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Beth's Blog
A place to capture and share ideas, experiment with and exchange links and resources about the adoption challenges, strategy, and ROI of nonprofits and social media.
Updated: 5 hours 11 min ago
The value of attending Gnomedex: PricelessFind more videos like this on Internet Time
But what's the value of all these love, dancing, and learning? PRICELESS There are so many social media conferences and expos out there today, that’s it’s very difficult to decide which to attend. I first heard about Gnomedex in 2005 when I read Julie Leung's post about her experience. Later that summer, I had the honor of being interviewed by Ponzi at BlogHer. This year, I finally got an opportunity to attend. The conference as Chris Brogan says over delivered. How could I have waited so long to go. You really need to go to Gnomedex next year. I learned a lot, I met fabulous people, and it felt great to be part of an awesome community. I even got a chance to dance with Matt! I can't begin to express my gratitude to Chris and Ponzi and the whole gnomedex family for making this conference experience incredible for me - it ranks on my best ever list of tech conferences. I've spoken at a lot of them, and the care and attention I got was above and beyond. I especially appreciate Maryam's speaker wrangling skills. I also have to say that having Chris's mom do such a fabulous job of time tracking helped me end on time (I wish we could clone her for every conference on the planet.) Also, having super fantastic geek ways of running a conference was inspiring - I especially like the twitter speaker feedback channel. (and woot .. got a 5 point rating) A couple of personal highlights of the sessions:
The informal learning that takes place in the hallways and around the lunch table and bar was amazing! Having the opportunity to chat at the bar with Brian Solis about Conversation Prism, Liz Strauss about e-book publishing, Marshall Kirkpatrick, Betsy Webber, and Lee LeFever about screening casting, Tris Hussey who introduced me to Tanya Davis, getting a demo from Clarence Wooten about CollectiveX, talking to Andrew Hyde about techstars, Jay Cross who gave me additional influence psychological theorists to read, catching up with Gregory Heller, Eric Rice who gave tons of resources for kids and gaming, Kathy Gill who took great photos, Chris Brogan who helped make a diagram of the networked flow of donations and even lent the 7 pennies, Shashi Bellamkona who took this awesome photo of a conversation in the lobby that we were having with Geoff Livingston and Charlene Li about social media metrics, the fun conversation with Robert Scoble about his upcoming trip to China, Micah and Mark sharing their Jewish geography stories, meeting Jeff and Carmen Barr and learning about what she is doing at the orphanage in Peru and so many amazing experiences. All in all .. gnomedex is a must-attend conference.
Categories: Blogs
How Long Does It Take for 250 Super Connected Gnomedex Geeks to raise $2,500 for Cambodian kids?
Screencapture of photo by Brian Westbrook 90 minutes! Today I presented at Gnomedex 8.0. (My slides are here). I started with a story about how Ponzi and Chris helped me demonstrate the networked effect with flickr and twitter for a nonprofit training, then told my story about the Case Foundation and Parade Magazine's America's Giving Challenge, and then I set up a real time fundraising challenge. My first fundraising effort was to send Leng Sopharath to college her first year in November 2006 took 3 weeks to raise $800. In 2007, Chris Brogan and 81 other people helped raise enough money in 24 hours for her college tuition and in a few days were able to raise enough to help support another student. So, my challenge was: Can this room of highly connected gnomedexers get 250 people to donate $10 by the end of the conference?
I sent them to my tweet and asked them to donate and ask a friend or retweet. Chris and Ponzi kicked it off by giving $100 on the stage.(THANK YOU!)
Buzz Bruggeman (above) said pass the hat. Then I answered questions. What I didn't see going on was the back channel (captured by Marshall K in Iterasi in a cool slide show). Geoff Livingston kicked it off by tweeting his donation. Later Jeremy Wright kept tweeting out matching challenges. At 90 minutes, we raised $2,657 from 112 donors - plus whoever gave cash (probably another 125 people giving a total of $902). Thank you. The ball kept rolling - the combined total as of $3,774. THANK YOU GNOMEDEXers and everyone who contributed. YOU ALL ROCK. We're solving real problems! Donors via PayPal (as of 8.23.08) Beth Kanter Related blog posts Using Social Media for Social Good by Andru Edwards
Categories: Blogs
Happy Belated Birthday Millie Garfield!While I was on vacation last week, Millie Garfield celebrated a birthday and I wanted to make sure to tell her happy birthday. At 83 years young, Millie Garfield is one of the Internet's oldest bloggers, according to The Ageless Project. She is a terrific story teller and blogs almost more often than I do. Millie's blog, My Mom's Blog, really demonstrates the power of telling stories. Steve Garfield, her son, created a book out of her blog as a gift. The cover includes photos of Millie with different bloggers and friends, including me! I've had the pleasure of working with Steve Garfield, a well known video blogger, on a couple of projects - and he rocks. I was delighted to see him working with some nonprofits, including Third Sector to introduce them to Sesmic. Steve organizes the Boston Media Makers which meets on the first Sunday of each month.
