Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

Twibbon: A Twitter Tool That Puts a Ribbon on Your Profile

My friend, Manny Hernandez, founder of Tuiabetes Community and author of Ning for Dummies, let me know that today, November 14 is World Diabetes Day.  Today, at 14:00 hours (local time), thousands of people with diabetes will test their blood sugar, do 14 minutes of exercise, test again and share their results on TuDiabetes or on Twitter. 

He is using a tool called "Twibbon" that makes it easy for people to change their avatar to incorporate a visual for a particular cause.

Exactly two years ago, the idea of changing the visual of your Twitter avatar to support a cause spontaneously happened as part of the Pea Fund Fridays, a Twitter fundraising campaign created by Connie Reece to support breast cancer research to honor Susan Reynolds.  If I remember correctly, it was Robert Scoble who did it first and others took his cue.   See the range of creative expression in the flickr group. 

Two years later, changing your Twitter icon in support of a cause (even though some call this "slacktivism"),  is a techniques being used.   Remember the sea of green avatars last summer in support of the Iran?   There are tools now to make it easy for supporters to change their avatars, although you don't get the range of self-expression.

What do you think?  Is changing your Twitter profile in support of a cause a silly click action or the first rung on ladder of engagement to get people to do something offline?

Can Small Nonprofits Reap Success With Social Media? (Giving away a copy of Twitter for Dummies)

With the big holiday charitable giving season just around the corner, there's a host of cause-related giving campaigns waiting in software launch and nonprofits gearing up for their end-of-the-year efforts.  Some campaigns will launch soon, while others have already swung into action.

Take for example Big Warm Up, a campaign by Lands End to encourage people to donate winter coats to homeless people. This cause-related campaign has a big fancy web site and nonprofit partners. They've also taken a leaf from Mom's Rising's playbook and have videos that you can customize

After last week's social media workshop, a gentleman from a local nonprofit came up to me and said, "Well this social media stuff is all fine and good for large national advocacy organizations, but it is not very relevant for small or regional organizations with really tight resources."

And many small, grassroots nonprofits may look at big beautiful flash web sites and giving campaigns
knowing that they probably won't have corporate sponsorship at that levels.

Whenever I get this question, I wonder myself.  Is social media appropriate or relevant for smaller nonprofits organizations?  Would about mid-size organizations? Should they stay away?  What is the opportunity cost of not participating?

Today, I got an email from a blog reader, Cindy Williams, who is the founder of a  nonprofit, Teaching Hands. They are located in Boise, Idaho.  Cindy's nonprofit teaches kids and adults to knit hats and sweaters for less fortunate people in their community.  Cindy wrote:

"A couple of months ago I was reading an article about Twitter and went to your blog.  At the time was getting my feet on the ground with social networking.  I set-up a Twitter account, forgot it, figured a waste of time, until now.  I connected with @chrisvoss  and learned from his videos how to use Twitter to help my organization.  

Today, we are listed as #21/100 from Twitterholic in Boise, Id. From my knowledge we are the only nonprofit in the top 100. We have people around the world talking with us. Building bridges with other nonprofits around the world. We received our first business hiring us as their charity of choice to send proceeds to.

Thank you, for encouraging the little guy like me to tackle social networking. "

So, if your thinking that social media is just for corporate giants and fancy flash web sites to support national campaigns or chains and has no value if you doing work in your local community - think again.    Be like Cindy Williams and give it a try.  

• What do you have to lose with small low risk investment?
• What do you have lose by having the conversation?
• What is the cost of not participating?

And, if you are small organization and have succeeded, I want to hear about it. 

Leave a comment sharing how you're using social media to support your organization's work in a local community or regional effort and using a shoe string budget to do it.  And, if you could win a copy of "Twitter for Dummies" that the good folks from Wiley just sent me.

Update:  Julio disagrees.  He feels that small nonprofits should "just say no" to social media and focus their limited resources elsewhere.   I think they should open the conversation and look at what they're doing, what's working and start experiment.  It's possible get started without a major investment.  What's the opportunity cost?

What do you think?

Twitter Rolls Out Beta Retweet Feature: Will It Generate TMRT? (Too much Re Tweeting)

Twitter has been rolling out new features for its web interface to small groups to get feedback and then onto full roll out.  It did this with Twitter Lists.   Over the weekend, I noticed that Twitter's beta retweet feature was available on my account and played around with it.

Brian Solis picks out what's interesting about it.

The new retweet feature is particularly interesting as it organizes your experience directly at Twitter.com much in the same way third-party clients such as Tweetdeck and Seesmic have offered all along. Unlike these desktop applications however, Twitter.com remains as the pervasive interface for engaging on Twitter. For example, your lists, real-time search results, DMs, Twitter stream, and now retweets are key pillars to the personal experience at Twitter.com. For most users, the new retweet functionality, combined with important, cached searches (including your username), the need to stray from Twitter’s online hub begins to dissipate.

Woodsy Owl: Give A Hoot, Don't Retweet Pollute!

The new feature makes re-tweeting a single step versus a two-step process.    What I don't like about it is that I can't add my own two cents about Tweet.  By making it so easy to retweet messages will this cause an explosion of too much information on Twitter?

I thought about Woodsy Owl.  Woodsy has been USDA Forest Service's environmental champion since  1970, and is most recognized for his wise request, "Give a hoot. Don't Pollute."   That was before we had to deal with the amount of digital information we deal with daily from our email, Twitter, and social streams.  So, give a hoot, don't retweet pollute.

And with more retweets, the more likely it is that you will see duplicate retweets. This points to the need for more filters better at filtering than our human brains or relying on changes of human behavior.  Louis Gray recently reviewed a new product under development, called Cadmus.  It filters your real time streams to group similar posts in your feeds to reduce the noise.  The service currently works on your Twitter account, your FriendFeed account, or on any number of blogs you add. You can also add many RSS feeds at once via OPML.

This is on my list for 2010, to take a deeper dive in filtering tools.   Maybe I'm just behind on getting fluent on filtering tools and thus finding the duplication annoying.  

What filtering tools are you using to avoid information overload or "too much retweeting"?

Filtering Resources

Filtering Twitter Lists by Hashtags

Ways To Use Twitter Lists for Your Nonprofit Work

Gopher Screen Capture

Twitter Lists: A Natural Evolution of Internet List Culture

The Internet has a strongly ingrained "list-making" and "collecting" culture. Back in the early 1990's, during my "gopher mistress" days, I could use this Internet protocol to create lists of lists of public files on servers on the Internet.  It made it easy for me to navigate through public files available on the Internet in a linear way.  Even better, I could  browse, collect, and organize files on my own gopher and make it available for others to "gopher surf."

Back then, there was a lot less information on the Internet than there is today - so there was less redundancy of lists.   Unfortunately, the gopher did not live a long life, it was soon overshadowed by the World Wide Web.

Even in the early days of the web, there was the urge to organize collections of files and links.  I discovered the WWW Virtual Library in 1993 when there were only 200 servers on the Internet. I volunteered to be the Dance Librarian.  What that meant was that the Library pointed to my dance links on the Arts Wire server.  It also enabled the WWW Virtual Library to scale in terms of server capacity and allow for a distributed network of volunteer librarians.

I remember organizing a meet up for 25 of these volunteer web librarians (all guys) when they came to Cambridge, MA for Web Consortium Meeting.  That's where I met Arthur Secret, the project coordinator of this web volunteer effort. (He worked at Cern or the UN at the time and everyone wanted to view his public FTP folder - after all it was the "secret" folder.)

As the Web started to explode in  1995ish, I remember the dance links getting so plentiful that I started to organize volunteers who could self-organize different sections on their servers.  (I kept the ballet and modern dance links). 

There is something about Twitter Lists, the new feature recently launched by Twitter, that allows Twitter users to create their own lists of followers that reminds of the gopher.  Twitter lists lets you curate your followers and keep connected to smaller affinity groups of your choosing.  This feature is similar to the functionality to lists that you can create with popular Twitter clients like Tweetdeck, but with some important and compelling differences.  Your lists can be public.

This gives us a number of ways to look at Twitter lists and their potential.

Curation of Dynamic Resources

What made me think about the gopher and early web days, was the feature where you can join any public list to receive the same tweets, whether or not you follow the included individuals.  This intelligence of the crowds, yet manual, filtering helps you improve the signal to noise on any your topics of Internet.  

Twitter lists are very easy to create - so you can expect to see many people making Twitter lists and maybe even some large directories of Twitter lists. The key is to find good lists to follow or the ones created byTwitter users who know how to curate information and energy or capacity to keep their lists up to date.  This is not unlike the strategy I used for people I followed on delicious or what is known as "Tag Sniffing."  (Find the expert curators in topics that you don't have time or desire to go deep on and follow their lists, resources, or friends.)

I was going to spend a lot of time making up different lists and sub-lists of nonprofit techies, social causes, social media gurus, metrics geeks, and the way too many other topics I'm obsessed with, but realized all I had to do was find someone who I knew and trusted and follow their list.  For example, I was looking for a list of Twitter users from Africa - and after some conversation with Kabissa on Twitter, I found their lists.

However, we're still in the early stages of lists - and lists are like gardening - they require maintenance, watering and feeding.   And, that has to be done manually.   Will Twitter lists become an graveyard of outdated lists?  Maybe we'll see some tools to automate list maintenance, widgets, and clients.

Twitter Lists and List Numbers As Popularity Contests

The problem with lists is that there is always someone left off the list and that can lead to hurt feelings as Chris Brogan suggested in this post.  And while some people disagreed, list are elitist.   And, then there is the new metric of being "listed" that is how many other people included you in a list.    Some view this as "another stupid number to worry about." Don't get me started on stupid Twitter numbers, but I'll save that for another post.

Nonprofits and Twitter Lists

Amy Sample Ward, on Socialbrite, has a post with some recommendations on the types of lists they should create.  It is important to remember that lists do require maintenance - and you don't want your Twitter lists down the road to become outdated  - like web pages that aren't updated.    Amy riffs on a post by Geeking for Good outlining seven different types of nonprofit twitter lists:

    * Your organization’s chapters and campaigns.
    * Related international organizations and campaigns.
    * Organizations that are somewhat related to your organisation.
    * Celebrities, politicians and others with a high profile.
    * Media.
    * Volunteers.
    * Retweeters and people who have contacted you.

