This morning’s Washington Post article, “To Nonprofits Seeking Cash, Facebook App Isn’t So Green”, takes some not-very-new shots at Causes, the friending and fundraising app on Facebook, while not providing any new insights. From the first sentence, “It seems foolproof: nonprofits using the power of the Internet to raise money through a clever Facebook application. [...] ...Tags: Tags: Social Media beth kanter Causes facebook Frogloop Givvy network for goo

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. Since meeting Jason, we've stayed in touch through Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Have you filled out the Social Tech Survey for associations yet? I

Yesterday I attended a workshop organized by one of my favorite bloggers (and NTC roomie) Nancy Schwartz on how you deal with branding issues for your organization within social media. Danielle says that because they are decentralizing their social media presence, they are also empowering and trusting their staff and giving them the ability to represent their own programs online without a lot of heavy handed management. The panel featured Danielle Brigida, National Wildlife Federation; Felicia Carr, National Parks Conservation Association; and Wendy Harman, American Red Cross. Nancy

If you’re planning or evaluating any form of social media activity, then it’s worth taking a look at eMarketer’s summary of a recently released research report examining which marketing uses of Facebook and Twitter are working best. As shown in the table above, top of the effectiveness list for consumer-focused marketers (the B2C column) using Facebook is ‘Creation of a Facebook application around a brand’ – providing a useful reminder that the most effective use of social media doesn’t always come for free . Next in the ranking is the creation of a ‘Fan’ survey, followed by the use of Facebook user data to provide insight into customers.

But in today’s world, it’s wise to consider complementing these appeals with tools like Facebook and Twitter. Since you’ve already designed and implemented your year-end direct mail effort, here are some pointers for integrating it with social media: To get even more sophisticated, you might want separate pages for each type of media you use: one you’ll promote on Facebook, one you’ll promote on Twitter, one you’ll Last time, we looked at creating a year-end strategy for fundraising letters . According to FundRaising Success

Writing in Engage: Hispanics , interactive marketing consultant Lee Vance provides this astonishing stat: Back in February 2008, Facebook produced a Spanish-language version (note: with help from its user community). million Facebook users in Spanish-speaking countries. In addition, the number of Spanish-preferring US users of Facebook climbed to one million, At the time, there were 2.3 Within six months that number had shot up to 9.9

Once, when I was representing social media on an arts marketing panel, a fellow panelist said to me, one-on-one, something along the lines of “ okay, but how does this sell tickets ?” The longer answer is about social media metrics and the complexity of conversation, and it’s not really an answer. There is a lot of great writing and research out there, by people like Beth Kanter and Rachel I guess I didn’t get that point across! I gave him the short answer .

With this in mind, I spotted a handy application today that helps answer this question, at least for Facebook users - and with over 150m active users worldwide that’s often the first site considered by marketers and fundraisers. It comes from the ‘unofficial Facebook blog’ AllFacebook and is aptly named Facebook Demographic Statistics . As use of online social networks continues to grow worldwide, one of the most important questions to ask is how the user profile of different sites differs - to give an indication as to whether the type of consumers you want to engage with are actually spending time there in significant numbers.

I was just on a call with fellow members of the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy folks when someone asked, “Does anyone here use Twitter or Facebook ?” Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn and YouTube are sites that are in the broad category of “social media.” Social media sites are sites that make it really easy for people to connect with other people. It appeared I was the only one. Many wanted to be but their IT departments wouldn’t let them.

Social media is a free-flowing, wide-open phenomenon that needs to be handled and handled well. The clearer you are, the more likely it is that your org will make an impact with these tools  -- whether you're just monitoring conversation about your org via Google Alerts, have a two-pronged approach with Facebook fan and cause pages or are experimenting on several fronts. What social media-ing is ok to do at work, and what's not ok? So frame its use for your staff, volunteers and base. Core issues to cover include: