Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Obama announces $50 million fund to help non-profits

President Obama gave a press conference on 6/30/09 to announce a $50 million fund to help non-profits expand social projects.
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Social Media Reading - 063009 Part Two

Tips and Tricks
Webinars and Conferences

Facebook Fan Pages

What Else I'm Reading
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Personal Democracy Forum 09

I wasn't able to attend the 2009 Personal Democracy Forum. Thankfully, there were a lot of people that were tweeting and live blogging from the event.

Some Key Points
  • Rasiej - Talked about new Cisco routers being shipped to China, and that the Internet community has the responsibility to express outrage when governments try to cut access to quash free speech.
  • Worldwide, the United States ranks 139th in voter turnout.
Blogs and Video:
Other Links
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Social Media Reading - 063009

  • The crippling effect of having to be everywhere at once -This blog makes a lot of sense. It's one of the reasons I've chosen not to hop on Friendfeed, and it's the main reason I stayed off Facebook for so long. You do need to pick and choose your battles.
  • All About NTEN in 5 Minutes - A great video interview with Holly Ross where she talks about NTEN and the role of social media for non-profit organizations.
Facebook Fan Pages
Webinars and Conferences

What Else I'm Reading
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Monday, June 29, 2009

Social Media Reading - 062909

  • The Story of ComcastCares - Frank Eliason blogs about why he started the Twitter account ComcastCares. He was recently featured in an article in USA Today about companies using Twitter to provide customer service.

Facebook Fan Pages:
Webinars and Conferences

What Else I'm Reading
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Sunday, June 28, 2009

Social Media Reading - 062809 Part Two

People to Follow
  • @kanter - She's using guest bloggers right now as she moves cross country, but if you're looking for someone to follow that knows about social media for non-profits, Beth is it.
  • The Top 100 Tweeps to Follow
Tips and Tricks
  • Introducting act.ly - Petitions Designed for Twitter - A Twitter application that makes it easy for you to sign petitions and share those petitions with the people that follow you on Twitter. The only question I have about it is how are those petition shared with the people that matter? Is it up to the person that created the petition?

Webinars and Conferences

What Else I'm Reading
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Social Media Reading - 062809

  • Fortune 100 CEOs are Social Media Laggards
    • Two have Twitter accounts
    • None write blogs
    • Thirteen have LinkedIn profiles, but only three have more than 10 connections
      • Michael Dell has 500+ connections
    • Nineteen CEOs have profiles on Facebook

What Else I'm Reading
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Saturday, June 27, 2009

Social Media Reading - 062709 Part Two

Mobile Giving

What Else I'm Reading
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Social Media Reading - 062709


Tips and Tricks
  • The Top 10 Twitter SEO Tips - Great ideas. I especially love the idea about making sure the first couple of words are the most relevant. I hadn't thought about that one. But, once they put Twitter.com & username in the search result, only the first few words show up.
Other things I'm reading:
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Friday, June 26, 2009

Social Media Reading - 062609

  • Help Gov. Sanford Find the Appalachian Trail - Sierra Club posted a blog trying to capitalize on the Gov. Sanford scandal (the Gov. originally told staff he was going to hike the Appalachian Trail when he was actually headed to go visit his mistress in Argentina). The comments on the site are mixed with some people loving the idea and some saying that it's not right for the Sierra Club to use the scandal in this way.
  • Target Analytics Releases First Look at 2009 Fundraising Trends - Blackbaud released its Q1 2009 Index Findings.
    • Revenue declined from Q1 2008
    • Number of donors also dropped compared to Q1 2008
    • Overall revenue per donor declined (for the first time since 2002)
    • Number of new donors fell
  • Survey Says: Social networks Should Push the Envelope With Ads - A study by Q Interactive shows that 53% of social media network users would view advertisers favorably if they targeted the ads to their interests.
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Thursday, June 25, 2009

Social Media Reading - 062509

  • Budget Constraints May Kill Some Serve America Act Programs - Programs that are getting cut include two fellowships to encourage volunteers over 55, a program to help small and medium non-profits with management issues, and a program to program grants to college for community services programs. President wants to spend $10-million to help non-profits recruit and manage volunteers.
Tips and Tricks
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Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Cone Nonprofit Power Brand 100

Cone and Intangible Business released The Cone Nonprofit Power Brand 100 ranking the top 100 nonprofit brands. The base of the ranking was done by a telephone survey of 1,000 people. Along with the survey, the other things that determined the ranking were budgets, potential for future growth, number of volunteers, amount of news media they receive.