Twitter lists is just one of some new features that Twitter is rolling out, so as the service grows, so will nonprofits use of it.

Twitter List Resources

Scoble:  Twitter Bugs and Brilliance

Mashable: 10 Ways To Use Twitter Lists

Mashable:  How To Use Twitter Lists

My Twitter Lists links are here.

A Social Media Strategy for Scientific Research or Policy Impact

I encounter a lot of social media skeptics who ask me pointed questions.   I can answer most, but sometimes I get hit with a question that I can't answer (adequately) on the spot.  I love those questions - they are a real gift.    

Recently, I've been getting a question like that goes something like this, "All this social media stuff is great if you're fund raising or selling something or running a grassroots advocacy campaign, but what if you're focusing on carefully vetted scientific research or want to impact policy?  What if your goal is large scale systemic change, why bother with social media?"

A few weeks back I met Melinda Venable, Associate Director Digital and Ethnic Media at Resource Media who told me about the ClimateChangeUS Twitter strategy.    

The Twitter account was started with a focused goal of raising awareness about the release of the Global Climate Impacts in the United States report last June. A few weeks after the release, they decided to broaden it's goal to sharing the latest peer-reviewed climate science that highlights immediate, near-term threats from human-caused warming. The goal is to be a trust agent for climate change scientific information.

They are building a following of journalists and others who are looking for carefully vetted scientific information.  What's interesting about this Twitter account is that it isn't an automatic feed that streams links to their own reports.   They share the latest, and best peer-reviewed science through Twitter conversations.

They also tweet about real-time impacts, which usually is extreme weather and how that fits within the pattern of global warming.  They rely only on credible sources.  They do offer our opinions or promote any one policy or get into politics. 

They are using Twitter and a Facebook Fan Page to grow an audience interested in carefully vetted research.  They've become a trusted resource for educators, journalists, and others.  I'd like to know more about the specific results and how they are measuring the success of their social media strategy - as well as what they are tracking to improve what they are doing.

The use of social media is part of a larger strategy to inform the public about the impacts of climate change, not just at the North Pole, but in their backyards. They are co-producing video spots, which air on television and on the Web. They also engage directly with weather casters, a group uniquely positioned to inform the general public,  by instructing them about how to incorporate the science of climate change into their daily broadcasts.

In early 2009,  the Compete Blog posted its media trends for 2008, suggesting that publisher media continue to integrate social media.  

Source: Compete Media Trends for 2008 

Do you have an example of how Twitter can be used to distributed "trusted" information about an important policy issue?

What do Twitter, Books, Wine, and Fundraisers have in Common?

Yesterday, Twitter announced its first corporate social responsibility effort on its blog:

We're just getting started as a company, but we believe thinking long term about making a positive impact will allow us to grow in the right direction to make a difference as both a technology and a business.

For Twitter to be at its peak in utility, people who would have never had access to the world's information need to be able to not only receive it but engage with it, too. Room to Read, a San Francisco based non-profit, will help us make that happen by bringing libraries and literacy to the world's poorest regions.

Together we'll be making some awesome wine over the course of a year to benefit @roomtoread, and with each case sold they'll be able to supply about 60 local language children's books to educate the 300 million kids around the world who can't read.

You can follow us throughout this initiative and even participate in barrel tastings and other activities along the way thanks to the folks at Crushpad. If you want to get a bottle of our limited Pinot Noir or Chardonnay, visit the Fledgling Initiative and contribute. Good wine has never been better!

Based on my experience with the Sharing Foundation in Cambodia, I know how important it is for children in developing countries to have books to read in their own language.  

And, with a donation - you get a bottle of wine too!

Using Chris Brogan's Archimedes Principle To Leverage Nonprofits on Twitter Suggested User List

Chris Brogan's Archimedes Effect is from his book Trust Agents (co-authored with Julien Smith).  The principle is about leverage.  I've been asking myself how can we leverage the addition of nonprofits and charities on the Twitter Suggested User List?

I got up really early this morning PST time to fly to the East Coast for some trainings I'm doing. While waiting for my plane this morning before dawn,  I scanned my Twitter stream thinking that a jolt of caffeine and Twitter would wake me up while I did my morning 20 minute information grazing routine, finding good stuff, retweeting, bookmarking and sharing.  I came across this tweet from @socialcitizen

I followed the ant trails to the Chronicle of Philanthropy blog post today asking the question, Should Twitter Recommend More Charities?  and referring to a post last Friday by Sean at Tactical Philanthropy breaking the news that Twitter had added charities to its list of suggested users.

Sean listed the new users:

The new “suggested users” are:

• Social Edge
• Skoll Foundation
• Matt Flannery
• Kiva
• Acumen Fund
• charity: water
• GOOD
• Kjerstin Erickson (FORGE founder)
• Jacqueline Novogratz (Acumen Fund founder)
  
• Room to Read

Sean also described a wonderful example of the Chris Brogan's leverage principle by Social Edge which immediately sent out a message to all their new users pointing them to a list of 100 other social entrepreneur focused Twitter users.

There's been a lot of discussion about the Twitter suggested user list which includes a wide mix of celebrities, news outlets, and more.  Sean points out the value of being on the list:

In June the New York Times wrote about the “suggested user” list saying that Twitter was now a “king maker”. They said being listed could add 500,000 followers and pointed out that social media titan Jason Calacanis offered $250,000 to be listed.

I was going to write something about it because I was reminded of the discussion that we had not two weeks ago in response to Seth Godin's post about the non in nonprofits

Godin used (as Tom Watson said it), "the Ashton Kutcher Metric of Social Change - not yet proven, only a theory!"   I am assuming Tom was talking about the number of followers on Twitter as a measure of impact.   If you look in the comments, there was a lot of discussion and on nonprofit blogs about whether number of followers is a meaningful indicator or can be translated into value for nonprofits.  There was a comment about how a smaller number of passionate followers might be worth more to a nonprofit than millions who select them off a general list.

As I was waiting for my plane, I discovered a fantastic and funny post by Alexandra Samuel on social media analytics and metrics about the greatest peril of social media: analytophilia.  It's about obsessing on raw numbers and constantly checking the number of Twitter followers or retweets or Facebook insight clicks.  She recommends that you don't just look at numbers, but ask questions.  I've been advocating this approach for a long time and in many different blog posts.  Take for example, "Using Metrics to Harvest Insights About Your Social Media Strategy."

They started to board my plane and I glanced down at my Twitter account and noticed that something strange happened.  My followers had doubled since the last time I looked!  I had to wait until I could get on the Virgin America wifi to follow the ant trails.  I discovered that I was on the Twitter suggested users list!   So, this sent me over to my new typepad metrics dashboard to see what the impact might be.  I think I'm going to have to track this over a couple of months and set something up on google analytics.

If I was one of the nonprofits on the list, I'd be tracking conversions via a Twitter landing page.  That's what I plan to do. 

The Chronicle has been crowdsourcing suggestions of nonprofits to be added to the suggested list.  I'm going to take a slightly different approach.  I'd like to provide a list of lists to nonprofit twitter users and charities.   I'm adding these to my Twitter landing page.  If you have a list of nonprofit twitter accounts you'd like to add, please leave a comment. 

And metrics geeks, how should I track this?

And, to bring this post full circle, I'm giving a way a copy of Chris Brogan's Trust Agents. Leave a comment!

And the Twitterville Book Winners Are .....

That's some of the schwag and a copy of Shel Israels's Twitterville that I purchased at last night's #tbash, the launch party for the  book.  I also had 17 copies to give away and delighted to meet United Linens and Walter Akana in person! 

• Shel Israel donated three books
• I kicked in my  three preview copies
• UnitedLinen purchased five copies for me to giveaway
• Walterakana purchased two copies
• Betsy Aoki purchased three copies

The launch party was lots of fun - lots of Twitterville's most prominent residents were there as you can see from the #tbash stream and the photos in Flickr by Kenneth Yeung.  Also a few nonprofit folks, including Stacey Monk and Frank Barry who were also in the book and great to see some old friends like KdPaine, Chris Heuer, Kristie Wells, Amber Cadabra, Brian Solis and all the folks captured in Brian's photos.   The t-shirts were provided by Network Solutions and Shashi was creating customized versions by ironing our Twitter handles! (You can see the front of the t-shirt on this photo of I took of Francine Hardaway and Erica O'Grady)

Shel Israel's book Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods is fantastic storytelling and a delightful read!     Even though it says "businesses" in the title, there is an entire chapter devoted to nonprofits and fundraising on Twitter in the book.

I love Shel's writing - he tells one great story after another.  But he also has done his homework. Like a sociologist digging up the remains of an ancient civilization or someone researching their family history, he went to great lengths to uncover the beginning of fundraising on Twitter.  He looks at how it is evolved in the last two years.    

The chapter begins with the story of how I used Twitter in July 07 to raise money for the Cambodian bloggers conference (now Cambodians are tweeting), how Connie Reece raised thousands of dollars to support breast cancer, Stacey Monk's Tweetsgiving, Twestival, and the entrance of large nonprofits into the Twittersphere.   Certainly as social media "normalizes" and charities bid for attention in an increasing crowded social space, the future of social media infused fundraising will be different.  

Nonetheless, the best practices that Shel outlines at the end of the fundraising chapter will still hold true.

Okay, so if you've read this far, you'll notice that there are still four books that haven't been given away. I'll be using those to raise money for Leng Sopharath's senior college tuition. So stay tuned.  I hoping the winners will have lots of advice and maybe a screencapture of tweeted best practices for goodwill fundraising and share them in the Twitterville Flickr Group.

The 13 winners

Manny Hernandez who shared his fundraising secrets for Tubiabetes.com

Amy Yu and Christine Lin from Asian Liver Center at Stanford University

WiserEarth for its sharing it's Twitter thank you note for its fundraising campaign for its API

Jeris Jc Miller who along with Kathy Gill are inspiring the next generation of Twitter Goodwill fundraisers in Seattle.  (Please share the book with Kathy and her students)

Sue Anne Reed from EMQ FamiliesFirst

Lisa Colton from Darim, nonprofit that helps Jewish organizations.  She will read the book, incorporate some ideas strategies and then do a book giveaway in their blog asking the same question!

Marc Sirkin from Autism Speaks

Lindsay Renee from the Georgia Alzheimer's Association who will read it and then use as a featured item in their fundraising auction.