Categories: Blogs
Let The Change Blogging Meme Hit The Road ...Alex Steed is a self-described millennial activist and he has just announced his Millennials Changing America: The Next Generation of Organizing where he will visit over 30 cities across the United States to meet, interview and report how young people are using the Internet to leverage their social and political power. He describes what hopes to do: I intend to examine the methodology of various politically and socially energized young people, contacted through various activist networks, and to listen to, record, and share their stories with present and future doers. I will use a blog rich in video and audio to share my discoveries and analysis. Working with cutting-edge websites like epolitics, Future Majority, Change.org, and many others, I plan to share this content with and contribute to as many relevant outlets and individuals as possible. I just donated a small amount to his effort! Alex is a great example of a change blogger. What's that? Britt Bravo wrote a post several months back defining the term: people who are using their blog, podcast or vlog to raise awareness, build community, and/or facilitate readers/listeners/viewers' taking action to make the world a better place. I guess I'm a change blogger too. So is Dr. Mani who will be using social media to raise money for heart surgeries for poor children in India. The meme isn't necessarily limited to individuals as David Neff at Fispace mentions - corporate bloggers like Tyson Foods will donate 100 pounds of food for every comment made here. Britt included links to change bloggers and started a Changeblogger Facebook. Another change blogger, SocialButterfly has created a Changeblogger wiki where other change bloggers can add their information. Change bloggers have some excellent tools at their disposal, like Social Actions widget which makes it possible for any wired passionate soul to highlight causes on the social web. Take for example the breast cancer version I created last week when I wrote about Leah Jones and Her Walk for Breast Cancer. Qui Diaz at LivingstonBuzz has kicked off a Change Blogging Meme which includes an offline/online integrated event to support Alex Steed as well as a blogging meme. This fall, DC will be one of 35 cities visited by NetSquared’s Alex Steed. He’s touring the U.S., meeting with millennial activists about “the future of organizing.” We won’t be letting him out of here that easily, however. Alexandra Rampy (a.k.a. SocialButterfly) is rallying local changebloggers to meet with Steed. Our goal is to unite interested parties around something good (TBD). From there, we can do just about anything. She ends her post with change blogging meme -- asking and answering three questions and tagging other bloggers.
Categories: Blogs
Chicago Symphony Social Media Strategy: What happens when people outside your organization set up a presence on Facebook?
The prelude to this interview is a tale of networking weaving. A few months ago, I created a workshop called "Arts 2.0" which was a strategic social media for arts organizations workshop. (I'll be leading this workshop in Philadelphia for the Philadelphia Cultural Alliance in about two weeks) As part of my research process (using social media, of course), I looked at what arts organizations were doing on social networking sites like Facebook. I wanted to find an example of an official social networking presence, one clearly set up by the organization and one that was set up by the users. Bingo .. I found the Chicago Symphony's Fan Page and the Charlie Vernon Fan Club group. I was trying to make two points during the workshop
Not too long ago, I got an email from Marc van Bree, the PR coordinator from the CSO, who telling me about his new blog. He also mentions that he saw my powerpoint and thanked me for using the CSO screenshot. One thing lead to another and I directed him to the WeAreMedia project because the idea is that the conversation can become more than a brainstorming session or list of resources. Marc contributed some knowledge to the ROI section and also contributed some reflections about why he participated. (I really value that he took the time to engage in the conversation and the learning process ...) And, I really wanted to do an interview with him to find out more about the CSO and Facebook. Not just because of my own curiosity, but because I knew there might others there that could benefit from Marc's knowledge. Does this story illustrate the art of network weaving? 1.) Tell me about you and your job I started my job at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra nearly three years ago, after an internship at a non-profit and a temporary stint at a PR agency dedicated to the arts. I didn’t have an extensive classical music background, but learned quickly and learned to love it even quicker. A day in the PR office of an orchestra is never the same; it goes beyond cranking out press releases and pitches. That’s what makes it fun. For example, when the orchestra returned to the airwaves, it was announced that there would be a large Web component to it. I got pulled in to help create weekly Web content for the broadcast, because of my interest in and knowledge of HTML programming and the Web. That interest of programming started at an early age. When I was very young, I started programming BAT files and then moved on to “programming for kids” by Addo Stuur and when the World Wide Web entered the household I jumped to HTML. It never became more than an interest and I went on to study communications. Now, I’m happy to combine the two: the Web and communication. Online communication is growing at an incredible rate and organizations cannot stay behind to shape their online image and story. I’m especially intrigued by the possibilities of combining old public relations principles, such as storytelling, and new media, including social networks such as Facebook. 