The Top 5:
  1. YMCA of the USA
  2. The Salvation Army
  3. United Way of America
  4. American Red Cross
  5. Goodwill Industries International
When it came down to Brand Image, the top 5 were:
  1. American Cancer Society
  2. The Salvation Army
  3. United Way of america
  4. Habitat for Humanity International
  5. American Red Cross

Press:
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Social Media Reading - 062409 Part Four

Social Media Policies:

Fundraising:
Tips and Tricks:

Other Reading:
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Social Media Reading - 062409 Part Three

Fundraising

  • How Unused Gift Cards Can Support Non-Profits - Plastic Jungle, a site which offers users the ability to sell, exchange or donate unused gift cards, is now letting people donating the ability to choose a project on donorschoose.org.
Tips and Tricks
Webinars and Conferences
  • 6/25/09 - Web Squared - Tim O'Reilly and John Battell talk Web 2.0
  • Chicks Who Click - One day social media conference for women. First one was in Kansas City in May, June: Vancouver, August: San Jose, October: Dallas, November: Raleigh
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Social Media Reading - 062409 Part Two

United We Serve / AllforGood.org
All for Good vs. Social Actions
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Social Media Reading - 062409

Webinars and Conferences
Other things I'm Reading:
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Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Social Media Reading - 062309 Part Two

Tips and Tricks
Other things I'm reading:
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Social Media Reading - 062309

What I'm reading:
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Monday, June 22, 2009

Social Media Reading - 062209

Social Media Impact

eMail Blasts / eNewsletters
  • Why Shorter Newsletters are a Win-Win for Everyone - Write email newsletter snippets like you would Twitter or Facebook status updates; give actions in small chunks so you don't overwhelm the reader. Article mentions a few non-profits that are using social media in the northeast. They mention that even though the social media sites are "free", it does take staff commitment to keep them fresh.
Other things I'm reading:
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Sunday, June 21, 2009

Craigslist Foundation Bootcamp

The Craigslist Foundation held its yearly non-profit bootcamp on Saturday in Berkeley. Unlike the past couple of years where they've had one bootcamp on the west coast and one on the wast coast, the one in Berkeley was the only one this year. Getting up and going to Berkeley on a Saturday morning was not my idea of fun, but I'm glad I made it up there.

By the time I got to Berkeley, found a parking spot (and paid for that parking spot), I had missed the first keynote by Arianna Huffington and the first workshop session. I was there in time for the second keynote, which was Randi Zuckerberg from Facebook. Randi is a great speaker and she spoke about Facebook pages and other support for non-profits. Her talk was a little bland, and I wish it had been more about what Facebook had planned for the future.

After lunch, the two options were a social media workshop from Susan Gordon (Causes) and Beth Kanter (non-profit social media extradonaire) and a workshop on volunteer engagement with Jennifer Bennet from Volunteer Match and Ami from Idealist.org. It was great because instead of doing a long presentation, they mostly focused on Q&A from the folks there. Primary themes:
  • Today's volunteers are different. Many are skilled and want to use those skills in their volunteer work (they want to do more than just stuff envelopes), and they are less interested in working guild style environment and more interested in volunteering with friends and families.
  • There are countless ways to get people involved in volunteering for yur organization -- contact professional people and the worst they can say is no.
  • Treat volunteers like you would employees, especially if they are core to your organization's success. Have a volunteer handbook that lays out what is expected of them. Communicate with them about schedules, expectations, etc.
  • If you're a volunteer, you need to be proactive. You can't just post a profile and wait to be contacted. If there is an organization that you're really interested in working for, contact them and explain what you can bring to the table. If you're interested in international volunteerism or volunteer ("tourism"), go and do it. If you have the financial resources, go to the country and research what you want to do.
After the volunteer session, I spent the break time walking through the exhibit room. The snacks were excellent, and there were a lot of good companies there. I spent a few minutes talking with the young women social entrepreneur group. One table had free tape measures. And, as a crafter who doesn't need an extra tape measure. I talked with the folks at volunteer match, and I spent some time just roaming around.