Robin Pratt from the Utah Nonprofit Association who will read it, apply to strategy, and then put in their library for nonprofits around the state to read.

Susan from the McHenry County Animal Welfare Coalition

Cathy Kujala from AidsWalk Boston

Jason Iman from Convoy of Hope

Ivan Boothe from Casino Free Philadelphia

I'm expecting each and every one of these winners to share what they learn about Goodwill Fundraising on Twitter!

And Congrats to Shel Israel on the launch of his book!

What are the most effective ways Nonprofits/Foundations can use Twitter #hashtags?

Photo by Mansikka

What is a #HashTag?

A hashtag is this symbol: #.  It is also a Twitter term that describes a keyword, prefixed by that symbol, that helps people track conversations on Twitter.

The HashTags site, a centralized directory of hashtags on Twitter, also offers a good definition:

Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. They're like tags on Flickr, only added inline to your post. You create a hashtag simply by prefixing a word with a hash symbol: #hashtag.

A Brief History of Hash Tags

Chris Messina (@chrismessina) is credited with starting hashtags and has written about how to make them most useful.  According to the Twitter Fan Wiki, hashtags were popularized during the San Diego forest fires in 2007 when Nate Ritter used the hashtag "#sandiegofire" to identify his updates related to the disaster.

Nonprofit Use #1: Events and Conferences

Since those early days, hashtags have been used in different ways by nonprofits.  One of the most frequent applications has been to use them at events and conferences.  It's not uncommon to see the "official" hashtag included with the promotional information about the event, even events or conferences that are not technology focused.

The hashtag creates a backchannel for participants. It also makes it easy for attendees to follow the conversation thread and participate whether they are or in the room or following from afar.   That's, of course, if the tag used is unique enough.

Nonprofit Use #2:  Sharing Knowledge/Resources As Community of Practice

Hashtags can create an ad hoc community of practice or a channel for people in a field to informally share resources or conversation.  

Tagging communities or unbounded networks that might come to life around a tag are not new.  The Nonprofit Technology community has used a special tag, nptech, created by Marnie Webb in 2004.  It still continues to be used on Twitter as well as other places.  Although this was before Twitter, the advice about what makes an effective tagging community still resonates and are applicable to effective Twitter hashtags

There are many adhoc Twitter hashtags where nonprofits, foundations, social entrepeneurs, and others are sharing resources or having conversations.  Some occur on a regular basis   I don't think there is a formal directory of nonprofit hashtags, but there are few terrific blog posts that have good lists.  For example, Socialedge compiled a list of Twitter users in the social entrepreneurship sector that included a list of hashtags. 

Given that hashtags seem to appear and disappear like cheshire cats and most seem ephemeral, a massive directory of hashtags for nonprofits is probably not very useful.    However, a list of the ten best hashtag communities and conversations might be.

Some of the #hashtag communities are ongoing and unstructured like the #nptech tag community.  Others are more formal, structured conversations that happen weekly at a particular time.   #4change is a regular chat about social media change.  Another example, although not totally nonprofit focused is  #blogchat.  #blogchat which is facilitated by @mackcollier and uses wthashtag to aggregate the conversation.

In my initial analysis of mega list of 90 Foundations that Tweet, I did not look at hashtags.   Nathaniel Naskashima, in a comment on another post, shared some insights from his look at the hashtags used by Foundations on Twitter.  He observes that the hashtags are general, not unique. 

As you can see, most of the #hashtags listed above are really way way too general to be of any use. If for instance, you tagged a tweet about your Foundation's performing arts program with #arts, your tweet would be amongst tweets about all kinds of topics in the art world - even tweets about Paula Abdul leaving American Idol. If, however, there was a standard #hashtag for philanthropy/non-profit art like #philart (stands for philanthropy art) or #npart (stands for non-profit art), then I think we would see everyone in this industry getting a lot more out of Twitter (e.g. engaging in conversation, finding it more useful as a social media tool).

I think it takes more a unique tag.  You need to publicize the tag and encourage conversation around the tag.  Also, having weekly summaries that can be shared in other mediums can make the information accessible to others who don't want to participate on Twitter.   For example, the #givelist tag aggregated all the suggestions from Twitter and then created this site.  This takes some facilitation.

Nonprofit Use #3:  Advocacy Channel

Hashtags can be used effectively at different rungs on the ladder of engagement. The best example of educating and engaging is how the National Wildlife Federation is using the #nwf hashtag to engage its audience in watching wildlife.

Another example is their use in a policy debate. EDF has put together a Twitter Guide to the Climate Bill Discussion.   The guide points out the hashtags used by people who are supporting the bill or against. It also provides some "tweeting" points for advocates to use.   And, in the case of Twitter Vote Report Twitter hashtags have been used for real-time participatory democracy.

• What other uses of hashtags by nonprofits are there?
• What are the lessons learned for using them effectively?
• What are your best resources about hashtags?

12 Copies of Twitterville To Giveaway To Nonprofits: Leave A Comment

Betsy Aoki

The other day, I received this Tweet from Betsy Aoki. 

Betsy has offered to cover the cost of three more books (plus postage) for me to purchase at the book launch party on August 23rd and get signed copies for the winners.   

Here's how to enter:

• Leave a comment on this post and tell me how you will use Twitter to support your organization's mission.  Or maybe you're a "free agent" - someone who isn't affiliated with an organization, but wants to use Twitter for fundraising.  

I'm also expecting that you might consider paying it forward after you've read the book.  Perhaps do a book giveaway to encourage donors to donate or give to nonprofits.

I asked Betsy, why are you doing this?  She told me that she was planning to get a copy of Shel Israel's book herself,  but had seen my Tweet leading to this post about the nonprofit book giveaway for Shel Israel's book called Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods. 

Betsy says, "One thing I have found really powerful in working with social media professionally is the power it has to mobilize people to help others.  Three copies of a book that the twitter community is likely to embrace (and maybe be motivated by, in order to help those less fortunate) seems cheap to me. I think doing this is much more fun than just buying a book I read myself."

So, leave a comment about comment about how you might use Twitter for good will fundraising for a chance to win Twitterville!

Update:  Shel Israel just added another three books so that makes six, plus the earlier three makes nine!

Update:  More book pledges

UnitedLinen (5 copies)
Walterakana (2 copes)

You have until Midnight Saturday to leave a comment

Following Cambodia One Tweet at a Time

It's been almost two years since I had the opportunity to participate in the first Cambodia Blogging Summer.   At that time, Twitter was a place for very early adopters and I used it help get technology T-shirts to bring over the participants.  Now we have TweetCambodia that has become a gathering point for people interested in finding and following others who Tweet about or from Cambodia.

How are Cambodians accessing Twitter?  The site's helpful FAQ offers four ways that you can Tweet from Cambodia.   I'm sure we'll see a lot of live tweeting from the BarCamp Cambodia 2009.

Guest Post by Amanda Rose: Reflections on Cause Fatigue

Note from Beth:  Last week, I wrote a reflection on a CNET article called "Crowded Roads Ahead for Charity 2.0,"  musing about the solution.   A number folks offers some insights in the comments or on Twitter, including Amanda.  I invited her to share her thoughts about cause fatigue and scaling as she launches the Twestival Local.

Cause fatigue is something I think about daily; particularly going into our second Twestival this September.  I’ve felt a huge mix of pressure and enthusiasm to launch another one from previous organizers and cities who missed it the first time around.  I didn’t feel like the Twitter community could handle another cause infused global campaign on the scale of Twestival so soon.  My gut told me to think locally and use this international momentum and inspire people to shine a spotlight on a local cause, or a cause that a community would get behind.  Where Twestival Global focused all of its energy on one cause, on one day; Twestival Local, taking place the weekend of 10-13 September 2009, has the potential to impact hundreds of causes.

Volunteers around the world feel empowered when asked to use their skills, not only to bring people together at an event, but contribute to something positive.  Which is why Twestival Local hopes to challenge city organizers with two important questions with their selected cause:

(1)     What will the not-for-profit do with the funds raised? 

I think too many times people are raising money without a specific objective in mind.  Sure $5,000 sounds like a fantastic fundraising goal, but what if I told you by meeting that target, a local cause would be able to launch an evening food program for the homeless, or make much needed repairs to a home for abandoned girls and boys.  People are more likely to relate and give to something they can follow up on and social media allows causes and those supporting to do just that. 

(2)    In addition to fundraising, what are all the ways your city plans to work with the not-for-profit?

For me, Twestival is more than just about events in cities raising money for a cause.  There is a huge opportunity here to bridge the gap between donors and volunteers.  Twestival teams around the world are encouraged to think of other ways they can contribute to their selected cause; provide social media training, arrange for a local company to donate products and services, or leverage Twestival to strategize and create awareness. 

You wouldn’t know it, but charity: water had very little Twitter presence before Twestival, compared to the way they use it now.  Founder Scott Harrison was the only one on Twitter and I’m pretty sure he’d admit that he didn’t really ‘get it’.  We sent in some social media heavy-hitters from the Twestival NYC team to give them some free training and now a running joke around the charity: water office is that even volunteers must go through a little Twitter initiation.  Causes should recognize specific skills of volunteers as a valuable commodity, the same way it does with cash donations.  After working with charity: water on Twestival, I now have a personal vested interest in seeing them meet their goals financial and otherwise. 

I have always believed in the power of ‘the ripple effect’.  I know that Twestival has inspired causes that otherwise wouldn’t have considered investing time in social media.  It is my hope that with Twestival Local, even nominated causes which aren’t selected as a final recipient feel an impact in awareness. 

So, can we have a Twestival every week?  In my opinion, no.  Twestival involves more than just tweeting; they are physical events happening around the world under short timescales.  It is also not organized by a cause directly, but by volunteers who took it upon themselves to get involved. 

Is the approach of Twestival sustainable?  Absolutely.  Eventually, the masses will come to realize that Twitter is just a great communications tool.  The other fantastic thing about Twitter and certain other social media sites is this ability to develop an online community and empower them to evangelize for you, which can be extremely powerful.  Hosting events for fundraising is nothing new.  Communicating and engaging with potential donors and volunteers in a creative way is nothing new.  To get it ‘right’ is another thing - but there are lessons learned from Twestival that can carry over to even the smallest of causes. 