2.) You have a "personal professional" blog. Why did you start your blog? I find it a good way to formulate my thoughts. Even though I sometimes look back and don’t necessarily agree with what I wrote anymore. I started in 2005 with installing PHP Nuke on my Web site, which combines several elements, such as forums, photos and articles. I was looking for jobs at that time, having just graduated, and I wanted to create some kind of portfolio. But I soon realized WordPress was the better option for what I wanted to create. George Orwell wrote a piece once called “Why I write.” He lists four reasons: 1) sheer egoism 2) aesthetic enthusiasm 3) historical impulse 4) political purpose. After I hundred posts on my blog, I took these four reasons and turned them into a “Why I blog” article. The sheer egoism could be translated into ambition and wanting to create a portfolio; the aesthetic enthusiasm is, as Orwell writes, a “desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed”; the historical impulse a “desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity;” and the political purpose a “desire to push the world in a certain direction,” a springboard to formulate my ideas. I think the first and last reasons are key in my reasoning; I wanted to create a portfolio of my thoughts, but I also wanted it to be a training ground for putting together my thoughts. 3.) I understand your organization has a Facebook Fan Page - can you tell me a little about the strategy, and why you set it up? You mentioned that you've been sharing information with fans, but you hope to be a little bit more interactive. What are you plans for doing that? We started the CSO Facebook page a couple of months ago. We launched the page with an incentive: a chance to win a free CD of one of our recent recordings. Otherwise, there was no active campaign besides me telling my friends to join and those friends telling their friends to join and so on. Within a week, we had over 1,000 fans. After this early explosive growth by word of mouth, the increase in fans flattened and now there is an average of about 20 fans joining per day. We get nearly 100 page views a day, but this visibly spikes if we send out an update through Facebook or post videos or photos. As of now, we’ve mainly been sharing information; pushing out information. We posted our new music director announcement with an update, links and information. In addition, we’ve tried creating an event for a radio broadcast and one for a specific concert to see if people would RSVP. One example of a little more interactivity was a ticket giveaway where fans had to answer a trivia question about a certain piece of music and the answer could be found on our Web site (in this case beyondthescore.org). In the future, rather than simply pushing out information, we would like to see the users take more action and ownership of the page. We’re looking at ways to accomplish this and ways to make it easy for fans to participate by lowering the entry barrier. One such example is fan photos. This does, however, get a little tricky for performing arts organizations. We don’t allow photography during concerts, so it would work against our own policy to feature fan photos taken during concerts (which, as you can imagine, would be the majority of fan entries). 4.) What has been the key value to the CSO for setting up a Facebook page? Over half our fans on the page are younger than 24 and over 85% of the fans are younger than 34. Compare that to the average age of classical music patrons, which usually runs toward the mid-fifties or even sixties. I suspect that this means we have a whole new group to communicate with, which is enormously exciting. As we’ve had the CSO page for a fairly short time and we are figuring out how best to communicate and reach out, I believe up to this point the key value has been simply listening and participating. This should always be the first step in any new media endeavors: survey the environment and see what you can learn. 5.) What have been some of the results so far? What have you learned? As I mentioned earlier, there’s a tremendous amount of young people joining as fans, much younger than our typical audience. I’ve noticed many of these youngsters are music students and proudly so (there are many that have profile photos with their instruments). I’d like to see it as a small sign that classical music is still important in many households and a whole new generation of patrons is growing up. The results so far have been learning what works and what doesn’t work in communicating. In the future, we need to formulate more concrete objectives. These may include raising awareness (of a season theme or a composer festival) or perhaps community activation and participation (does the community respond to a message or a call to action?) 