Written for the June 2011 issue of Fundraising Success Magazine, where I am writing a quarterly column throughout 2011. For the past six years I have spent 50 to 60 hours a week utilizing Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Foursquare to promote nonprofits. I’ve watched the early adopters of MySpace in 2005 propel themselves into the...
As I have said many times, I was a reluctant blogger. I did not think the Internet needed another blogger. But I was wrong. So wrong. Blogging has transcended my ROI (return on investment), primarily from simply featuring my e-newsletter “Subscribe” option and social networking icons in the upper right column. Sadly, the vast majority of nonprofit blogs do...
While writing Social Media for Social Good: A How-To Guide for Nonprofits, I visited over 500 nonprofit homepages looking primarily for links to their social networking communities. A rough guesstimate would be that less than 30% of those homepages included links or icons to their Facebook Page, Twitter Profile, YouTube Channel, etc., and of those, many placed them along...
Integrating your nonprofit’s Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 campaigns is essential for success in online communications and fundraising. Rather that keeping them separate, once they are merged to compliment one another, your nonprofit’s ROI begins to grow exponentially. To begin, here are five ways to integrate social media into your nonprofit’s website: 1) Add social networking icons to your...
Your nonprofit’s social media campaigns are only as good as the social media manager running them. Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare are not miracle-producers. They are simply tools that can result in high ROI for your nonprofit, but only if the person sharing Status Updates, Twittering, and Checking-in on behalf of your nonprofit has the right skills, experience and training...
Many nonprofits are experimenting with text-to-give fundraising, but thus far results have been mixed. Nonprofits that have the resources or connections to tap into media, celebrity or large e-mail lists have done well, but many others are simply breaking even (or not). One reason may be that the online promotions of text-to-give campaigns have been mostly limited to text-only...
Nonprofits have been utilizing social media for five years now (beginning with Myspace and YouTube in 2006), and while most at this point have invested the time and resources into designing a solid, visually distinct, social media-compatible avatar, many nonprofits still make the very common (yet completely obvious) mistake of using a cropped logo as their avatar in their...
People are often surprised when I say that if given the choice, I would choose 10,000 e-Newsletter subscribers over 10,000 Followers on Twitter, 10,000 Fans on Facebook, or 10,000 Friends on Foursquare… combined. Any day of the week and without hesitation. And though some reports claim that email use is dropping, others claim its use is steady and even...
Organization: National Wildlife Federation Organization Size: 400 employees Name: Danielle Brigida Title: Digital Marketing Manager Website: www.nwf.org Blog: www.wildlifepromise.org Facebook: facebook.com/nationalwildlife Twitter: twitter.com/nwf YouTube: youtube.com/nationalwildlife 1. What was the very first social media tool your organization utilized, and when? Back in 2006 when I joined the organization we had a MySpace page with 25 friends. They passed it off...
Organization: WITNESS Organization Size: 29 staff members Name: Marianna Moneymaker Title: Online Outreach and Production Website: www.witness.org Blog: blog.witness.org Facebook: facebook.com/witness Twitter: twitter.com/witnessorg YouTube: youtube.com/witness Flickr: flickr.com/humanrights Mission: WITNESS uses video to open the eyes of the world to human rights violations. 1. What was the very first social media tool your organization utilized, and when? In February 2006,...
Organization: The Humane Society of the United States Organization Size: 11 million supporters, 500+ staff Name: Carie Lewis Title: Director of Emerging Media Website: HumaneSociety.org Blog: hsus.typepad.com Facebook: facebook.com/humanesociety Twitter: @HumaneSociety, @cariegrls YouTube: youtube.com/hsus LinkedIn: humane-society, carielewis 1. What was the very first social media tool your organization utilized, and when? MySpace, back when it was cool. That...
Organization: Taproot Foundation Organization Size: 40 Employees Name (s): Dupé Ajayi and Megan McDonald Title (s): Manager, External Affairs and Associate, Social Media & Recruitment Website: www.taprootfoundation.org Blog: taprootfoundation.org/blog Facebook: facebook.com/taprootfoundation Twitter: twitter.com/taprootfound YouTube: youtube.com/thetaprootfoundation LinkedIn: taproot-foundation Jumo: http://bit.ly/gfpe6R 1. What was the very first social media tool your organization utilized, and when? Megan: MySpace was probably our first...
Organization: The Nature Conservancy Organization Size: +1 million members, +3800 staff Name: Amy Ganderson Title: Associate Director, Digital Marketing Website: www.nature.org Mobile: m.nature.org Blog: blog.nature.org Facebook: facebook.com/thenatureconservancy Twitter: twitter.com/nature_org YouTube: youtube.com/natureconservancy Flickr: flickr.com/groups/thenatureconservancy 1. What was the very first social media tool your organization utilized, and when? My guess would be either MySpace, YouTube, or Facebook Causes. I know...