Recently, my best friend Alyson (www.alysonwoloshyn.com) was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer.  I mention this only because my life is now directly impacted by cancer in ways I could not have predicted a few months ago.  I don’t have a Livestrong band on my Twitter avatar because it is the cool thing to do.  I have it because it is something I believe in and have a reason to support.  Ultimately people are going to support what resonates with them and how you use social media to reach out can make all the difference.

Causes thinking longer term with social media should recognize that there is no magic recipe, no guarantee of online global fundraisers raising over $250k like Twestival.  But, what is exciting to consider and continues to keep me experimenting with social media is how it evens the playing field.  Thanks to social media, causes can now have direct and personal impact with their audience in ways that were once costly and ineffective.  This much I know for sure.

Amanda Rose is an entrepreneur and creative strategy consultant based in London.  She is the architect behind Twestival and one of the only people in the world who can say they have a Masters in Twitter.

Note from Beth:  I wrote several detailed posts about Twestival while it was unfolding and aggregated other posts as well.  If you want to catch up in the stream, here's some links.

Additional References

Beth Kanter, "Look Out, Here Comes Everybody To Raise Money for charity:water on Twitter
Beth Kanter, Are fundraising groundswells an opportunity for mass distraction or a major opportunity?
Beth Kanter, Interview with Amanda Rose: A Reflection on Twestival
Entry-Level Living, Reflecting on Social Media Fundraising
Mashable, Twestival Raises Over $250,000
Guardian, Twestival Raises $250,000 and Expectations
Mashable, Twestival Social Media for Social Change
Miriam Kagan, Twestival
Posts about earlier charity:water and Twitter efforts
Paul Young's Reflection on his September Birthday Campaign
Pistachio's experiment in micro fundraising
September Birthdays on charity:water

#Twestival Tweet Report reviewed by Tweetag.com

View more presentations from Olaf Witkowski.

Foundations That Tweet: Profile Patterns

What are Foundations Tweeting?

About three weeks ago, the 411 Philanthropy Blog created a mega list of 90 Foundations that Tweet (and it is still growing.)  I threw the urls into a google spreadsheet and started to browse the Twitter streams to get a better understanding of the content shared.  (It wasn't useless babble!)

In an earlier post, I found the following types of patterns related to content shared on Twitter. 

• Share history (Detroit Foundation)
• Talk vision and mission (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation)
• Share important research (Kauffman Foundation) (Hewlett Foundation)
• Retweet useful links shared by colleagues (Greater Cincinnati Foundation)
• Recruit job candidates (MacArthur Foundation) 
• Important program deadlines (Hawaii Community Foundation)
• Reveal field insights (Columbus Foundation) (Case Foundation)
• Recognize employees or fellows (Kellogg Foundation)
• Profile grantee success  or support their efforts (CF Community Foundation)
• Be responsive (Skoll Foundation)
• Ask questions about the future (Cleveland Foundation)
• Answer questions about the future (Knight Foundation)

What Voice Are They Using?

At the Packard Foundation, I've had the opportunity to participate in a couple of social media strategy and philosophy development sessions.  One of the issues that they are thinking about as related to strategy (and policy guidelines) is the Personal VS Organizational.   It's a common area of discussion for nonprofits, foundations, and corporations.

The next step was look at the Twitter profiles. The 90 Foundations that Tweet breaks it down into Foundation versus Individual.   Yesterday, I was reading Jeremiah Owyang's Corporate Twitter Profile Analysis and thought it could be easily adapted to nonprofits and foundations.

1) Pure Foundation Brand

100% branded with primarily Foundation related content. These accounts, which are often sporting the logo and name of the Foundation are used to provide news, grants information, and information resources like research studies, job announcements. There is no indicator of any individuals involved.  Many of the examples on the 90 Foundations that Tweet seem to approach Twitter in this way.

Example: CS Mott Foundation

Pros: This account can be managed by a team, could be set up to automatically stream content.  There is d less risk of an individual being co-branded with the Foundation and potentially violating a policy, going off message, etc.
Cons: This may be perceived as a just an extension of Communications, PR or the Foundation website with little human interaction.

2) Foundation With Personality

Estimated with about 80% foundation brand and 20% personal/professional brand this account may be a branded account, although it’s clear there’s an individual participating.  The content stream is more interactive with conversations happening between the Foundation and "followers."

Example: Cleveland Foundation says in the profile "Tweets by Tara" who is in the communications a department.

Pros: This account maintains the face of the Foundation brand, yet shows a human element, building trust with the community.
Cons: The account may be limiting itself as the community may come to expect and rely on the individual person to participate or may have difficulty scaling if it is only one person.

3) Employee With Foundation Association

In a rough estimate this account consists of 20% corporate related content, and approximately 80% personal information.  The personal information more "professional" in that it relates to the individuals subject matter expertise.

These are accounts that are individuals and don’t “officially” or “formally” represent the foundation, but they don’t hide the fact that they’re an employee of the Foundation.  

Example: Stephanie McAuliffe
Pros: These personal accounts are often organic and are a great way to build connections with a community.
Cons: Even if a disclaimer states that “these opinions only represent me, not my employer” they still are representatives of the brand. When it comes to issues like lobbying, there may be legal issues.

4) Pure Personal Account

These accounts are 100% personal content and have no tie or mention of foundation or branded information. These personal accounts, either created by an individual that doesn’t want to be associated with their employer –or their employer won’t let them is void of any corporate ties.

Example: Tiffany Thomas Smith
Pros: This account has no tie or risk to a brand.
Cons: Although the risks are reduced, so are the opportunities. The chance to spread thought leadership is lost

What profile is the "right" way to go?  What type of content should you share?   There are no definitive answers.  These decisions have to reflect the organization's Internet communications objectives and social media strategy.   Also, the decisions need to reflect internal discussions around philosophy, policy and guidelines for social media use.

Your thoughts?

Book Giveaway: Twitterville by Shel Israel (140 Characters of Twitterville Fame)

From the Flickr Twitterville Group

Shel Israel has written a book called Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods.  It's a great read!  Fabulous storytelling.  Better yet, I've got a couple of advanced copies to give away.   Even though it says "businesses" in the title, there is an entire chapter devoted to nonprofits and fundraising on Twitter in the book.

But wait, it gets better.  I'm planning on attending the book launch party on August 23rd and will get signed copies for the winners.

I love Shel's writing - he tells one great story after another.  But he also has done his homework. Like a sociologist digging up the remains of an ancient civilization or someone researching their family history, he went to great lengths to uncover the beginning of fundraising on Twitter.  He looks at how it is evolved in the last two years.    

The chapter begins with the story of how I used Twitter in July 07 to raise money for the Cambodian bloggers conference (now Cambodians are tweeting), how Connie Reece raised thousands of dollars to support breast cancer, Stacey Monk's Tweetsgiving, Twestival, and the entrance of large nonprofits into the Twittersphere.   Certainly as social media "normalizes" and charities bid for attention in an increasing crowded social space, the future of social media infused fundraising will be different.  

Nonetheless, the best practices that Shel outlines at the end of the fundraising chapter will still hold true.

Okay, so if you've read this far, let me tell you what you need to do to win of the copies of the book.

If you have a screencapture of a tweet you think is a best practice for goodwill fundraising on Twitter, leave a comment with a link.  Better yet, add it as a photo to the Twitterville Flickr Group.

Teens and Twitter: A Mini Focus Group with Teens

Earlier this week, I had an opportunity to run the social media strategy game with senior program staff at the Packard Foundation.  I used the same fictional organization, the Earth Worm Sustainability Network, as I used in the Network Effectiveness Grantee Convening back in May.  

This is the first time I ran it for people all from the same organization, with a limited amount of time, and mix of experience.   I am feeling an urge to tinker again with the cards and formats, more specifically to add cards for listening/engagement on social networks.  Using it an internal training, it is important to have someone with hands-on experience in each group and this spreads the organizational learning. 

I was also reminded by one very smart colleague that the Twitter audience card had out-of-date information.  It was from April, 2008!   At that time, the audience skewed younger.   In the last few months, Twitter has become more popular with old people.

The definition of "old people" is pretty broad and is often used to describe both the 35-54 age segment and over age 55 segment, particularly with studies that examine the increase of "older users" on social network sites.   I'm in the 35-54 segment, so after asking where my rocker is on twitter,  Howard Rheingold quipped, that he must be "very old," but would much prefer the label geezer.   I guess that makes me a pre-geezer.

Meanwhile, yesterday Mashable reported that "Tweets Don't Tweet"

If you’re under 25 and use Twitter, you’re not the source of the site’s tremendous growth. While we recently questioned the findings of a largely anecdotal report from Morgan Stanley written by a 15 year old, Nielsen has now produced figures that confirm the trend: young people don’t Tweet.

The Mashable blog raised the question, "Why don't they tweet?"   (Be sure to read Dannah Boyd's take on the research)

International Youth Conference

View more presentations from kanter.

 

Yesterday, I had an opportunity to ask about 100 teens attending the Asian Liver Center's Youth Leadership Conference on Asian and Pacific Islander Health this question directly.  The results are in the video above.  The majority of folks in the room were between the ages of 16-18 and it those who feel Twitter is creepy, lame, stupid, and a waste.  "Twitter is where the stalkers are."  They prefer Facebook because it is easier to make friends.    The college students in the room, however, disagreed.  They felt it was useful for keeping in touch with friends.   (See Zephoria's analysis of the "Teens Don't Tweet" research)

I was invited to present to this group about how nonprofits were using social media effectively.   These young people consist of the most talented and enthusiastic high school students from around the country who were brought together on the Stanford campus to learn about the figut against hepatitis B (HBV), scientific and epidemic aspects of the disease to strategies of outreach and education.   They were working together in teams to apply their knowledge to design an outreach event that also incorporated social media.

After the presentation, I got asked some terrific questions as these younger leaders of tommorrow grappled with adding social media to their outreach plan.  I invited them all to join my fan page or rather focus group so we could continue the conversation.  I got to meet some great folks like Amy Yu and Chrstine Li.

How does knowing more about the demographics of Twitter users shape your social media strategy?

Guest Post by Allyson Kapin: Top 8 Social Media Tracking Tools

WOMM (word of mouth marketing) and earned media should be key components of any communications plan to market your nonprofit’s website. If your nonprofit is not taking advantage of free tools like Add This, a widget that encourages users to share your organizations articles or webpages on the most popular social networks or branded toolbars like FreeCause, then your nonprofit is missing out on some big marketing opportunities.