6.) I understand that there are several groups on Facebook that support the CSO - but are not the official site from your organization. How do build relationships and work with these other sites? The people who started those groups are obviously passionate about supporting the CSO. Reaching out to these people works very similar to reaching out to bloggers; know who is writing and what they are writing; participate; build relationships; and adapt materials. Right now, we’re just at the “read and participate” stage, but we’ll have to come up with ways to engage them and provide them with useful materials that could easily be integrated into their group (RSS feeds, videos etc.). 7.) You mentioned that you've become the 'go to" person on CSO for social media/networking strategy. Is it a formal part of your job? Have you encountered any resistance or do they feel it is important? It’s currently not explicitly a part of my job, although you could argue that it does fall under public relations. And I’m by no means an expert on the topic, but I am passionate about the possibilities. Fortunately, I have not encountered resistance. On the contrary, I have noticed much curiosity. But it goes hand in hand with a lack of understanding on what to do with the possibilities, because there are very little go-to resources. I’d like to think that’s where I can be helpful. I do find it difficult to explain the “whys” and “hows” because there is a lot of unqualified information out there, but blogs like yours and the We Are Media modules are extremely helpful for formulating the answers you need. Once I delved into the ROI of new media (which doesn’t mean just ticket sales), I found it much easier to explain and justify the possible endeavors into new media. In the end, it’s all about results and return of investments. With orchestra budgets as tight as they are, you’d be foolish not to make that a priority. Keeping up with the Joneses is just not a valid justification. 8.) Any advice you want to give other arts people wishing to explore social media? Just explore! Set up a Bloglines account, set up a Google Blog Alert, set up a del.icio.us account, set up a LinkedIn account, listen to Pandora and so on. It doesn’t take much to get a basic grasp of what social media entails. You don’t have to jump on every latest fad, but find out what’s useful for you and learn what works best with your needs and what fits into your lifestyle. Then, when you’re comfortable enough, try to participate and engage. The same counts for an organization: survey the environment, determine what you are trying to accomplish and then find the right tools that work for you.
Categories: Blogs
SXSW: Last Chance to Vote for Nonprofit Panels! Some more thoughts about the Nonprofit, Social Media, and ROI Case Study Slam
The SXSW Interactive Festival panel picker process closes on August 29th at 11:59 PM which means you have only a couple of days left to vote for as many panels as you think are worthy of being on the program or not. I did a roundup of all the fantastic nonprofit panel submissions if you want help nonprofits get on the agenda there. I've been in brainstorm mode for a panel called Social and Nonprofits ROI: Case Study Slam that I submitted. Here's the description: This is a new and improved version of the Social Media Case Study Slam I organized at the NTC last year. I've gathered up some of best of the best folks in the nonprofit tech field to share their stories, metrics, and lessons learned in verse or story format. I will do an overview connecting the idea of metrics to poetry ... How do I measure thee, let me count the ways, etc) or social media metrics haiku or limerick, or maybe create fridge magnets. I hope it will be informative AND entertaining. So, what's a poetry slam? It is a competition at which poets read or recite original work. These performances are then judged on a numeric scale by judges. I happen to notice that was a there's a rock star panel (Charlene Li, formerly with Forrester and co-author of Groundswell; Katie Paine, of KD Paine & Partners and author of Measuring Public Relationships; and Avinash Kaushik, Google evangelist and author of Web Analytics: An Hour A Day) with measurement gurus called "Measure This!" organized by Kami Huyse. I thought it might be possible to get a few judges from this esteemed group -- if this panel gets accepted. However, I'm going to suggest a tweak in the judging concept because I think holding up a number score alone won't help with learning or insights about nonprofits and social media ROI. I think the judges should offer a brief reflection in response. What do you think? (I've also submitted another panel titled THIS is Iron Chef … Battle Non Profit and will participate as a panelist on Social Change Behind the FireWall submitted by Holly Ross
Categories: Blogs
Social Media and Diabetes
3. What is your progress on your fundraising goal?
As I've only recently taken on this challenge, I'm currently at $700 in funds raised to date. My next goal date is September 1st, when I need to have raised $1500. By October 1st, my next goal arrives, and I need to have raised $3400, and finally, December 1st, my final goal date arrives, where the remainder is due, totalling the $4500 in pledges. I have two ways that I'm doing the majority of my fundraising... A $500 cash giveaway on my blog as an exciting incentive to give to my campaign, and an event that I'm organizing in October, to also fundraise and raise awareness.
