6 simple stats you need to measure on Twitter
• 9 critical stats to measure on your blog
• 7 tips for measuring your blog’s success

Deeper dive: Making media

Creating media: a collection of resources on Socialbrite

• 8 great examples of nonprofit storytelling
• A step-by-step guide to creating a media strategy
• What’s your video strategy to raise funds?
• A 13-point guide for creating media
• Guide to shooting better online video
• A quick guide to multimedia software
• Complete guide to creating a video project
• How nonprofits should be using visual storytelling
• Visual storytelling checklist
• 8 tips to help you shoot video like a pro
• Mash up a visual story for your nonprofit
• 6 tips on how to shoot photos like a pro
• 12 open source tools you should be using

Deeper dive: Mobile

• Mobile: How to set up an SMS campaign system
• A beginner’s guide to mobile fundraising
• How nonprofits can get started with mobile
• 7 ways for nonprofits to raise funds with mobile
• 10 mobile apps for social good
• Top 10 mobile apps for college students
• The role of mobile phones in citizen media
• A user’s guide to mobile activism (& handout)
• How mobile media can serve the public good

Deeper dive: Community

• How to build a sustainable community
• Using hashtags to enhance community14 free tools to measure your social influence
• Klout: Measure your Twitter influence
• Twitter tip: Choose whom you follow strategically
• 12 awesome platforms for social good download here (also at bit.ly/12socialhubs)

Additional handouts

• How to Set Up a Monitoring Dashboard (download PDF)
• A Mobile Voice: The Use of Mobile Phones in Citizen Media (download PDF)

Deeper dive: More resources

• Check out the resources in the Socialbrite Sharing Center
• An amazing collection of free tutorials about how to optimize Facebook, Twitter, your blogs and more.
• Directories of Free Photos, Free Music, Free Video that you can use for your organization’s blog, website, newsletters, reports and more.
• Free social media reports and whitepapers for nonprofits
• Go to techsoup.org/stock to get big discounts on software — only 501c3 nonprofits and public libraries are eligible.
• Google for nonprofits: a consolidated application process
• Google Apps for Nonprofits: communication, collaboration and publishing tools.
• 24 tools for fundraising with social media
• Behind the success of 10 top Causes
• How to make your website more accessible
• 10 tactics to be more efficient with social media
• 8 tips for raising funds online
• 15 social tools for local impact
• Web 2.0 productivity tools
• Social media glossary
• Directory of Nonprofits’ Social Media Policies
• Social change organizations
• Gov. 2.0 resources

Additional readings & resources

• MobileActive.org is the definitive resource on mobile tech in social change
• Texting for Charitable Dollars: The Definitive Guide to Mobile Fundraising (MobileActive)
• Mobile Benchmarking Study – Mobile Advocacy and Fundraising Benchmarks
• TechSoup Global directory of social media resources
• Personal Democracy Forum’s Resources page
• Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted: provocative but flawed article by Malcolm Gladwell (New Yorker)

Have a question? Contact Socialbrite!Beth Kanter is CEO of Zoetica, a consultancy for nonprofits. See her profile, visit her blog, contact Beth or leave a comment.