Thanks to Microsoft Citizenship Asia Pacific, I’ve had the great honor to present a series of online fundraising and social media trainings to over three hundred non-governmental organizations (NGOs) throughout Asia Pacific over the last three years. The experience has made me acutely aware that access to information about trends in nonprofit technology, online fundraising, and social media often...

Some of your best learning on social media occurs when you just start clicking around and see what happens. That’s how I discovered three of the four functions below and when I give in-person trainings on Facebook and demonstrate these functions (with the exception of hashtags since the functionality was just launched last week), there are usually quite a...

There absolutely is a math to social and mobile media. If your nonprofit has a good content strategy in place and understands the power of integrating all your nonprofit’s communications channels (website, email, Facebook, texting, etc.), then as your numbers grow on social networks so will your e-newsletter and mobile lists which in turn significantly increases your fundraising success. It’s...

Until recently the nonprofit pioneers of the Social Web had to mostly rely on their intuition that their social media campaigns were resulting in more dollars raised online, an increase in brand and cause awareness, and higher rates of volunteer recruitment and retention. However, as LinkedIn, Blogger and Myspace all celebrate their 10-year anniversary this year, nonprofits have now...

Hopefully your nonprofit has grown accustomed to the fact that Facebook is a constant work in progress. That said, some recent upgrades to Facebook Pages have a big impact upon your nonprofit’s presence on Facebook and with the site-wide launch of the new News Feed and Social Graph Search coming soon, many more changes are likely to come. Before you fall...

Most nonprofit’s have no idea that they likely have a Facebook Community Page. Launched in 2010, the purpose of community pages are still mostly unknown although a sound hypothesis would be that their existence is now connected to the recently launched Facebook Graph Search. The hope of many admins has thus far been that community pages would just disappear...

Most nonprofits approach social media with the strategy of increasing awareness for their cause by posting and sharing content on their profiles and then when time permits, engaging their fans and followers as they respond to the content posted and shared by the nonprofits. That’s what social media marketing is and the premise upon which all social media strategies...

Except for a short test in 2009, your nonprofit’s Facebook Fans have never seen all your posts and as most of us have by now have realized, the percentage that do has gotten significantly smaller over time. The most recent changes to Facebook’s Edgerank has decreased the percentage to 6-9% on the Nonprofit Organizations Facebook Page. Personally, I am...

One of the most important lessons that all good social media managers learn is that social media is constantly in flux. Once you get accustomed to a tool, it changes in an attempt to reinvent itself. Rather than lamenting this new reality, a skilled social media manager will adapt quickly. That said, Facebook has made some recent upgrades – and more...

My Return on Investment (ROI) from using Pinterest to promote Nonprofit Organizations is somewhere between minimal and better-than-expected, but using the site on a regular basis has fundamentally changed how I think about social media and the people who use it. In the same way that Twitter forced me to rethink online messaging in 2008 and onward, Pinterest has...

There’s a sixth upgrade I want to add to the recent blog post Five Recent Upgrades That Nonprofits Need to Know About – you can now request to change the name of your nonprofit’s Facebook Page by visiting: Edit Page > Update Info > Basic Information > Name > Request Change: Until recently, you could only change your Page name if...

Like nonprofits, I am generally thrifty. Spending $30 on one “Promoted Post” on the Nonprofit Organizations Facebook Page felt like a significant expense. Was it worth it? Would I do it again? Sorry Facebook. The answer is no. Not for $30 anyway. The Return on Investment (ROI) was not significant enough to make me a convert. For $3? Absolutely!...

If there is one thing that nonprofit social media managers are learning (or should be learning) from utilizing new media it’s that technology is now constantly in flux. As soon as you learn and become comfortable with a tool set, it’s replaced with a new one. The best social media managers will adapt quickly, embrace a state of constant...