There are some interesting ways people are connecting and using social media to raise money for Diabetes. One of my favorites was Alan Levine (Cog Dog Blog), who ran a marathon last year. He used a blog campaign, but he also tweeted during his breaks while the race was on! The Diabetes Hands Foundation, a non profit that operates two niche social networks for people touched by diabetes: TuDiabetes (in English, with close to 4,000 members) and EsTuDiabetes (with close to 1,000 members, which is turning it into the main community destination for Spanish-speaking diabetics). Both are growing very rapidly, as you can read here. I asked Manny Hernandez, the founder of TuDaibetes, what advice he would offer Tanya. His advice was about online community building, helping set expectations, and also gave some specific tips: 1. If you haven't done it yet, you should join TuDiabetes.com. You could blog about your fundraising effort in the community and include a link to your page for it on your profile page: we just passed 4,000 members yesterday, so that will definitely give you some targeted visibility. 2. Do some networking with other people. We have a few hundred members from Canada, many of whom "hang out" in the Canada Diabetes group. 3. Use Twitter. I noticed the team you are a member of is Buzz Bishop's. I have been following him on Twitter for a while, and he's gotten quite a bit of attention through Twitter for the fundraiser. You would need first to work on getting more people (friends, other people you know) to follow you and then, periodically, post updates about your initiative. If you are looking for a good blog about diabetes, be sure to check out the Diabetes Mine written by Amy Tenderich.
Categories: Blogs
Help Me Send Leng Sopharath Back To College in Good Health!Two years ago, my family and I made a commitment to sponsor Leng Sopharath, a young woman from Cambodia, for her college education through the Sharing Foundation's education program. She is an orphan who grew up in the same orphanage as my daughter. Without the Sharing Foundation's college education program, she would not be able to make a better life for herself. My exploration of using social media tools and personal fundraising strategies has been devoted to raising money to help support young people like Leng Sopharath through the Sharing Foundation's program. She is now entering her third year of college, majoring in Business as you will hear from the video I took when I met her over a year ago.
The most recent letter I received from her let me know that she will have to miss the fall semester because she recovering from stomach surgery. (The text of the letter is here). The Sharing Foundation (and some friends) covered her medical expenses and she is recuperating in the student house that we rent for our college students. So, this year I'm raising money to cover her junior year tuition, living expenses, and medical expenses. This comes to approximately $2,500. I am hoping that you can contribute $10 to continue her education in good health. For her freshman year, I launched a campaign on ChipIn and with the help of many generous people, was able to raise money for her first of college. For her sophmore year, with the help of folks like Chris Brogan, we were able to raise enough money to cover Leng Sopharath and another college student! I'm headed off to Seattle to speak at Gnomedex and hope to test the power of integrated offline/online strategies. (Any advice?) and hope to continue with this campaign and raise the money quickly! So, please consider donating $10! IF you reading this in an RSS reader, here's the direct link. Thanks.
Categories: Blogs
Leah Jones Is Taking A 3-Day Journey To Fight Breast Cancer and Social Actions Can Help You Find Other Related CampaignsLast December, Susan Reynolds, an artist and social media maven, was diagnosed with Breast cancer. She announced on her blog, "I use Twitter to fight Cancer" and without any formal blogger relations campaign, well-known and influential bloggers blogged about her situation and changed their avatars to include peas. Through Connie Reece's visionary leadership, the community rallied and the "Frozen Pea Fund" was started. Susan continues to share her experience at her blog and through twitter. The pioneering efforts of the Frozen Pea Fund continue to inspire other women to fight against breast cancer. While breast cancer doesn’t run in her family, Leah Jones has just launched her training for her 3 Day Breast Cancer Walk. She wanted to participate in the challenge to honor her friends, that she is close to. Every October, all of the blogs in my blogosphere go pink and my friends sign up for different types of Breast Cancer fundraiser. I go from blog to blog to blog, making $18 donations to support each of them in the greater fight to find a cure and raise awareness. Even at 31, I have waited outside of hospital doors for peers who were getting the news (so far, all clear). As she writes on her blog, in a post titled "If you need me, I'll be walking .." she's now taking her activism offline. I was selected to be one of the Edelman team members for the Susan G. Komen 3-Day in Atlanta. I have a pretty intense training schedule over the next ten weeks, so if you need me, I'll be walking. Her other motivation is an opportunity to experiment with Twitter and blogging to see just how much her community can raise for this cause. I hope she will blog some of her lessons learned too. Just today, I got a Twitter question from DeafMom asking for advice. (I pointed her to my personal fundraising case study) The next thing now is to add the new AdWords-Style Widget from the Social Actions folks. The widget automatically identifies the keywords on any page and lists social change campaigns related to the stuff you're writing about. Here's a widget I created for Breast Cancer social change campaigns.