Check out these 10 tools and strategies to market your nonprofit on the web, connect with your members and reach new supporters. I have also ranked them from easy to moderate to time consuming.

1. RSS Feeds: Add an RSS feed to your blog and news sections so people visiting your site can subscribe to your feed and stay updated on your nonprofits latest news. I like Google Feedburner because it gives visitors a choice to subscribe via RSS or email. *Easy*

2. Add This: A widget that allows website visitors to share your content via 50 social networks and bookmark communities. *Easy*

3. Pick Two Social Networks: My two favorite social networks are Twitter and Facebook (Fanpages). Spend 15 minutes a day talking to the community and cross promoting your campaigns, news, etc. *Moderate* Note: This can be time consuming if you let it, so that’s why I encourage nonprofits to spend at least 15 minutes a day using two main online social networks.

4. URL Shorteners: Bit.ly, Tinyurl, and Pagetweet make links more manageable by turning them into short 20 character links. This is a great tool for sharing links and decreases the risk of links breaking after it’s been shared. Also bit.ly tracks data such as click-through rates, geographic locations, etc. Bonus points! *Easy*

5. Care2’s Petition Site: Start a free petition on the Petition Site to rally support around one of your latest campaigns. You can even list a signature goal and download signatures. *Easy*

6. Google Grants: Google gives nonprofits $10K in-kind grants for their AdWords program. Check out Robin Reed’s great tips for managing an AdWords grant. *Moderate*

7. YouTube Nonprofit Program: YouTube offers nonprofits some pretty cool benefits like branding, promotion on YouTube’s nonprofits channel and call to action overlays in your videos. *Easy*

8. Listservs: Participate in listservs that align with your nonprofit’s mission and where your organizations’ issues are being discussed. Listservs provide great opportunities to not only promote your organizations initiatives but to listen to what other people are saying about your issues. *Easy to Moderate*

9. Widgets: Create widgets to share content or actions. One of my favorites is the Rock the Vote/Credo widget that helps to register people to vote. *Moderate*

10. FreeCause Toolbar: A nifty toolbar that is customized with your nonprofits branding. Link to your social networks, post current news, stream video and audio clips, etc. Bonus – for every click generated, FreeCause will donate money to your nonprofit. *Easy*

Allyson Kapin is the editor of Frogloop, Care2's blog for nonprofit professionals in online marketing, fundraising and advocacy. Kapin is also the founding partner of Rad Campaign - , an online communications firm that provides web design, web development, online marketing and strategy to nonprofits. A master of multi-tasking - she organizes the Women Who Tech TeleSummit and writes Radical Tech, a blog column for FastCompany.com.  She was recently named one of the top tech titans by Washingtonian Magazine.

Reflections on Micro Interview Experience

I'm slowly finding my way back into a blogging routine among other routines that have been disrupted by the move.   The hardest part about moving isn't the packing, the actual move, or even the unpacking and subsequent disorganization.  It's the everything is new, different, and not familiar.  Your brain can't go on automatic pilot for mundane tasks because it has had to rewire neurons.  It's like trying to get back into physical shape after you haven't been exercising for a while.  

So, as part of getting back into my blogging routine or rather establishing a new one, I'd like to reflect a little on TWT20 interview experience.   Jay Baer is a blogger and social media consultant who has been doing Twitter 20 interview series with social media.  I first discovered him when he was interviewing David Armano.

Here's how it works:

• In real time, @jaybaer sends out a series of 20 interview questions as tweets.  The questions are 140-characters long and he uses a hashtag #twt20.  
• You respond with answer that is 140 characters. 
• Other people who are monitoring the hashtag or watching the stream can add their thoughts or questions or retweet.

The mechanics of participating were fairly easy for me.  I use a couple of different Twitter clients and decided to use cotweet for this interview.  I opened up a search on the tag in one tab and in another tab the replies to me. 

Jay asked some terrific questions.  The responding required thinking and writing succintly or in headlines.   I had to sum up an answer in 140 characters.  It uses a different part of the brain.

I actually cheated a little bit ... I tweeted a 140 character answer, but I included a link to a post or resource that explained the answer in more detail.  The most time consuming part was finding the particular post on my blog, but a number of the questions were answered by some of the recent guest posts on this blog.  I tried to point to other people's blogs/examples as much as I could - and that was mostly me trying to remember and find the example!

While the interview was unfolding, Jay was doing a transcript as a blog post.  It looks like he did a cut and paste of the questions and answers - nothing fancy in terms of software tools.  You can find that here. 

I was skeptical at first.  How could you really engage in a conversation/interview with only being able to respond in 140 characters?  Would it be totally distracting?  Would it give the important topics we were discussing any justice?  And more importantly, could those who were listening or participating learn from this 20-question 140-character rapid fire Q&A?  And, would there be a resulting "product" or blog post that could document the conversations for others who not on Twitter during the interview in real time?

I'm not a skeptic any longer.   I read the transcripts from two previous interviews on Social Media Listening - one with David Alston and Amber Naslund which are filled with some useful pointers on one of my favorite topics - listening. 

Jason asked really good questions and added his two-cents.   There were a couple of questions I've never been asked. 

• NPOs have a lot of interactions w/donors & customers. It’s not perfect. Should NPOs have a social media crisis plan?

• Similar to what’s happening w/ Social CRM, do you encourage NPOs to add social media interactions to their database? How?

So, I'm curious about what your take is on those questions?  And even more importantly, what's your take on this model as an engagement strategy?  Looks like the work would take approximately 3-6 hours (figure out interview questions, conduct the interview, post the transcript) depending on your twitter literacy skills.

Scott Henderson, Guest Post -- Rethinking Your Database: From Sacred Collection to Engaged Community

Courtesy of Scott Henderson, publisher of Rally the Cause

#1 Thing You Need To Know from This Post:
The single most important asset of any non-profit organization is its relationships with its volunteers, donors, and other stakeholders. If you treat these relationships like sacred data collections instead of an engaged community, you are at risk of becoming irrelevant.

A More Detailed Exploration:
I spend a good portion of my time traveling across the country to attend conferences and meet with clients and prospective clients. Even in this digital era, the custom of exchanging printed business cards is alive and well. As you can see from the photo to the right, I have quite the collection.

But don’t confuse that collection of cards for a robust network of strong relationships. Getting the card is just like adding a new person to your organization’s database. If you do nothing to build the relationship, that business card becomes an artifact proving very little other than that you once had contact with the person.

The Historical Role of the Database
Common wisdom says that you can measure an organization by the number of people who are in its database. Historically, a central staff maintained this database and treated it like a sacred collection of artifacts. In an era when information didn’t flow so easily and it was very difficult to connect with people you’d never met, protecting that collection of records at all costs was a self-evident truth. After all, these records had taken a great deal of work to assemble and represented the lifeblood of your organization.

The Fundamental Shift Happening
Then something funny happened. The Internet made it much easier for individuals to connect with each other. With 1 billion owning personal computers, 1.5 billion having Internet access, almost 4 billion owning mobile phones, and easy-to-use software tools to connect and communicate using these devices, your expectations of the world around you have changed.

You expect to have much greater intimacy and immediacy with those people and organizations you care about. And, you’re not alone. Your donors, volunteers, and potential key stakeholders have the same growing expectations. Now, we can all search for long-lost friends as well as new and interesting people. It just takes a Google search or looking around on Facebook or Twitter to make them magically appear in front of you.

With the advent of opt-in communications, you now have access to a meta-database that includes much more robust information about your stakeholders, which they are freely sharing with you across many different online platforms…if you are on these sites and actively listening.

Accepting the Reality of Self-Organized Swarms
Perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of this Interconnected Age is how easy it has become for a small group of people to reach out thru their existing network of relationships to create awareness for a cause, layout the vision for leading this cause, and then assemble a mass of champions to achieve their goals.

No longer are these people waiting for non-profit organizations to reach out to them with your glossy annual report and well-crafted annual appeal letter. They are seeing the need and organizing their own armies. These self-organized swarms are a reality and will become even more prevalent.

“Mr. or Mrs. Non-Profiteer, Tear Down This Wall!”
The time has come to tear down the mental walls that you and your leadership team have constructed around the relationships most important to you. I’m NOT saying that you put your database out on the web naked as a jay bird for all to see. What I am saying is:

Stop treating your database as a sacred collection of data controlled by you and begin to see it for what it has always been: a dynamic record of the engaged community who want to help you achieve your mission.

You can’t just measure that community based on database records. You need to also consider the interaction you have with the people who have joined your Facebook Fan page, subscribe to your Flickr account, watch your YouTube channel, follow your Twitter stream, and choose to invite you into their lives from their online platform of choice.

This is critical for your organization to stay relevant, because it is this mosaic of relationships that you can use to mobilize people to rally around your cause. If you’re not doing it, someone else will.

A Sneak Peak of the Pledge to End Hunger Campaign Case Study
This spring when we launched the Pledge to End Hunger campaign (www.pledgetoendhunger.com) to coincide with the South By Southwest Interactive Festival, one of our main goals was to better understand how social media can be used to help non-profit organizations and cause marketing campaigns. [For a campaign summary, I recommend this post on Beth Kanter’s Blog.)

While we’re in the process of finalizing the campaign case study to share with you and the rest of the world, I do have some interesting data to share with you now regarding this topic of databases. One key thing we were seeking to determine was which would generate more traffic to the campaign website: existing email databases or Twitter followers.

Cultivated vs. Non-Cultivated Emails
Between the for-profit and non-profit organizations leading the Pledge to End Hunger, we had seven existing email address databases. Five of the seven databases had been cultivated thru ongoing email correspondences and had a demonstrated affinity for one of the organizations leading the campaign. The other two databases were a collection of people who had participated in eBay charity auctions and had little to no affinity to the organization keeping the database.

We consider the first five to be cultivated databases and the other two non-cultivated. All together, these databases totaled 132,831 names, with 57,831 from cultivated databases and 75,000 from non-cultivated databases.

Email Databases vs. Meta-Databases
To compare the results of these email databases, we put them against the Twitter audience of the fifty people who stepped forward as #HungerPledge champions. These were individuals from different geographic areas representing many different industry verticals who were willing to promote the campaign thru Twitter and blogs (if they published one). Collectively, they had contact with almost 208,000 people thru Twitter alone.