After the break, the final workshop session of the day was the one for All for Good. It was definitely the most star-studded workshop of the day. Jonathan Greenblatt, from UCLA who now chairs Our Good Works - the non-profit which will govern allforgood.org, led the panel. Adam Sah is the tech guy from Google who built allforgood.org as his 20% project. The final person on the panel was Susan Nesbitt, who is Director of Online Programs for the Craigslist Foundation. Adam ran through a demo of the platform and what went in to the development.

The really great thing about the allforgood.org platform is that they really don't want people to come to the allforgood.org site. They built the platform based on the use of widgets / gadgets. The main plan of all for good is to a) aggregate volunteer opportunities from other sites (idealist.org, volunteermatch.org) and b) have people install widgets / gadgets on their pages which will list the volunteer opportunities. (Huffington Post already has a gadget on their home page for volunteer opportunities in New York.) They really do want to create a tool that allows volunteers to connect with opportunities.

The final session was an all-star panel led by Michael Krasny. I stayed for the first few minutes but I knew I couldn't sit and then sit and drive home. The ushers in the theatre were insistent about nobody standing in the aisles, which didn't leave me with many options.

Bootcamp links:
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Social Media Reading - 062109

Tips and Tricks
  • 100 Tips, Tools and Resources - I hesitate to post the link because the site is definitely something trying to steal SEO, but the list of Twitter resources is so great that I had to include it. It has over 80 Twitter resource sites and then another 15-20 tips.
  • 25 ways to teach with Twitter - This is both a great introduction to Twitter newbies and also a great resource for teachers / trainers who are looking at Twitter as a way to help them in their career.
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Friday, June 19, 2009

Social Media Reading - 061909 Part Two


Tips and Tricks
  • Facebook Makes It Easier to Search Your Inbox - Facebook has added search functionality to its inbox. I didn't miss it before because I try not to use the Facebook inbox much. Some of my friends have 30-50 unread messages that they'll probably never read.
  • Preview Your New Facebook Inbox - In addition to search, Facebook is going to allow you to filter your messages within your inbox.
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Social Media - 061909

  • Social Media Usage Guidelines: Don't moon people with cameras (or at least hide your face when you do) - There are so many things about this blog post by Beth Kanter that I like. First, I again like the framing that use of social media is less about social media and more about management. If someone is twittering all day about stupid stuff that doesn't mean that you should block Twitter for the entire organization. Finally, there's also the three Es.
    -Establish the policy: Determine the policy and what you want to accomplish
    -Educate: Important to train or make employees aware of the implications
    -Enforce: Less about the top down control, but the fact that you need to consistently use the policy – shouldn’t sit in a drawer
  • the next cisco fatty - Where do we draw the line between our personal lives and our professional lives on online social media. This blog's author explores his thoughts on the idea.
Webinars and Conferences
Tips and Tricks
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Thursday, June 18, 2009

Social Media Reading - 061809 Part Two

  • Borders and Walls are Man-Made - This is a really great post about not letting fear stifle what you really want to do. About a week ago, I started this new social media blog. And, fear is the biggest thing that has kept me from starting it sooner. I don't think that I am as witty as other people that are talking about social media, and I don't feel that I have as much experience. But, I felt like I had something to say, and it was time to start saying it.
  • If Google ranked your posts on Twitter, would it change how you tweet? - I'm relatively new to tweeting, so I can't say that it would change the way that I tweet or not. The people that are on Twitter to make money and/or raise their SEO of their sales / marketing web sites, probably would change how they tweet.
Tips and Tricks
  • 15 Fascinating Ways to Track Your Twitter Trends - I use a combination of tools to monitor Twitter. The primary reason I use two different set of tools is because my work's IT department won't let us install desktop applications. At home, I use Seesmic Desktop for most of what I do, except for favorites (that I use Hootsuite). At work, I use tweetgrid if I'm trying to follow Hashtags, and Hootsuite to follow Twitter. Some of the links on this page are more about finding out what's "popular" vs. actually tracking your brand.
  • Five Missing Features of Twitter - I agree with most of these, especially the retweet button. One of the reasons I find trying to use the twitter homepage is its lack of a retweet function. It is interesting though how because the twitter platform is so basic, that so many other pieces of software / web sites have popped up to be more feature-rich. I love that level of innovation and wonder if it would have come about if Twitter had been more feature-rich to begin with?
  • How engaged are your followers on Twitter? - How many followers to do you have on Twitter, and are they engaged? Two great ways to check how engaged your followers are - clicks and retweets.
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Social Media Reading - 061809