Categories: Blogs
Jocelyn Harmon on Nonprofits and Blogging
Jocelyn Harmon started the Marketing for Nonprofits blog a year ago as a place to share her thoughts on nonprofits, social media, marketing, and training. 1. Tell me about you
I’m a reader, writer, thinker and storyteller. I’m rich with many, many blessings - an amazing new husband, a beautiful daughter, dear friends, work I love. Most days I’m full of gratitude for the gifts of this crazy, wonderful, frustrating world and life.
2. Why did you enter the nonprofit sector?
Like most development folks I know, I “landed” in the nonprofit sector; it was totally unplanned. I didn’t even know what development was before I took my first job! I had applied to be a Training Manger at the Georgia Center for Nonprofits – an organization that provides services, training and consulting to other charities - and didn’t get the job. But they called me back about 6 months later and asked me if I wanted to be their first development manager. I was working at the Ritz Carlton at the time and lucky for me it turned out that good stewardship and cultivation of donors was much like providing great customer service to hotel guests. I learned quickly that development is all about building relationship and it was a natural fit. Also (in the beginning) I enjoyed preparing proposals and grants for our foundation partners – it got me writing again. I also loved the fact that I was now “selling” services to strengthen the work of nonprofits vs. selling hotel rooms to the very rich.
3. Tell me about your blog. Why did you start your blog?
I started my blog last August. Qui Diaz and I had done a workshop called 2Blog or not 2Blog at the Center for Nonprofit Advancement (one of our local nonprofit capacity building organizations.) For some reason we weren’t able to access the PowerPoint during the presentation and had to do the presentation old school style via flip charts. We were both frustrated because we liked the deck and wanted to share it. When I got back to the office, after the workshop, I “pinged” Katya and asked if she would share it with her readers (I didn’t have a platform of my own yet). We posted the deck to Slide Share and she linked to it. In about a week, over 200 people had viewed the presentation! I knew then, that both Qui and I had something valuable to share with others. It was also an “aha moment” for me because I realized that here was a medium (the Internet) that allowed anyone (including me) to connect across time and space to FAR MORE people than I’d ever be able to connect with in person. That’s powerful!
FYI, to date, 2Blog or not 2Blog has been downloaded by 99 folks and viewed by 1,600!
4. What are your biggest challenges to blogging regularly?
Time is the biggest challenge for me as it is for most folks. Time to write AND the inconvenience of waking up in the middle of the night (almost EVERY night) with fully formed posts in my brain. It’s hard to get up that early and write when you’ve got to start your day at 7:00. At the same time, I’m loath to quell inspiration.
