How To Split Up the US
A very cool visualization that represents how relationships develop across geographical boundaries in 210 million public Facebook profiles. It helps understand how your social network forms and travels.
Measuring Type
“A selection of the most commonly used typefaces were compared for how economical they are with the amount of ink which they use at the same point size. Large scale renditions of the typefaces were drawn out with ballpoint pens, allowing the remaining ink levels to display the ink efficiency of each typeface.”
Undeniably, social tools like Twitter and Facebook can help your congregation. But which is better? Take two nanoseconds and give us some feedback on our poll. We’ll report our findings.
Too many of the non-profits and religious organizations that come to us think of their communications strategies as one-way streets that never intersect. While they may send messages through their website, Twitter account or Facebook Page, many never ask for feedback or take steps to build a conversation. Instead, they’re focused on one-way announcements of ticket sales or special initiatives.
Usually, those messages never intersect with a blended communications strategy. You may see that a church has a Facebook account – but only if you happen to come across it on Facebook.
The important thing to remember is that someone who might be really interested in what you do might not be a Facebook or Twitter user. So that means that if you put all your energy into Facebook or Twitter or any other singular thing, they’ll never find you. Spread it around.
Here are a few good examples of how to blend different communications initiative:
Detailed Twitter Background
Add a custom background on your Twitter page that has information on how to find your website or subscribe to your blog. Check out ours.
Double-Duty Tweets
Send messages on Twitter that point people to useful information on your website or blog. Rather than, “Did you know we have a blog?” try something compelling like a snippet from a recent blog post or initiative, “We’ve placed a bounty on Michael Vick. You read that right. Get details.”
Use Facebook Connect
This plug-in, which works with Drupal and Wordpress, in addition to other websites, lets members log onto your website using their Facebook login and share information in both places at once.
It helps to see what other organizations are doing right to guide your own Web strategy. Here are six stand-out examples from non-profits that have a presence with websites, Twitter and Facebook.
Websites
10ThousandDoors.org is a gutsy move by the United Methodist Church to be a truly interactive experience. The whole site is innovative, but the Talk page is a new breed of discussion boards that has really opened up sharing and communication.
Take the Walk has a great counter on its homepage. They tally the number of miles supporters have walked to support fighting AIDS in Africa. The placement is perfect: front and center. This ensures the site is geared toward pulling in new supporters.
Twitter
Ashoka started promoting their e-book through Twitter and quickly built up a following. This multi-tasking post is smart, because they thank their followers, help everyone feel included and continue the promotion all in one Tweet.
The town of Richmond, VA, had a double-header of a good idea. First, they started a city wiki (others here), and then they set up an automatic Twitter feed that publishes any updates to the wiki. It gives you a real-time, accessible view of any changes that happen at the town level.
Facebook
Peta launched a Facebook Cause to raise funds and donations to protect animals. They’ve raised nearly $60,000 and have enabled others to recruit more supporters and raise funds on their behalf.
Synagogue 3000 claimed a great web address so they’d be easy to find on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/synagogue3000) rather than the ugly and hard to remember stream of numbers that Facebook adds to the end of your URL when it assigns one to you. Click here to set yours.
[Have a question you’d like answered? Use the comments form at the bottom of this page to submit it. We’ll review your question before posting (don’t be shy about asking!) and get back to you with a response.]
One feature of a Facebook Page for organizations is a Favorites Pages block. This lets you bookmark other Pages that you like or somehow related to yours. It’s a great tool for cross-promoting and partnerships.
Facebook is long on features but short on usability, so figuring out how to use this feature isn’t perfectly clear. But here’s how to do it:
Go to the Facebook Page that you want to add to your Favorites.
Look at the logo on the upper-left-hand side of the page, and directly below it locate the link that says “Add to My Page’s Favorites.”
Click that, and it puts it in your Favorites box. Click it again to remove it from your Page’s Favorites.
If you administer more than one Page, you can choose which one to add it to.
Well, let’s fix that right now by telling you July is the kick-off of customer appreciation month at Talance. Pick up your $150 gift card to use for any new or existing development or design on a Talance website. Use it either on its own or apply it toward something bigger.
We’ll keep sharing the love on our Facebook page, so join the fan club so you can get deals, specials and giveaways throughout July.
Hope you take us up on our offer. It’s also transferable, so pass it on if you know of someone who needs the help on a new project.
I spend so much of my time on social networks that it’s hard for me to remember that not all nonprofits use them. But you should! Social networks, like those below, are an ideal way to create community, distribute information and learn from others. Plus, these are all free services, and free marketing is a nonprofit’s best friend.
So, as part of our end-of-the-year-top-five-blow-out, here are our five favorite social networking sites:
Facebook: We love Facebook is the community-based Pages and Groups. But we especially encourage charitable organizations to set up a Facebook Cause. This lets you easily spread the word about important issues and lets you take donations online. (See Talance on Facebook.)
MySpace: What we love about MySpace is its size. It’s the third most trafficked sites in the United States according to Alexa, so it’s a great way to make connections and send out buzz. Non-profits can use the blogs to distribute alerts and updates.
Twitter: Twitter wins our hearts because it’s so fast. This microblogging site lets people follow updates without the bulk of a blog. Nonprofits are using it in great ways – such as sending out calls for blood donations. (See Talance on Twitter.)
Flickr: Sharing photos seems innocuous enough, but there’s power in those images. We’ve seen church groups post compelling images of their missionary work and nonprofits post images of their events, which can create interest in future events.
YouTube: If photos are powerful, videos are even more so. We love the way YouTube brings images and sounds to your network. Look the Living Darfur official music video, which has received more than 2 million views. Activist Naomi Klein has created a powerful network for her Shock Doctrine. Movies are powerful things.
We’ve been invited by a client that serves synagogues to put together a series of quick-hit webinars based on common problems their constituency has with technology. We’re still not sure which will be the most welcomed by the community, so I wanted to open up to you for your vote. In exchange, we’ll host a presentation on the same topic for no charge. You can post your thoughts by clicking the comments link here or by contacting me directly.
One of the most frequent questions we get at Talance is, “Why does social media matter to my nonprofit?” Well, it matters for many reasons, which I regularly expand on in these pages.
N-TEN is also trying to address the relevance in a new curriculum project called We Are Media. Here’s a blurb from a release I received on my Facebook account:
We are Media is NTEN’s Social Media curriculum project where the community is the curriculum! We invite you to join the conversation each week as roll we out a new theme related to social media and nonprofits.
The first module looks more in depth at social media any why it does (or doesn’t) make sense to fold it into a social media strategy for a nonprofit organization’s overall communications plan.
It’s an interesting initiative, and one that aims to provide some guidance for a question that’s commonly asked but not so commonly answered.
A sadly underfunded client of mine who can’t get money for a full-blown version of Photoshop told me about Adobe Photoshop Express.
Express is the latest of of SaaS (Software as a Service) offerings. SaaS boils down to online versions of the kinds of software you’re used to buying as a package you install on your computer. Like, say, Photoshop. But instead of paying $700 for the mega version, you pay nothing for this online version.
And what a lovely, free, online version it is. It’s smooth, easy and intuitive. Plus, it works with a host of other services, such as Flickr, Facebook, Photobucket and Picasa.
The Friendly Web Tools blog from Web design and development firm Talance, Inc., covers such topics as usability, non-profits, management and design. Have a question about any of these topics or your own web strategy? Let us know, and we'll cover it in a future article.
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