  • NPR: Job Seekers Fine New Rules of Engagement - A great story on NPR about hiring managers are looking for from job seekers - must haves are a linked-in profile, a reputable email address (not a silly "family" address, aol, etc.), and a digital copy of your resume
  • NY Times: Plans for Dozens of Salvation Army Centers Falters - The NY Times examines the donation by Joan B. Kroc to The Salvation Army. Her wish was for them to build centers across the U.S. Unfortunately, due to the financial crisis, there have been economic problems building the centers and getting them opened.
Tips and Tricks

Fundraising
  • Crisis Overnight - The Community Crisis Center of Elgin, Illinois is a 24-hour hotline that is facing problems in this down economy. They've had to eliminate staff and are facing the potential of shutting down. Sarah Evans does PR, and she's holding a sit-in overnight to raise awareness and funds for the crisis center. She's going to be blogging and tweeting over 12-hours. They are hoping to raise 25k.
  • Tom's of Maine 50 States for Good Challenge - Community involvement projects are eligible to submit applications. One non-profit from each state will be chosen, and then the public will vote on the top 5 to receive the grants.
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Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Social Media Reading - 061709

Statistics
Tools
  • Adobe Launches Competitor to Google Docs - This is great news. I love Google docs, but I also love Adobe. (And, a little competition never hurt anyone, right? They already have an industry leader with PDFs and can now really expand that to other collaboration tools.
  • Opera launches new media, file sharing service - Very interesting. It would need further examination on the security of it before I would install it. Opera is definitely hoping that this adds to their market share. They only have about 4% of the browser market currently.
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Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Social Media Reading - 061609 Part Two

  • MySpace Slashes 30% of Jobs - Job cuts will bring number of US employees to 1,000 and will be across all job units.
  • Top U.S. Online Search Providers - Google controlled 63% of the search in May, 2009. It will be interesting to see if the Microsoft Bing marketing blitz cuts into that over the next couple of months.
  • LA Times: How MySpace Fell Off the Pace - The article tries to place the blame on Facebook being the "next thing" and that's why it surpassed MySpace in traffic. In actuality, MySpace was always the platform for the "in crowd" of teenagers and young adults. It never scaled to older adults.
  • Wild Apricot Blog: NTEN: Non-Profit Technology Report: Size Doesn't Matter - For those that don't have time to read the whole report, Rebecca posts a great summary highlighting that when it comes to technology the size of the organization really doesn't matter. It reinforces the thought that a lot of people are throwing out there right now that planning and strategy are key to success for your organization.

Webinars and Conferences
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Social Media Reading - 061609

Social Media Policies
  • Tweet and Sour? Newspapers Set New Rules for Social Networking - Basically, if you're a journalist, you are always representing the paper you work for when you post online. Whether you work for the small Charlotte Observer in North Carolina or the Washington Post.
  • 21 Community Foundations that Tweet - Includes Baltimore Community Foundation's Twitter policy
    "be timely
    spark conversation
    NOT present BCF or a fellow organization in a negative light
    be relevant to BCF’s constituency, pertaining specifically to BCF’s: path, donors, grantees, initiatives, or the philanthropic field"
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Monday, June 15, 2009

What I Learned from Blog Potomac - And I Wasn't Even There

Blog Potomac was held on June 12, 2009 in Falls Church, Virginia. It was a one day social media marketing event. I followed along via Twitter and then read the full hashtag transcript from What the Hashtag. All profits from the event were donated to DC Central Kitchen (@dcck) - a non-profit that trains folks in culinary skills to help get them jobs.

Speakers:

Blogs and Live Blogging
The common theme of the event seemed to be that building relationships, connecting with others and listening were the most important parts of social media. Many of the speakers also stressed that the tools and the products are not that important. Those are going to change.

Your brand: One of the main points that several people brought up is that conversations about your brand are already happening online, and you just need to find a way to be a part of them.

One person can't do it all:
  • It's important that social media doesn't get siloed within one department in the organization. Scott Monty from Ford is hoping to get 1% of Ford's 200k employees involved in promoting the Ford brand online.
  • It's also important to let others involved in your brand take an active role online. You don't need to respond to every negative post. Sometimes the community will do it for you.
  • You also need to take the time to unplug. You can't work 24/7.
  • Put the policies and procedures in place and empower others.
Crisis Communications: Twitter and other online tools are the best way to respond to a crisis for your organization. However, you must already be established to be authentic.