5. What value does having a blog give you? Blogging has had a profound effect on me both professionally and personally. Professionally, it’s been a major boon. I have a body of work now and am part of a community of nonprofit and social media thought leaders and this has “credentialed me” in parts of the tech and marketing world. Blogging has translated directly for me into training and consulting “gigs” and my newest opportunity at Triplex. (They found me through Google Search!) Usually when you leave a job you go back to total obscurity but this was not true when I left NPower. Now, in addition to the institutional titles I hold, my talent is defined by my work There have also been great rewards – personally. Blogging is my personal writing practice and platform. It’s made me more self-confidence as a writer, thinker, teacher, and human being. Writing every day and being vulnerable to an “audience” (perceived or real) makes you get better! For me this has been a positive pressure and incredible gift. 6. What are some of your best tips for being efficient in writing a blog? Gosh, I’m not sure that I am an efficient blogger. For me, writing is much more inspired. I try to trust that the ideas and words and metaphors will come and luckily they usually do. However, I am also practical about keeping abreast of what is going on in the blogosphere and in my areas of interest, which include “new media” and marketing strategies and tools for nonprofits. For example, I read the folks listed on my blogroll almost every day. I get Google Alerts on key topics and I consume lots of marketing and new media books! 7. You're a busy professional, but you also are a mom. How do you balance your busy professional life with parenting? Any tips for work/life balance? I was at a potluck the other day for a group of women in town (DC) who are consultants. We were sharing food and tips for marketing our businesses. What one woman said struck me. “There is no balance in life if you mean 50/50 balance. It’s more like 80/20 most weeks.” This resonates with me. Nothing is perfect. There is stuff that has to get done every day/week – cooking dinner, grocery shopping, work, taking my peanut to school, SLEEP – these are the non-negotiable. But most days it feels like everything else is up for grabs. The frustration and challenge for me is “getting out in front” of my life. I hate reacting all the time to external forces. But you know sometimes that’s just life. So I take what I can get and try to do more of what’s important to me every day – read, write, think, pray, love on my peeps!
Categories: Blogs
Jocelyn Harmon on Nonprofits and Blogging
Jocelyn Harmon started the Marketing for Nonprofits blog a year ago as a place to share her thoughts on nonprofits, social media, marketing, and training. 1. Tell me about you I???m a reader, writer, thinker and storyteller. I???m rich with...
Beth
Categories: Blogs
Open Thread: How does my nonprofit organization get started with social media? What should we do first? What's your advice?
Every now and then I get emails asking for advice. I don't have the bandwidth to answer each one or even blog them, but occasionally I like to post them here because it is great to hear what the very smart people who read this blog have to say. I received this email recently: Dear Beth: I've been receiving your blog for a couple of weeks & find it fascinating reading. I also read Seth Godin’s, Chris Brogan, etc. etc. And therein lies my question. I work for a conservation organization and we’re arriving very late to the Social Media party. There is just so much great information out there; I don’t know how to begin. Can you share some advice? What is “square one?” How do we get started? The first step for any nonprofit is to hit the pause button and ask whether it is appropriate for your organization to pursue a social media strategy. Is it the right priority? Next, it is important to think through all the questions related to outcomes, audience, and how your social media strategy relates to your existing overall marketing strategy. But after the strategic part, when the rubber hits the road - the most important next step is to start listening. Chris Brogan has done a terrific job writing about the tools for listening and Liz Strauss has an entire e-book on the topic of listening Listening is a core piece of your social media strategy. Listening must become a priority in order to use the social media successfully. Listening is a critical marketing practice and it just so happens that social media tools help facilitate listening. And, it can give you some ideas that inform your strategy too, better understand what people are saying about your issue, and get a sense of what other organizations are doing as well. The Zoomerang Study of Marketers and Web2.0 talks about the importance of listening as a first step: "Smart marketers understand how important it is to engage their customers in a dialog…The advice for marketers looking to embark on a Web 2.0 strategy is to “shut up and listen…Your customers have a lot to say. Stop broadcasting messages they TiVo out anyway and hear what they have to say. Once you’ve done that, you can think about a thoughtful engagement strategy.” In article about ego searching, Robin Good adds If you can track what the rest of the world is saying about you or your products and services, you have a great deal of valuable information at your disposal. Knowing what others say and think about you is the best and most effective way to improve your profile, positioning, price without needing to hire any expensive marketing consultant. Here's an easy first project - set up an a google alert with your organization's name and/or url. Let's say you were leading a workshop or did a presentation, and someone the audience asked you, "What should we do first?" What would be your response? Or maybe you're a blogger and you've written a first steps for nonprofits in social media post. Please share it.
Categories: Blogs
Open Thread: How does my nonprofit organization get started with social media? What should we do first? What's your advice?
Photo by Billerr Every now and then I get emails asking for advice. I don't have the bandwidth to answer each one or even blog them, but occasionally I like to post them here because it is great to hear...
