Reflections on Social Networks and Nonprofits

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This presentation is from Jeremiah Owyang with the title "Opportunities of a Ready Made Platform: Your Facebook Strategy"  My absolute favorite phrase is "technologies come and go, but strategy sustains." I might modify it to include outcomes, strategy, and metrics sustain - for nonprofits.   There's lot of great stuff in here.   

I did the research on Facebook for an article I recently submitted to TechSoup on social networking strategies.  The research process was to conduct a series of "focus groups"  (sent out questions in private message), summarize the key themes, and set these up as a series of notes asking for feedback.   I was happy to read that both Ian Wilker and Beth Dunn went back to their blogs and thought a bit more about the questions and shared some deeper reflections.

Beth Dunn writes about the pressure that nonprofits may be feeling amid the social networking hype:

Nonprofits all around us are making decisions RIGHT NOW about how to engage in social networks, and many of us in the field have to fight a desperate feeling of running hard just to keep up - the overwhelming conviction that everybody else is winning friends, donors, hearts and minds through the savvy use of social networking sites, and that we are MISSING OUT.

She adds:

What is certainly a bad idea is rushing into things without a plan.

Or I might add - a logic model. Beth Dunn is working on a logic model.

Ian Wilker is thinking about best practices and social networking.  He suggests encouraging more than one staff person to have a presence, make sure you can get your content IN and OUT of the site easily and automatically.

In Owyang's presentation, he presents a scaffolded list of objectives:

Listening (setting up an individual profile and doing research)
Speaking  (groups)
Energizing (viral - using causes, changing the present)
Supporting (multi-staff on site)
Embracing (turning loose evangelists)

I'm curious nonprofit colleagues who are using social networking - which objective matches your objective?
  Are those objectives appropriate for nonprofits?  If not, how should nonprofit objectives be framed?

Comments

[executedtoday]

"technologies come and go, but strategy sustains."

The dude abides.

[Jessica Mallard]

Beth,

Nice post. I attended this same presentation via Web ex awhile back and I found it very informative. Although nonprofits out pace business when it comes to social media (http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2007/11/nonprofits-outpace-businesses-on-social-media.html), I think many nonprofits really do feel they are "running hard just to keep up."

As we develop new business proposals for nonprofits, I try to remind them that social media is not a replacement, but an add on. And a lot of what we do in the beginning as far as objectives go is research. Instead of feeding people information, this involves listening and gathering information,which takes time. But doing this first helps you avoid rushing into things.

[Paulette]

Hi Beth,

I found out about your site as I was researching non-profit organizations, as I am starting a non-profit organization for single mothers. I'm in the beginning stages and I am researching how to use social media to both raise money and awareness of m organization. I would greatly appreciate any helpful information you might have to stir me in the right direction with my project.

Thank you