Community Organizer 2.0

Two data sets, two different user groups, same results: Small businesses and nonprofit find social media effective for reaching new customers and strengthening existing relationships. Irrefutable evidence of the power of engagement.

There are plenty of other business functions besides sales and marketing that benefit from social media integration: human resources, internal communication, product development, training, customer service. I recently gave a presentation that talks about the ROI of integrating social media with these business functions. The slide show is embedded. Looking forward to your thoughts and contributions.

Social media is a public platform, where we utilize the “power of weak ties” to move people to action. How does a weak tie become stronger, more fully engaged? It’s when conversations move them from the public conversation places to private conversations. These private conversations are social media’s “back yard.” That is where the relationships are strengthened and built.

An interesting survey by Harris Poll shows that Engaged Americans (those who have volunteered, donated or advocated in the past year) want to be more involved in their nonprofit causes through social media. The survey also shows that they are already taking action as a result of social media engagement. How can nonprofits take advantage of this information?

Nonprofit organizations constantly need to raise funds, and many are turning to social media to raise funds online. Organizations ask, “when does social media lead to more money?” The real question to think about is, “when does engagement lead to more money.” Using social media to engage, listen and learn from stakeholders is the first requirement for a successful online fundraising strategy.

Three arts organizations (Houston Ballet, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art and Luce Foundation Center for American Art) are innovating ways to use Flickr creatively, and in the process offering backstage passes to the organization, amplifying programming, and engaging stakeholders in real decision-making.

A new study by ROI Research revealing reasons why people most often unsubscribe from email lists, and the rates at which they unsubscribe. You can’t listen and engage in an email blast, but you can take the information from listening and engaging on social networks, and use that to decrease your unsubscribe rates.

Why should CEOs and Executive Directors use social media themselves? Because they are an extension of their organization and organization’s brand. In this post, I argue that CEOs must use social media themselves to engage with customers and also post a short slide show on the basics of extending ones personal brand and network on some social media platforms.

An introduction to how to set up, create, edit and list podcasts, from the Podcasting session at NTEN’s 2009 NTC.

Even the most local businesses and community organizations can use social media. In this post, I give concrete examples of how the local business or organization can benefit from incorporating social media into its business model. The world is no longer Local, it’s Social.