Beth
Categories: Blogs
Using AideRSS as a blog improvement tool
Last week, I did my annual Blog ROI benchmarking and I started to noodle around with the question - How can I use AideRSS as a tool to help me evaluate engagement and improve my blog? Aide RSS wrote about measuring social engagement on a blog which that looks at a number of different metrics. You can do an analysis of your blog feed here. Here's a recent analysis of the "best" posts on my blog and I need to go figure out what the numbers mean. I didn't get much further on figuring it out, but ProBlogger did in this post "Using AideRSS to Help Identify Hot Topics on Your Blog." You won’t simply want to repeat past topics that have done well but will probably do better to extend upon them. AideRSS can be used in lots of ways to track other blogs and help find great content on other blogs but for me this analysis of my own posts has become a valuable tool. How are you using AideRss?
Categories: Blogs
Using AideRSS as a blog improvement tool
Last week, I did my annual Blog ROI benchmarking and I started to noodle around with the question - How can I use AideRSS as a tool to help me evaluate engagement and improve my blog? Aide RSS wrote about...
Beth
Categories: Blogs
Seeking A Real Life Example: Under what circumstances should your organization not pursue a social media strategy?I'm on the hunt for stories about nonprofits and social media for the WeAreMedia project. The story I'm looking for is about how a nonprofit organization considered a social media strategy and decided it wasn't the right fit. Do you know an organization that has that story to tell? Is it your organization? Please leave a comment and let me know how I can contact you. I'd like to do an interview ....
Categories: Blogs
Seeking A Real Life Example: Under what circumstances should your organization not pursue a social media strategy?
I'm on the hunt for stories about nonprofits and social media for the WeAreMedia project. The story I'm looking for is about how a nonprofit organization considered a social media strategy and decided it wasn't the right fit. Do you...
Beth
Categories: Blogs
What social networking strategy advice would you offer Michael Wesolowski at MHAUS?Michelle Murrain who writes the Zen of the Art of Technology Blog is known for her astute observations about nonprofit technology strategic and technical issues. She recently blogged about her take on social networking has changed in the past year and now recommends to clients that they should consider what value they can gain from a social networking presence. What has happened is basically a sea change in the landscape. Not only are Gen Y and Millenials engaged in these social networks, but a wider and broader range of people are. It’s fairly clear to me that going forward, increasingly, social networks are a major way people are interacting on the web - and nonprofits need to understand how to engage their constituents given those changing realities. Michelle is one of many great minds sharing their knowledge in the WeAreMedia project. But there are other participants, like Michael Wesolowski who joined the wiki and messaged me in Facebook telling me he had joined the project with the hope that some of the community's expertise would rub off on him. I asked him if had a specific learning goal? He responded: My learning goals are to become more aware of the social networks that are out there and how they work together and how to explain Facebook to a Board who may not be familiar with it. I also want to improve our strategy on Facebook. This is part of my job and my organization has allocated 10 hours per week for me to work on strategy. (As an aside, one of the best resources to explain Social Networks to people who are new to them is Lee LeFever's videos. The one on social networks is great for beginners.) I asked him share some background about what his organization, MHAUS (Malignant Hyperthermia Association of the US) was already doing on Facebook . His organization has a Cause and Group. They set up the Cause with the goal of fundraising, but quickly discovered that it was better for spreading awareness of his organization. The Cause has 133 members and raised $135. "After our initial experiment, it became VERY clear that FB is an important way to connect with malignant hyperthermia susceptible people (MHS), and their family, friends, doctors and care providers; in a way UNLIKE any other. Dialogue with FB Friends is of course priceless." Conversations on Facebook have been an important channel of information. Michael has been focusing on doing outreach on Facebook: I have been building relationships with the other group administrators, and regularly participate in some 47 medical groups. I have been sending personal message to each new member and regularly send follow up messages and additional information. In fact doctors abroad have been asking regular questions. We are averaging a new member every day. To facilitate the conversations, they need to keep the content on the Cause and Group pages fresh. The other objective is to convert FB friends over time into being individual donors and get them into the organization's main CRM. Like many nonprofits, The Malignant Hyperthermia Group Page was created by an MHAUS supporter who later made Michael, a staff person, an administrator. The group has 44 members and there are active wall postings. The group page was started before there was a Fan Page option. Michael's questions are:
What's your advice?
Categories: Blogs
What social networking strategy advice would you offer Michael Wesolowski at MHAUS?
Michelle Murrain who writes the Zen of the Art of Technology Blog is known for her astute observations about nonprofit technology strategic and technical issues. She recently blogged about her take on social networking has changed in the past year...
Beth
Categories: Blogs
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