Those nonprofits who are most successful at utilizing social networking Web sites like Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace know from trial, error, and experience that a “marketing and development approach” on social networking sites does not work. Tweet articles or blog posts by your favorite newspapers, bloggers, or other nonprofits (yes... Newsweek said it best: "Suddenly, all the world is a-Twitter." quot; Simple and powerful, Twitter is a must for nonprofit organizations.

Social networks are shiny and exciting. If you pass the quiz below with flying colors, you can begin the research phase associated with social networking (find out where your supporters are already spending time online; decide which medium is most appropriate for your audiences; etc.). Never fear: Network for Good can help you there, too.) Do you tell your story through pictures, videos or podcasts? Millions of people are connecting on them every minute of the day. They're passionate and engaged. They must be ripe for the fundraising picking,

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. There is a growing effort on part of certain “social media activists” (internal to government) to standardize these guidelines/policies. Government departments need to stop waiting for an official policy to come from TBS; It won’t anytime soon. Instead, senior leadership from within each department should

If you moan to 10 of your nonprofit colleagues about how you don’t have time to get your nonprofit on Facebook and other social media sites, I’d guess seven of them will tell you to get an intern to do it for you. (The If you are thinking about giving a social media project to an intern or a new employee who is a recent college grad, keep these four tips in mind. The other three? Two will just nod sympathetically and the other one will have no idea what you are talking about.)

Should all nonprofits have a blog?  Nope. Can having a blog benefit your organization? Yup. Below are eight benefits of having a nonprofit blog. Blogs help provide quick, up to the minute news about your organization and cause. Blog posts, on the other hand, can be written in 15-30 minutes. If you've worked for a nonprofit, you know how painfully long it can take to put together a newsletter. Not only can you share organizational news as it happens, you can also comment on how breaking news in the world relates to your cause, or organization.

currently have  groups for nonprofit marketing pros, nonprofits, social media “big brains”, nonprofit tech, and a few others. This turns the title of your blog posts into tweets, including a link. So this post here will automatically appear in my Twitter stream shortly after I publish it as “kivilm blogged on My Five Favorite Twitter Tools” with a shortened link to this post. I’ve received several questions about the Twitter tools I use, so here are my five favorites. Yes, to use Twitter as efficiently as possible, you actually need to do more

Over the past decade there has been a dramatic shift in the emphasis of determinants of health and social behaviors from individuals to networks and communities. For example, in three major areas of interest for public health officials and social marketers – the prevention of HIV infection, obesity and tobacco use  – the role of social networks in disease transmission and the prevalence of risk behaviors is creating new opportunities for both concepts and practices that focus on social units of analysis, change and outcome. Concurrent sexual partnerships , that is, having two or more stable sexual partners over time is being seen as one of the previously hidden drivers of the HIV epidemic .

I’ve been working on putting together a training session for our in house bloggers on how to share their blog posts on various social networking sites as a way to create a process for regularly sharing our content. Our blogs already have ShareThis embedded on each post, and in putting the training together, I found a bunch of well written guides to some of the major social sites that I wanted to share. Here they are: Guide to Marketing on Facebook

If you’ve already started incorporating social media into your communications strategy and have done any research on it at all, you’ve come across the advice to LISTEN FIRST . What you are less likely to have found in your research is a practical list of what you can actually do with all of this new-found knowledge and perspective that you gain from building your listening network. If you really apply what you are hearing, listening can become the cornerstone of not only your nonprofit marketing strategy, but your mission-oriented programs as well. Listening

Have you filled out the Social Tech Survey for associations yet? Even if you haven't taken on any social media initiatives yet, but plan to start something in the next 6 months or so, you should fill out the survey. In just a few weeks, we'll have solid information about social media initiatives that associations are tackling. I was honored to be involved in producing the survey, along with association superstars Ben Martin and Jeff De Cagna of Principled Innovation.