In the first seven days of the campaign, we used email and Twitter equally, so let’s compare the three in that period of time. So which database prevailed: cultivated emails, non-cultivated emails, or Twitter?

- 57,831 cultivated email addresses generated 2,204 visitors at a 3.8% conversion rate.

- 75,000 non-cultivated email addresses generated 19 visitors at a .03% conversion rate.

- 207,426 Twitter followers generated 4,154 visitors at a 2.0% conversion rate.

Conclusions from This Data
1. All Databases Are Not Created Equal - Organizations who cultivate their relationships with those in their email databases can mobilize a higher percentage of their known stakeholders when compared to individuals who mobilized their general Twitter audiences and even more than non-cultivated email databases.

2. You Don’t Need an Email Database – Social media makes it easier to tap into people’s existing relationships. Using fifty individuals, we amassed a larger audience and generated more site visitors than the seven existing email databases.

I’m sure there are many more great conclusions to be made here, so let me know what you think. Plus, here’s your chance to add to my broader thoughts about databases or (even better) challenge my notions.

Find me on Twitter: @scottyhendo

This article was originally posted on Rally the Cause at http://rallythecause.com/2009/07/05/rethinking-your-database-from-sacred-collection-to-engaged-community/ by Scott Henderson:

Scott is a cause marketing director for MediaSauce, helping non-profits and corporations use online media to pull off their next big thing.

Tori Tuncan, Guest Post -- The Lend4Health Journey: Social Media

Submitted by Tori Tuncan, of Lend4Health

I was flattered when @PeterDeitz told me he was going to include Lend4Health in his keynote address at the Connecting Up Australia conference. And when I read his transcript and saw his slides, I was intrigued. Peter had analyzed my use of Twitter and shared at the conference that I use it to communicate, in small increments of time, with those who choose to follow my tweets (which, for today at least, is 1,284 people). Peter's analysis of my "method" made me stop and take a look at what my "method" really is because, certainly, it has not been strategically planned out or even really considered until now!

Twitter
I started using Twitter on September 24, 2008, and my first tweet was, "Working on two new loan requests on Lend4Health." I had no idea what Twitter was or what it was for, but I had heard of it in the traditional media channels. I actually joined Twitter because I had just submitted my entry into the Ideablob contest and there were links to share your entry on "social media" so I clicked on Twitter and that was that.

In the beginning of my Twitter usage, I became obsessed with reading tweets and the links therein. I "favorited" almost everything, and I basically used Twitter as a personalized library. I followed anybody who seemed knowledgeable and well respected in areas like social media, social entrepreneurship, health issues, autism, non-profit technology, philanthropy, micro-lending, and Islamic finance. It was amazing to me that I could get all this great, intelligent information and that, because I could choose to follow specific people, the stream was already "filtered" and oftentimes already "digested" for my specific needs and consumption. That stream was fast-running and wide, but I learned as much as I could, asked questions, and connected with people and ideas I would have never known otherwise.

After a while, Twitter became my "home away from home." Lend4Health.org was my home, my spot, my domain. It was comfy because it was mine, and the visitors were friendly because they liked what I was doing. On the other hand, Twitter was kind of like going to a different conference every day, but with many of the same attendees. I was challenged by the thoughts and ideas presented there, but since I was seeing the same attendees day after day, I became familiar with their styles and moods.

Facebook
At the same time, I had gotten onto Facebook, first to connect with old friends from elementary school, high school, and college, but then to connect a bit with some "autism friends" -- those who I knew from the Yahoo group I frequented. Interestingly, after I started a Lend4Health Group on Facebook and posted a blurb about it on the site, I noticed that "Lend4Health'ers" (loan recipients and lenders) started to join Facebook themselves. This was interesting to me -- that people joined the Facebook social networking site specifically because I (Lend4Health) was there. It also surprised me that Lend4Health loan recipients would get on Facebook and join the same group as their lenders. To me, this was humbling honesty and amazing transparency. For anybody who might fear that the loan recipients were scam artists or would run off with the money, this Lend4Health group on Facebook demonstrated that these people were real people. They were not ashamed to interact with those who lent money to them, and they were not running away incognito; rather, they were putting their faces and their profiles right there. You might not know in which house they lived on the planet, but you had access to them on Facebook.

Bridging Silos
At that point, even though there were Lend4Health'ers on the Facebook group, they weren't really my "friends" in the Facebook sense. At the time, I now realize, there were three very separate communities: (1) The Lend4Health community (the families and lenders with whom I mostly communicated via email); (2) my Twitter community (analysts, philanthropists, social entrepreneurs, and bloggers); and (3) my Facebook community (family and friends).

At some magical point, these three worlds started to converge; these silos started to crumble, and bridges took their place. I remember around the beginning of 2009, when I started working on Lend4Health full-time, some of my Twitter followers made loans on Lend4Health. And some Lend4Health Group members on Facebook started to "friend" me and each other. And, very slowly at first, some Lend4Health'ers started to join Twitter.

This convergence is still happening, and it is still to be seen what this will mean for Lend4Health. What is happening right now is that this larger "Lend4Health community" is overlapping in very un-planned, very organic, and very exciting ways:

- My Twitter followers are starting to make loans, tweet about it, and re-tweet my updates.

- My Facebook friends are starting to inquire about my strange status updates, post Lend4Health links, and make loans.

- Lend4Health families are starting to join Facebook and/or Twitter.

- Lend4Health lenders and recipients are starting to follow each other on Twitter; friend each other on Facebook.

And while this is still a very new development in the Lend4Health Journey, I can feel the energy rumbling and coming closer when I put my ear to the ground and really listen.

Individuals Within the Crowd
Currently, I realize that, although these groups are converging, each individual member of a group has a preference for his/her communications. There are some who resonate best with email. There are some who are Facebook addicts and who have tried Twitter but didn't "get it." And there are those who live and breathe Twitter.

So, as somebody who is trying to keep this diverse community engaged, get messages out, and respond to their queries, I believe I have two options. (1) I could try to make them all form-fit into my preferred method of communication, or (2) I can make myself fluid, flexible, and resilient enough that I can be in all of these places. While option #1 would be easiest and most time-effective for me, I believe doing so would push some community members away, most likely never to return again. Certainly, I could pick up new supporters to take their places in number, but each one of these supporters is an "early adopter" to the Lend4Health concept, and as such I think of them as the most important community members. These early adopters are the ones who believed in Lend4Health in its infancy and awkward adolescence yet took a risk to participate, so these are the people who may later spread the word most passionately. As such, I have chosen option #2.

Everywhere
I engage with lenders, curious observers, and loan recipients wherever they are, and wherever they feel comfortable, whether it be Twitter, email, phone, Facebook, or in person. My business card (which I hand out in bulk at autism conferences) includes all the ways I can be found: web, email, Twitter, Facebook, and cell. My email signature (which I use when posting personal questions and comments on autism-related Yahoo groups) includes all of these channels as well.

Is there a risk involved with this? Emphatically, yes. I worry that I will miss a Facebook post from a potential loan recipient. I worry that I cannot successfully "archive" within a specific email folder, an important, relevant communication I receive in a fleeting tweet. I worry that I am so scattered across these tools that I am not present enough on any one of them.

Current Usage
I have recently started using Twitter and Facebook as integral pieces in my (as of yet un-strategic!) communications strategy. Whereas I used to update lenders via email when a loan repayment was made or when a family sent a progress update on their child, I now also post this information for the masses on Twitter and (easily via TweetDeck) on Facebook. The goal is different. For the lenders, my goal in communicating this information via email is to give them updates on their money and their investment, and to keep them engaged on a consistent (usually monthly), ongoing basis. However, when I post this information on Twitter and Facebook, my goal is to plant seeds repeatedly with potential new lenders, but also to communicate transparently and even to archive the process. So, instead of an annual report summarizing the activities of an entire previous year's work, I am giving these updates real-time, as they happen. I do not think that many of my Twitter followers are hanging on the edge of their seats to get these 140-character updates, but, when they are seen over time, I think they provide an underlying sense that Lend4Health is open and transparent with its process, and that there are several points of entry available for a person to ask a question, criticize, laud, or participate in Lend4Health.

Moving Forward
I am intrigued to see where this all goes as it relates to Lend4Health and other organizations. It seems that so much of the current thinking and teaching being done is aimed at already-established non-profits who need to learn how to use social media tools in order to keep up with the changing times. I believe it will be informative for many of these non-profits to watch as neonate "clouds" and "tribes" like The Extraordinaries, TuDiabetes, and Lend4Health develop hand-in-hand with, and even from within, social media technologies and applications.

This article was originally posted on My Social Actions at http://my.socialactions.com/profiles/blogs/the-lend4health-journey-social by Tori Tuncan:

Tori is the Founder of Lend4Health.org, which facilitates community-funded, interest-free microloans for those pursuing optimal health.

Guest Post by Debra Askanase: You Are Not Local. You Are Social.

Submitted by Debra Askanase, publisher of Community Organizer 2.0

 

image by roadsidepictures under a creative commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic license

There is no such thing as a local business anymore. Nor a local organization.

Consider the local mini mart, the most local of all types of stores. In general, people won’t walk more than 10 minutes or 1/2 mile to their local food mart. Why does the mini mart owner need to interact with his customers via social media? If people want something, they’ll just go there. It’s a fair question, easily answered by another:

What is Local?

I respond: Local is a Mindset. So is Social.

Local is You Talking. Social is Engagement and Conversation.

The local mini mart owner/manager is thinking old-school: bricks and mortar, customers searching for twinkies, chips and coffee, and lottery players seeking millions.Re-think your mindset out of Local and into Social about the same customer.

This time, the customer is sitting at home, wishing she had a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Does the local mini mart have it? Send an email or a Tweet. Can she swing by in her car, illegally park on the sidewalk (hey, they do it all the time in my neighborhood) and get out in 2 minutes? You betcha - IF - she could submit her order via Twitter with an approximate purchase time, and could be sure it would be ready when she arrives. What if she told her friends via Facebook that she was heading down to the local mini-mart for ice cream? She could take orders from them if they were also coming over to her house later. The Facebook update is free publicity for the online or email ordering feature at the local market. That is Social. Not Local.