Interesting Links:
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Social Media Reading - 061509

Celebrity Endorsements:
Tips and Tricks:
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Social Media Reading - 061409 - Part Two

  • Maintaining Online Volunteers
    - Lindsey sums it up with "Keep them updated, Share their successes, and Say thank you!"
  • Finding and Engaging Volunteers Through Social Media
    - Back this spring, when we were recruiting volunteers for our big event, I did almost entirely online: Facebook, Craigslist and VolunteerMatch. Craigslist brought us in some really key adult volunteers and VolunteerMatch is being used a lot by high school kids trying to fill their service hours
  • Facebook traffic nears Google, Yahoo
    - Joe Trippi analyzes the numbers that shows that Facebook traffic is nearing Google and Yahoo. In May 2009, Facebook had 113 million views. Google and Yahoo have about 140 million views per month.
  • 5 Email Sins to Avoid
    - This is a *fantastic* primer for anyone starting an email blast / email newsletter program or looking to figure out what might be going right or wrong with their program.
  • 2008 IT Staffing & Spending Report from NTEN
Tips and Tricks:
  • Managing Multiple Twitter Accounts for Your Non-Profit
    - Most of us that twitter and work in non-profit usually have a personal twitter account and then one or more twitter accounts for our non-profits that we also manage. Most of the tools don't allow you to manage more than one twitter account. Also, finding a web-based twitter tool can be difficult. Beth Kanter analyzes two tools - HootSuite and CoTweet. I personally use HootSuite at work.
  • 27 Things to Do Before a Conference
    - I like his ideas about researching the conference, other attendees, speakers, etc. If you have a plan of action before even reaching the event, you can get a lot more accomplished.
  • The ROI of Social Media
    - If you have a meeting trying to explain the ROI of social media, this Care2 FrogLoop entry is a must read.

Interesting Links:
  • Suitcases for Kids
    - A project to get 14,000 suitcases donated by 2010 in order to give every child in foster care in Massachusetts a suitcase so that they don't have to use a plastic garbage bag to move their stuff
  • BooneOakley Web Site
    - This is an advertising agency that created an entire web site out of YouTube videos. It's awesome. Very irreverant, but great.
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Social Media Reading - 061409

  • Using Social Media in Your Nonprofit - Overcoming Objections - I hear #5 most often - People will attack us online with negative critique. The organization that I work for has been bitten in the past with very negative critique. In fact, blog posts still persist that are highly negative of the organization. - Great ideas for comebacks on some of the things you might hear from your executive staff.
  • Engaging Major Donors Online - Two main ideas: 1) don't be afraid to ask for larger amounts, especially if you can customize the ask to a previous gift and 2) customize part of your web site to cultivate major donors - including inviting them to be involved, submit content, etc.
  • How Big is Your Farm - Great analogy between farming and marketing. In farming, if you only have the money to buy a few bags of seed, you don't spread it out over several acres. You choose wisely about where to plant. With all the online marketing tools and web sites, it's easy to be tempted to spread out your spend over 10-15 sites instead of choosing one (or a few) and winning.
  • 3 Inspiring Social Media Case Studies - With a targetted approach, Network Solutions dropped their negative comments ratio from 58% to 18% - mostly by participating in blogs, forums and twitter.
  • Not Everyone is Excited about Facebook Vanity URLs - I understand Marshall's concern about digital identity. I was one of the first people to register my name on Friday evening. I had it locked up within the first minute. But, I have no plans to send people to that URL or to limit myself to Facebook being my only means of expression online. To me, it's just a cool thing to have. And now, if I want to send a friend to my Facebook page, it's much easier than it used to be.

Tips and Tricks:
  • What the Hashtag?! - Can't say enough about how much I love this site and it's ability to aggregate all of the tweets to a specific hashtag. The transcript feature is probably the best part about it.
  • iGoogle - Step by Step Instructions from Carrie Lewis (HSUS) on how to set up an iGoogle page to effective track your brand online
  • Change.org Non-profit Accounts Explained
  • Tweet Grid - Web-based Twitter Search Dahsboard - Haven't tried this yet. Going to try it out this week.
  • #Fail - Twisig.com - I tried this over the weekend. In theory, it creates a "signature" file of your latest tweet that is automatically updated. Two problems I ran into: a) the box isn't big enough for a 140 character tweet and was overlapping information and b) all of a sudden earlier today, they said my twitter account didn't exist
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