Which reality am I referring to? The one where the vast majority of intelligent people in the workforce have never used, let alone heard of free tools such as Google Docs (assuming it’s not blocked). Google Docs is the ultimate tool for when you need wiki functionality, but don’t necessarily want to open it up to the public and/or you just have a short term initiative in mind. I’m always blown away whenever I step outside of the social media fishbowl/community and step into reality. What is it?

Google Analytics is a very useful free tool for tracking site statistics. The resources below will help anyone, from the beginner to those who have been using Google Analytics for some time, learn how to get the most out of this great tool. For Beginners The following list of links will help you get started with Google Analytics from setup to understanding what data is being presented by Google Analytics. How to Use Google Analytics for Beginners - Mahalo’s how-to guide for beginners. A beginner’s guide to Google Analytics, Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 -

Now anyone using the Google Toolbar can leave comments for others to see about your webpages through Google Sidewiki. Screenshot of Google Sidewiki Luckily you can (through Google Webmaster Tools) create a webmaster entry that will appear on top, but this is a challenging new feature for anyone (like me) who is trying to get a handle on existing webpages that you know are not designed to their full effectiveness. Awesome! Now users can comment on those type of issues.

A few of my contacts at Google have recently informed me that the branded YouTube channel (formerly $50,ooo to setup), is now being offered for free to all government departments (this includes the Canadian Government of course). Google analytics – Brand channels can be opted into GA automatically. great initiative is being put on today What’s the difference between a branded and non-branded channel? Here are the additional features that you will get:

Download the presentation slides below Related Documents! A Google Grant, which provides up to $10,000 a month in free keyword advertising to qualified nonprofit organizations, can help your organization raise money, build your list, and drive more traffic to your web site. During this teleconference, we will provide an introduction to the Google Grants program and how it might benefit your organization. Specifically, we will discuss the following: Eligibility and application procedures What the grant covers Working with Google staff Expanding the campaign to meet organization objectives We will also touch on some more advanced topics such as campaign optimization, integration with website analytics and opportunities for non-grant paid search campaigns. About our speaker Daniel Schulman is Director of Search Marketing for Donordigital - an online fundraising, advocacy, and advertising company that works with major nonprofit organizations.

My intent was to clear my mind a bit and get my thoughts settled for what looks like a busy 2009 year coming up for the strategic social media side of our business ( CEPSM ). Here are some of the key things that I think will be crucial for you to pay attention to in 2009: Mobile Web Apps…forget WAP browsers and scaled down text websites, I’m talking full out browsing capability of new Over the course of the holidays I took some “unplugged” time to do some reading and play guitar. How can it possibly be busy you ask?

2009 looks like it will be a challenging year for fundraising. Whether you have a website or not, did you know that you and your organization have a Google profile ? Search for your organization on Google Maps . Remember you also have a personal Google profile. But people are going to give. It’s just a matter if they’re going to give to your organization .

We’ve all heard a lot about the capabilities of Google Maps, but that may not translate into our regular use of this great tool. In short, all you have to do to create a map is go to Google Maps , quickly create an account profile, click on My Maps, and then Create New Map. Using the placemarker tool , you can either choose one of Google’s icons or insert a url to create your own (that’s how I got the photo directly onto I fell into that category myself before I sat down for a half-hour and just played.

So what would Google do if it were a nonprofit? That’s actually the name of a new book by Jeff Jarvis (Jeff is associate professor and director of the interactive journalism program at the City University of New York's new Graduate School of Journalism, in addition to running one of the web’s most popular blogs called Buzzmachine.com ). One of the strategies Jeff highlights in his book (a strategy that we have also embraced here at Network for Good) is that “free is a business model.”

Tell me what you’d like me to write about in 2009 by leaving a comment on this post. Switch to an RSS feed reader like Google Reader and you can subscribe to this blog and others, without clogging your inbox. ...Tags: I did a quick review of my traffic stats for this blog and here are the top ten most visited posts, ending with the most popular: If Social Networking Isn’t Marketing, Why Bother?