A great example of a local shop using a Social mindset is Houston’s CoffeeGroundz, which created a Twitter account (@coffeegroundz) and unexpectedly realized that they could do a brisk business with Twitter takeout orders. You can read the whole story, in detail on Pistachio Consulting’s blog, here. CoffeeGroundz is a great example of Social, not Local.

Consider the PTO, the local Parent-Teacher Organization of the local elementary school, the most local of local organizations. A tired parent receives a note about his child, or an email from his child’s school, about the meeting. He goes. The typical meeting consists of parents talking about why the school isn’t doing something or that it should do something better. The PTO wants new ideas, wants to use them, and hopes to involve parents in school improvements. Maybe you attended, maybe not. Either way, you get an email update about what happened. Are you engaged? Are you ready to act? Nope, you’re happy eating mint chocolate chip ice cream and can’t be bothered. The PTO is too Local.

Now consider the Social PTO. The Social PTO is all about making it easier for you to engage, act and motivate others to create real changes in the school.

You receive the next PTO meeting invitation via one or more of these methods: email, a group text message on your mobile phone, a Facebook Event invitation, and/or a listing on the PTO’s chat group (such as a Yahoo or Google group). You are asked to contribute ideas to the agenda ahead of time via an online site. You are asked to invite others to the meeting through the Facebook share application, and you proudly display the meeting as a Facebook Event on your profile. If you can’t go, you can follow the meeting either via live web video, updates on the group site, a #hashtag on Twitter, or real time Facebook group updates. You are able to text your questions to the the vice-chair during the meeting with an assurance that they will be addressed. The meetings are more efficient with the use of pre-sent questions and agenda submissions. The PTO has created easy, potentially viral methods to further engage and recruit people and their ideas. You are engaged and ready to act. The PTO is Social, not Local.

Next time you are about to go to your neighborhood meeting, send a Tweet on Twitter asking if anyone wants anything from the local mini mart. I’ll take some mint choco chip ice cream, please.

It’s all Social now.

This article was originally posted on Community Organizer 2.0 at http://www.communityorganizer20.com/2009/03/20/you-are-not-local-you-are-social/ by Debra Askanase:

Debra is a former community organizer and executive director, and the founder and lead consultant at Community Organizer 2.0, a social media strategy firm for non-profit organizations and businesses.

Guest Post by Chad Norman: Power to Your Peeps! Why Real-time Fundraising with Twitter Works

Submitted by Chad Norman, publisher of I dig webby things...and I bet you do too

I dig speaking at nonprofit conferences and events, and one of my favorite topics to cover is the real-time use of social media. It's the perfect mix of emerging technologies, social media, communities, and the web - some of my favorite things.

The conversations inevitably get stymied around Twitter - which is no surprise, as every nonprofit is trying to figure out what the tool means for them. A channel for promoting your mission? A monitor for listening to chatter about your cause? A way to connect your org to your community? It's all of those things, but it's also something else: a real-time fundraising tool!

Raising money on Twitter is happening all the time. Beth Kanter stood on stage at Gnomedex and used Twitter to help raise $2,657 in 90 minutes. Last November, Tweetsgiving used Twitter to raise over $10,000 in 48 hours for a school in Tanzania. And just last month, I used Twitter to raise $350 in a couple hours to help send the NTEN staff out for a relaxing excursion. These examples show just some of the ways Twitter can enable real-time fundraising. Clearly it works...but why?

Tara Hunt calls it Whuffie. Chris Brogan calls it the Trust Economy. I call it the Deep Network. Real-time fundraising works because of social capital...because we tend to trust the people in our network. When an org sends an email, the open rate can be low - but when a person sends an email to friends, the open rate is 90%! This is because of trust, and works the same way with Twitter or any other people-based network. When we build up large, diverse networks consisting of supporters, friends, and peers, we are creating a bank of trust to draw upon when needed. When it comes time to ask your network for something, they will not need the time to interpret your motivation - because they know you and your org. And some will be ready to act...right then!

So use Twitter for listening, communicating, and promoting, but don't overlook the platform as a vehicle for real-time action. Build your network around mutual trust, a sense of community, and personal attention. If you've taken the time to cultivate a trusting, loyal, and engaged following, you should be able to turn that social capital into financial capital - and in a hurry if need be. After all, when you're among friends, it's never hard to ask!

This article was originally posted on I dig webby things...and I bet you do too at http://forums.blackbaud.com/blogs/webbythings/archive/2009/05/26/why-real-time-fundraising-with-twitter-works.aspx by Chad Norman:

Chad is an internet marketing, social web geeking, podcasting, skateboarding, family-oriented web guy running a green nonprofit at www.GoGreenCharleston.org/

Guest Post by Susan Tenby -- Learned a lot about online community using TweetChat: tool and content were both teachers

Submitted by Susan Tenby, publisher of Online Communities for Social Change

Today I had several discovery moments of serendipitous learning via Twitter. I am noticing lately, that I am hearing all my news before it even hits the web, let alone TV, via Twitter. There is something so gratifying about reading a news-ticker on the bottom of MSNBC TV and saying , “Yeah, old news, read a tweet about that 5 minutes ago.” Twitter is becoming more important to us every day, and it will soon change the way we live. It definitely changes the way we are perceiving what is current and the way that we are receiving information.

When I was 12, I remember my father used to mock me for obsessively checking my voicemail. “You’re not a doctor”, he’d say, because he was one. I used to obsessively check my email, and then I moved on to obsessively checking my Facebook feed, but now I try desperately to limit my distraction and ADD time and I just manically check my tweet-stream.

Today, one of the hundreds of time i was obsessing on TweetDeck, my lens of choice, to see who was saying what and who was talking or re-tweeting me, I noticed that someone whom I respect in my field, Online Community Manager, Angela Connor, was talking about stuff I found to be interesting and using a hashtag I didn’t recognize, #Cmtychat. I followed the hashtag, and I was all of a sudden immersed in a lively discussion of community managers from all over the world, talking about what we do and sharing best practices.The discussion hour was half over by the time I arrrived there, but I tried to join in without seeing too lame and ignorant. One of the things I learned in this event was the new members to a community often felt embarrassed to post for the first time, and it is imperative to welcome the newbies and encourage them. This is something that is common sense, but it was among hundreds of rules of thumb that were nice to be reminded of.

I joined in and started tweeting about my work with Nonprofits and Online Community and mimicked the behavior of the others. Soon, I was being addressed by them and responded to, and I was really happy to have stumbled upon this spontaneous and free conference about online community. I started observing my own behavior as a community newbie (to their conference) and reflected upon my behavior, using it as a lesson of how to better manage the communities that I run.

I used the #Cmtychat hashtag at the end of my few posts, and then discovered that the technology was even deeper then just tagging your tweet.

I clicked into the discussion and found myself in a new site that was just an aggregator of all of our tweets who were using that hastag. There is a tool called TweetChat and as you can see from this week’s community chat conference, it grabs all the posts with the same hash tag, deposits them into a separate silo, giving you the experience of being in a separate chat room, rather than distributed all over Twitter, which is actually what is happening. Best of all (albeit a little unnecessary, unless you are seriously lazy), if you tweet from the Tweetchat engine, it will add the hashtag for you. I discovered this when I added my post there, with the hashtag at the end, and then saw it posted in Twitter with a double hashtag. (Oh, the many ways we can go on about being embarrassed by tweeting. I guess that will be another post entirely.)

So, it was quite a hyper-real and helpful experience learning about online community best practices and doing it on an entirely new tool, having not been invited to participate and just jumping in and chatting, which put me in the shoes of a newbie, somewhere I haven’t been for 9 years.

Twitter is a networking tool, in addition to all the other reasons we tweet, and I now have dozens more followers and people I follow, whom I may only had met if I was actually attending the same forum or conference with them. However, in this instance, the simple curiosity about a tag, brought me into the event, and I will definitely be going back every Friday at 11am-noon PT.

You can read the transcript of this week’s Community Managers’ Chat here: http://bit.ly/tDUMg

This article was originally posted on Online Communities for Social Change at http://susantenby.wordpress.com/2009/06/19/learned-a-lot-about-community-using-new-use-of-twitter-tweetchat-new-to-me/ by Susan Tenby:

Online Community Director,TechSoup.org and Nonprofit Commons in Second Life. @suzboop on Twitter

Managing Multiple Twitter Accounts for Your Nonprofit

Last week I wrote a post called "8 Nonprofit CEOs Who Tweet" and the number quickly grew based on the responses in the comments.  It got me thinking about managing multiples: multiple twitter accounts, multiple people tweeting from one account, and how do you tweet a network of affiliates or a movement.   There are no official rules, although there is some great advice in the O'Reilly Twitter Book on this topic for corporate examples.

You'll need to decide who is doing the Tweeting for your organization.  Will you set up one flagship account and have one or more staff members tweet from that account?  Or will you have an organizational account but also encourage staff to Tweet as well?  Obviously, it is good idea to have just one organizational account because it does take work to maintain.  And, it is a good idea allow employees to have personal accounts just as long as they identify themselves with your organization.

Will having an personal Twitter account for your organization like having an organizational email account in the future?

Managing Multiple Twitter Staff Accounts For Work
Identifying Twitter Accounts, Linking to Web Site

A year ago, maybe it was just the marketing director who was on Twitter or some organizations had one general, branded account.   As Twitter has become more a common tool in the nonprofit toolbox, it can be useful beyond the marketing department.  Since Twitter can help put a "human face"  on the organizations, nonprofits may find themselves having multiple staff Twitter accounts for organizational use.  

The example above is from Lisa Goddard who is the marketing director at the Capital Area Food Bank.  There are multiple people from the organization on Twitter.  Each account is in the person's name, but they are clearly identified with the organization both in a customized Twitter profile image and in the 160 character bio.  Take for example their CEO David Davenport.  

It is also important to identify your staff twitter accounts on your organization's web site.  The whole team from the Capital Area Food Bank is identified on Web Site's newsroom.  Another way to approach is to include Twitter handles in staff profiles on the web site.   Take a look at Ellen Miller from the Sunlight Foundation as an example.

In looking at the Twitter streams of this team of organizational Twitters, they are re-tweeting each other or having conversation.  This helps expand the collective number of followers for the organization.

One thing is missing from these Twitter profiles, however.   They are not as findable as they should be.  That's because when you search "Find People on Twitter" it searches the name field.   So, it is important to include your organization's name in the name field - well, unless, the name of your staff person or CEO is well-identified.   Check out how Tony Hsieh the CEO of Zappos uses the name field.

