Social Media for Nonprofits: Getting Your Hands Dirty

agardina — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 19:11:13 +0000

In one of my earlier posts, I discussed social media strategy. Nonprofits, corporations, professionals, students - no matter who you are, you need to have a goal for your interactions on social media and a path to reach them. As a nonprofit, your goal could be to increase awareness, grow local event attendance or create issue advocates. Take that and create a strategy (maybe with a solid trunk and branches?), and you're ready to start getting your hands dirty.

It's time to get down to the nitty-gritty of social media tactics. In my next couple of posts, we'll talk best practices, ideas for campaigns and some case studies. There are a lot of great resources to help with specific tools and technology questions. Following are posts that serve as a great jumping-off point for nonprofits new to social media, or anyone who has a few questions:

From this blog:

Technology Terms Translated (Need to explain "Twitter" to your boss? This is a good place to start!)
Trunk and Branches: Social Media Strategy (It's important to start with a solid foundation and a strategy that coincides with your brand and mission.)

From the web:

4 Ways Social Media is Changing the Non-Profit World (Beth Kanter, writing for Mashable)
Social Media for Nonprofits: 26 Great Slideshare Presentations (These presentations, collected by Rebecca Leaman, cover a wide variety of topics, tips and case studies)
Messages, Stories, and Conversations: Creating a Strategy for your organization and your supporters (Great post from Amy Sample Ward that can apply to overarching strategy or individual messages)
Market or Promote Your Cause on Social Media? Yes, You Can! (Kivi Leroux Miller)
Are You Ready to Take the Social Media Leap? (LevelTen, registration required for download)

Next post, we'll talk online video - in a video! If you have any additional resources you'd like to share for nonprofits who are new to social media, let me know in the comments!

Social media and nonprofits: don't try to go it alone

agardina — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:47:14 +0000

Nonprofits are often all about collaboration. Fundraisers, mailing, events, we're great at working together as a team when we're on deadline. When we're immersed in long-term projects, however, we often get so focused and immersed that teamwork is the last thing on our minds. I came in late to the #blogchat discussion on Twitter on Sunday night, but still had a really interesting discussion with some other nonprofiteers about who does social media for their organization.

If you're doing social media for a nonprofit, you're probably in the marketing or membership department (no offense to education, volunteers or accounting, them's just the facts). In addition to running Twitter, Facebook, a blog, Flickr and YouTube, odds are you're also taking care of reports, administration and plenty of other department-related tasks.

First, breathe.

You are not an island. You're more like a penninsula.

Second, don't be afraid to ask your coworkers for help. Sure, some may think that Twitter is just for talking about what you had for breakfast or that Facebook is for college kids. But here are some tips to get even the most technologically-afraid coworker contributing:

Start with blogging. Odds are good that someone else in your organization is writing grants, reports or guides. Give them the advice to write in smaller paragraphs, and ask that they send their post to you via email before posting it. Comb through it, add some links, include a photo, and (voila!) you've got a new voice and perspective on your blog.
Offer an incentive. This may otherwise be referred to as bribery, but it works. I've offered to bake cookies for anyone that posts on the blog - not exactly honest, but it gets people in the game.
Show concrete results. If you can show that you've gotten event RSVPs on Facebook, donations on Twitter or a great contact through LinkedIn, you've got their attention. Nonprofits are usually open to outside the box thinking, as long as you can show it's worth the time. Need some more reasons? I've got plenty.

Nonprofits have a lot to gain by building a presence on social media. Conversation, awareness, resources - they're all pretty much there for the taking. Working slowly but surely, you can get your coworkers involved and really build a stellar online presence. Questions? Contact me. I've got the bribery thing down.

(And yes, this is my first post in awhile. Pot calling kettle, I've been too busy. I'm back now, though, I promise!)

alyssagardina.com - blogging

Social Media for Nonprofits: Getting Your Hands Dirty

Social media and nonprofits: don't try to go it alone