Please choose the option or options that best fits your organization.
Tools and tips on sharing social media responsibilities.
Wed, 02/01/2012 - 3:41pm | by CaryWalskiIf the receptionist at your nonprofit takes a week off, does your organization stop answering the phone? Your nonprofit's social media shouldn't go on vacation when you do either!
Marcos offers his tips and tools for sharing social media responsibility. At the very least, have a designated person trained to respond to people via social media when your primary person is gone.
Tools like CoTweet and Hoot Suite allow you to give controlled access to different individuals. You can even assign posting tasks to different members of your social media team.
Want a social media influencer to talk about your nonprofit?
Wed, 02/01/2012 - 3:22pm | by CaryWalskiIf your nonprofit uses Facebook or Twitter, chances are you've heard of the term "influencer". An influencer is a person active on social media that has a lot of followers who are also actively engaged in what that person or entity has to say. Social media expert Beth Kanter, for instance, is a great example of an influencer.
Getting noticed and retweeted by these folks has obvious value for your nonprofit. But how do you get on their radar? As in life (and fundraising!), the best thing to do is develop a genuine relationship with them over time.
Participate in their conversations. Follow and post their content. Don't jump to Direct Messages or e-mail asks. After they get to know you, then make your move. Sharing may also just happen organically because they're now paying attention to you, and are interested in your cause.
Remember -- social media is about having conversations with other human beings. Many of the same social norms apply online, as they do in real life. To quote a song from West Side Story, "play it cool, real cool".
Want your nonprofit to stand out on Facebook and Twitter?
Wed, 02/01/2012 - 2:48pm | by CaryWalskiMarcos' top tip for standing out -- be a conversation starter. With Twitter's endless stream of information, and Facebook's mysterious algorithm muting your nonprofit's posts, trying to get your updates in front of folks may seem a daunting task.
Marcos recommends strategies for defying the odds. His first one is simply engaging in direct conversation with individuals who are talking about your cause, not just posting only about your organization.
Another idea, sometimes it's great to ask a question of your audience, or just strike up a conversation about some other casual topic, like the weather or what people are having with their coffee this morning. Not only do people like these types of occasional "off-message" posts, these interchanges also bring in that humanness that is real asset in social media spaces.
How to stay on top of the buzz about your nonprofit, and topics that relate to your cause.
Wed, 02/01/2012 - 11:35am | by CaryWalskiSocial media provides you a tremendous opportunity to listen to your nonprofit's constituents more easily than ever before.
You can use free tools like Google Alerts, TweetDeck, HootSuite and Seesmic to set up searches using your organizations name, and keywords of topics relating to your cause in order to identify conversations you should be participating in online.
Marcos also recommends that you track misspellings of your organization's name as well, especially if it's a unique name, or has letters that are easy to mistype.
What social media analytics should I be tracking, and what can I learn?
Wed, 02/01/2012 - 10:58am | by CaryWalskiThere are no shortage of data points in social media analytics. What should your nonprofit actually be paying attention to? According to Marcos, the best things to focus on aren't so much the baseline numbers of followers and fans, but instead the trends.
Ask yourself what's your rate of growth? Is it better than last month? The same time last year?
The type of information this analysis can give you includes information about what time of day your updates to Facebook and Twitter are most effective.
What times work? For Facebook Saturday morning is a great time! For both Twitter and Facebook, avoid 1 pm -- people are just getting back to work. Marcos recommends the Blogger Dan Zarrella for more tips on timing.
Should a nonprofit identify who's doing its social media?
Wed, 02/01/2012 - 10:17am | by CaryWalskiWhat are the risks and the rewards of having the individuals who do social media for your nonprofit organization clearly identified?
According to Marcos, the rewards can include the humanness and sense of personal identification that knowing of the people behind the screen. Even if they don't actively identify who's tweeting for them, failure of organizations to acknowledge in some way the humans behind social media can translate into a sense of stiffness that does not play well in the conversational social media space.
There are risks to operating with this type of transparency though. Those who are identified should be similarly professional about their personal social media accounts, and may need to refrain from certain subjects to avoid conflict of interest.
How to balance the personal and the organizational voice on social media.
Tue, 01/31/2012 - 1:51pm | by CaryWalskiWhen using social media on behalf of your nonprofit organization, you're expected to create a positive relationship with your audience, while at the same time maintaining your professionalism and organization voice.
In this video Marcos talks about how a person can mediate the tension between these two goals by knowing that it's okay to have multiple voices. Sometimes your organization is the voice of wisdom -- occasionally it's the voice of commiserating about the yuck Minnesota weather.
There are benefits to being transparent that there is a person "behind the curtain", and it's up to you and your team to determine what the right mix of fun, personal and professional is.
Afterall, no one thinks that your logo is actually the one tweeting!
What's a social media content calendar, and how can I make one for my nonprofit?
Tue, 01/31/2012 - 1:11pm | by CaryWalskiSocial media moves fast! And it can be hard to track whether or not you're using Facebook, Twitter and others to serve your organization's mission sometimes.
A great strategy for keeping on message is using a Social Media Content Calendar. In this video Marcos tells us how he uses a calendar in a simple Excel spreadsheet to lay out broad messaging themes for each month of the year.
As each month and week approaches, Marcos drills down to specific messages and links -- defining which day they'll be sent out on and via which social media platform.
It's a great way for staying on top of it all, and most importantly, on top of your mission.
How often does my nonprofit need to post to Twitter, Facebook and other social media?
Tue, 01/31/2012 - 12:12pm | by CaryWalskiWith any social media platform, if you're there, you need to really be there! Having a placeholder presence is not enough. Marcos recommends that nonprofit organizations make social media a daily activity -- not just once a week. His recommendations for each platform are:
- Facebook: One to two times a day
- Twitter: Two or more times a day
- LinkedIn: If you're on it -- once or twice a week
Before you puke, remember that you don't have to create all the content you send out! One of the best strategies you can do to develop strong followers is to *share* info from other sources that are relevant to your audiences. Sharing someone's comment, responding to them -- this is how you build your presence online.
Should my nonprofit have an app or a mobile website?
Mon, 01/23/2012 - 3:46pm | by CaryWalskiRyan Evans, associate director of AIGA Minnesota, explains to us the difference between an app and a mobile website.
Like programs for your computer, apps can only be run on the type of mobile operating system they were designed for. So if your nonprofit creates an iPhone app, it could not be run on an Andriod device, and vice versa.
In contrast, a mobile website can be run on any web browser regardless of the operating system the mobile device is running.
So, if your goal is to reach the most people on their cell phones and tablets, investing in a mobile website or mobile optimized website will make your content accessible to the maximum number of individuals.