Also, according to the Twitter Book, the name field is what Twitter uses to email someone when you follow them.   So, in the example of Lisa Goddard, that email would say Lisa Goddard.  If she edited the name field to read, "Lisa Goddard, Capital Area Food Bank," people she follows would know she is with the Food Bank.  

A Few Tools

There are many Twitter applications to manage multiple accounts.  (See 25 Twitter Apps to Manage Multiple Accounts.)

I discovered CoTweet and Hootsuite when I needed a Twitter application that did not have to be installed on the desktop.   The features I was looking for were:  scheduled tweets and URL shortners.  The power of these two useful application is the ability to post to multiple accounts and assign workflow.  Like TweetDeck and other clients, it makes it easier to re-tweet and dm.   These are great tools to support a team of twitters.

They have slightly different feature sets.   I love Hootsuite's "Hootlet" which goes on your browser and allows you tweet while you are browsing web sites and blogs.   If you share a lot of information from other sources via Twitter, this tool is a big time saver.   Hootsuite  lets you track stats of click thrus in a visual way.  Here's an example.   I just played with the next version of HootSuite and it has groups!

CoTweet has a beautiful interface, and while it lacks bookmarklet, it does offer the ability to do searches and all the features of Hootsuite.    At first, I missed the fact it tracked stats because the feature was embedded in the interface.  Stats can be accessed by clicking on the icon next to any bit.ly link.

I'm using them both, but I'm not managing a team.  I recommend test driving each application with a small group and deciding which one better meets your needs.  

One Account, Multiple People Twittering

Have different people Twitter from one account. It's simpler. This is a good way for a smaller organization to use Twitter.  It's a good model for live tweeting an event or a time specific event.    But how do you add the humanity?  Co-Tweet's Twitter account is an example.  Are there nonprofit examples?

Networks of Affiliates

I recently got a sneak peek at the private Wiki that the United Way is using with its affiliates to aggregate and share best practices on social media use.   They have a section on Twitter which links to tools and best practices.   Here's what they're recommending:

One account per local United Way is recommended. Multiple organization accounts create confusion. It’s OK for employees of an organization to have their own personal account as long as employees are being transparent of who they are and who they work for. Through Hoot Suite, or other twitter tools, you can enable individual employees/volunteers tweeting about united way to post their UW tweets to the main account, which could capitalize on their individual followers while keeping a consistent UW account. Employees can and should provide the Twitter handle (username) of the organization’s main Twitter profile on their own profiles (cross linking is important for consistency and unification). 

They also have some specific examples about how to present the branding for the United Way on Twitter and have incorporated Twitter into their social media policy guidelines.  (See these examples of policy for more details on that)  However as Iavor Ivanov, Director, Web Experience, observes:

We can't lay down the twitter law (guidelines) for local United Ways -- we can just point out the pros and cons and ask them to decide if that type of engagement makes sense in their online communities. I know of about 30 chapters that have adopted it, but haven't heard any amazing success stories ... yet.

With a network, using #hashtags can potentially have great impact.  The United Way suggests a set of hashtags in its social media guidelines:

#LiveUnited
#UnitedWay
#UWIllinois

What is your organization's approach to multiples on Twitter? 

What are your nonprofit's super power listening tips for using Twitter?

Photo by Esparta

A few weeks ago I did a book giveaway for the Twitter Book.  Readers from nonprofits who wanted to a chance to win a copy of the book had to leave a comment saying how they were using Twitter and how they hoped to improve their results.  There were so many great responses, thank you.  The winner chosen at random is:

Tara Pringle Jefferson
Public Affairs Associate
The Cleveland Foundation

Her comment:

I read the brief preview of the book and can't wait to read the rest. Here's my shot at the answers:
How is your organization currently using Twitter?  Right now, it's just me sending out the tweets to our followers. I try to send out at least one per day, usually an update of our latest blog posts, podcasts, or news about Cleveland/the nonprofit field. I'm currently trying to convince our CEO to join Twitter, since he honestly doesn't have time to blog.

What are your objectives?
We want people to engage with us. In the community, there's a bit of the "Ivory tower" mentality surrounding us, when in fact, we spend more time out and about in the community than people realize. We want to share that news, and let the community and other nonprofit leaders know just how much we want to make a difference.

What audience do you want to reach?
Right now, it's a mixture of other nonprofits, residents of our city, and nonprofit professionals. We'd love to get more Average Joes to follow us and see that we're just as committed to the city and its success as anyone else.

How are you measuring success?
We're looking at followers obviously, not only the number of followers but how many retweets we get and replies. As one person tweeting for an organization, it gets difficult to determine what the voice should be, and even more difficult when people reply to you. We're just looking at Twitter as a conversation tool to see how many people care what we have to say and those that do, do they find it useful or interesting

One of the great uses of Twitter is as a listening tool.  It's an excellent way to get started.  As the Twitter Book suggests, Twitter gives you superhero powers: the ability to read people's thoughts and the ability overhear conversations.

One of the illustrations of this for nonprofits, can be found in Nina Simon's slideshow "Everyone's Smithsonian" see slides 10-20).  

If you want to be a super hero though, you have to use the search features and application on Twitter like a rock star.  Here are some tips and pointers that I learned from reading the Twitter Book:

1.  Twitter Search:  Simple key word searches can yield valuable information.  However, sometimes you'll need to hone your search using the "Advanced Search."  I also learned that Twitter search has some tricks too.  You can remove a search term by putting the (-) minus sign in front of it.  Also, you can search for either of two words by inserting the word "or."
2. Trending Terms:   I've been playing a game for the past couple of months.  I look at Twitter search terms and then see if the terms are related to headlines.  Lots of times there are #hashtags trending, but often they are cryptic.  "What is the Trend" gives you a list of trending #hastags and the ability to fill others in what they mean if you are closely involved.
3. Retrieving Older Tweets:  Apparently the search stream on Twitter only goes back as far as three months.  But you can try a google search by using site: twitter.com/account name.
4. Keeping Track of Tweets that linked to your blog or web site.  I search for my user name and name, but because of the URL shorterner, you can't always find who mentioned your blog without your Twitter handle.   There's a tool called BackTweet
5. Finding People:  Twellow searches through user profiles and also has different categories of listings.

What are your power listening tips on using Twitter?  Do you have an example of how listening on Twitter has provided value for your nonprofit organization?

Is Twitter for Old Folks? And other gems from TWTRCON

 
Youth Haven't Adopted Twitter in Drives

On Sunday, if you were tuning into Twitter you might have noticed the TWTRCON tag trending.  The tweets were from a business conference focused on Twitter.  The speakers were a stellar list of celebrities in the Twiiterverse.  The agenda covered a range of business topics.   (I was supposed to attend, but real life got in the way, so I followed the Twitter Stream and picked up a few interesting tidbits like the study of Twitter and Gen Y illustrated above).

The evening before was a benefit party for Operation Smile and the launch of their 140 Smiles Campaign.  Chris Pirillo was there and at one point got up and offered to do silly stunts if we donated money to 140 Smiles.  I kicked in $20 if he would sing if you're happy and you know it!  (I have it on video).  Here's a nice before the event write up from Jordan over at the Convio Blog based on a conversation with Renee Alexander, Operation Smile's Social Media Stragetist.  I'll look forward to hearing a report.

It's hard to get people's attention to talk about a charity at a cocktail party, especially in a dark, crowded, and noisey room.  I noticed this during the launch of the Charity Smackdown at SXSW.  So, if you're going the route of social media celebrities and party - might be hard to raise a large goal if you don't have a before/after online fundraiser. 

Some Twitter Tidbits plucked from the TWTRCON stream (and beyond).   This dashboard that uses Twazzup was really useful because the raw #twtrcon stream was too much and no way to filter.    The Twazzup interface seperated the speaker tweets.  I ended up just following a handful of smart people who I knew were at the event.

Some good tweets:

@jowyang: Youth haven't adopted twitter in droves (Cnet article) this same topic was discussed yesterday at #twtrcon http://bit.ly/Omza2

@uberbabyboomer #TWTRCON sez @shelisrael & I say, Yes! Twitter is all about community - up with the ppl, down with the numbers game :)

@danschawbel RESOURCE: Top 7 Twitter Tutorials on YouTube http://bit.ly/18LNzs

@Pistachio: Twitter is: Newspapers in a Blender... Pulped up turned inside-out & pouring out as liquid streams

@briansolis encourages companies embracing Twitter to figure out how to integrate it into existing communications. #twtrcon

@hootsuite HootSuite 2.0: Get More Twitter Tabs, Columns and Stats [100 FREE Invites] http://ow.ly/a6Mb #twtrcon

@davemcclure yo @hootsuite not really that cool to be incentivizing followers to spam the #twtrcon hash tag with product spam... ease up. (Hootsuite - which I use released a new version but you had to tweet it out - caused some spam)

@davemcclure this is great -- @mchammer: "it pays to be a geek / early adopter / investor in new tech" #twtrcon in response to Q

@ShelIsrael gave gr8 talk on global neighborhoods power of Twitterville w/ chapter on nonprofits. http://bit.ly/15aVsB #twtrcon (I'm in the book and will be giving away a copy soon)

@shelisrael @mchammer is telling what celebrities are really tweeting and who's faking but he won't out them #twtrcon

@shelisrael how to get past angst between personal versus organizational? #twtrcon it's all about trust isn't it?

@JonBurg a twitter community is measured by the value delivered to the total of it's members. It's part quantitative, mostly qualitative.

@billjohnston @shelisrael How do you "define" a twitter community? How many communities solely exist on twitter?

@yvetteferry on measuring community: degree and quality of bilateral communication; loyalty; longevity; consistent engagement. To start.

Blog Posts and Other Resources

What Brands Want From A Twitter Client by Jeremiah Owyang.  A great post that describes what his business clients want in terms of features.   Right now, I'm using 4 or 5 different software clients because I can't find one that does it all. 

Steve Rubel did a session called "What is the Future of Twitter" using mindmapping software called MindNode (for the MAC).  It sounds like he did an electronic version of many of us done for years on flip charts or on the wall in low tech ways.  (See Nancy White and Nancy Margolis)

Twitter Business Use and Challenges, plus 5 Tips from TWTRON by Fredric Paul.

Twttrlist from Seth Godin let's you create a list of tweets (could only back a day)