Due to the Treasury Board’s current focus on internal social media initiatives, I have recently received an influx of requests to help public servants develop external social media engagement guidelines, particularly ones to do with blogging. Assuming you already have a “strategy” in place and proper resources to manage a blog, the following is a simple list of 12 guidelines originally developed by IBM and adapted by me to suit the federal government. Government departments need to stop waiting for an official policy to come from TBS; It won’t anytime soon.

Beth Kanter, a thought leader in the world of nonprofit blogging, recently shared some useful criteria to help nonprofits decide whether to blog or not. While I agree with most of them, I think that two (yes, if you want to enable many voices; no, if things must be vetted by a central authority) could, if interpreted narrowly, inhibit some nonprofits from blogging. It's a “business-lunch blog” -- a There is at least one model that doesn't meet all of her criteria, but would, I think, be a great approach for many nonprofits. I call it that because the tone and

By my most recent count, there are 106 fundraising blogs out there. My definition of "fundraising blogs" is deliberately broad -- these are blogs that are touch on fundraising in some way, at some time. Fundraising blogs most likely to help you be a better fundraiser That's a lot of talk about fundraising. More than a normal person can (or probably should) read.

Eight signs that your arts organization isn’t quite ready to use blogging to connect with your patrons: 1. You throw around terms like “conversation” and “engagement” without defining clear goals for your blog. 6. And it gets you a big discount on a super cool blogging thing I'm launching very soon. ...Tags: You haven’t figured out how to make any of your other communications more about your patron and less about you. 2. You define your online audience as “everybody.”

Blogging for Nonprofits: Tips, Does your nonprofit need a blog? But to help you think through this question, here are my top five reasons why a nonprofit should have a blog and my top five reasons why a nonprofit shouldn’t. 5 Reasons Why You Need a Blog Thursday’s Webinar: Tips, Traps and Tales

Launching and maintaining a successful arts blog takes planning , there’s no doubt about that. But here are some quick fixes you can do right this minute to improve your organization’s blog. 1. Are you using the ShareThis tool, or any other applications that allow your blog reader to stumble or digg your content? Stop writing about your arts group and write about the reader. Huh?

As usual, in the spirit of  “social” media, I have decided to post up my recent “Government Blogging” presentation slides (from the CSPS Armchair Presentation ) on SlideShare . Government Blogging - Best Practices & Tips for Success Social Media blogging tips Government Blogging Presentation government blogging examples best practices I have embedded the presentation below.

Look at some of the most successful blogs out there--Mashable, Gawker, Huffington Post--the publishing frequency is outrageous. I'm not suggesting we all start blogs...I'm web marketing blogging Web 2. So this is really only a half-formed idea. I read this great post about Kodak's content marketing from @juntajoe

Thinking about starting a blog in 2009? Before the holidays, I asked some nonprofits to share with me their blogging lessons learned. Here are some of the comments I heard through  NTEN’s Nonprofit Blogging Affinity Group List . (NTEN NTEN groups are a great resource, by the way, and this same list just had a great discussion about some of the best nonprofit blogs online. You’ll have to join NTEN and the Blogging group to learn more). From Mike Sweitzer-Beckman: “I run a blog in my spare time for progressive young adult Catholics.

Here’s the April edition of the Nonprofit Blog Carnival. Tags: Facebook Internet Resources Twitter Website/Internet nonprofit blog carniva This month’s theme was Raising Money Online.  So many nonprofits are looking to the internet as an inexpensive tool for raising money.  While it can be a great technique, there are definitely things that work and