A few weeks ago, Linkedin began testing a new look for groups. The new features are an attempt to make Linkedin more interactive, and easier for users to connect with others. Most of the new features are in located within groups. If you are an active Linkedin user, you know that much of the benefit comes from participating in groups – the discussion, connections, information, and learning.

I’m a member of Non Profit Network – MojaLink, which is a beta testing group for Linkedin’s new groups features. My guess is that every group will become more like this one. I’ve tested it out a bit. What I find is that there are so many new features added that it i hard to concentrate on the discussions. I spent more time within each discussion (which is what I’m betting Linkedin wants me to do), but I also left a bit overwhelmed with the idea that my “safe space” for participating in discussions has now become a competitive zone for influence, followers, and actions.

Some people have a Linkedin strategy to become an area Expert or to have their answers selected as a “Best Answer” in the Answers section of Linkedin. These features have never been available to those who answer questions within groups. Groups have always felt more like a group of colleagues and friends trying to help each other work through a problem or answer a question. Now groups will become a competing zone for influence. I understand how this will benefit individuals wanting to pursue a branding or expertise strategy. However, I will mourn the loss of the camaraderie that I enjoy in Linkedin groups where I am actively participating.

New features:

1. Group managers can feature discussions, called “manager’s choice,” to appear on the group’s home page.

2. Individual influence and popularity plays a stronger role.

There are two ways that Linkedin will now reward your participation in the group. First. if you participate a lot, you could be featured on the home page and on the side of every discussion as a “top influencer.” (*NOTE: the Linkedin developer who worked on the new Groups feature explains how one becomes a top influencer in the comments to this blog post. Essentially, top influencers represent people who have influenced others to take action within the Group.)

Secondly, Linkedin has made it very easy to “follow” someone’s discussions and contributions on Linkedin. You do not actually have to be connected to this person to “follow” him/her. Right now, you are already “following” all of your connections. If you want to follow someone’s discussions that is not already a connection, then click “follow” next to his/her name.

All the people that you follow currently appear in a tab next to My Groups called Following. Now, why would I follow someone I’m not connected to already? To get to know him/her, comment on his/her discussions, form a relationship. It’s yet another way to build relationships and connections on Linkedin.

3. Discussions look very different – they are more like a marketplace of actions instead of a discussion.

You can “like” a discussion. (The ubiquitous like button pops up here, too – but it’s not the Facebook Like Button.) You can follow anyone involved in the discussion with a click. You see all the comments expanded. One think I don’t like is that you no longer can read someone’s title and short description underneath his or her name. It is counter to Linkedin’s attempt to further interconnect people when you can’t view the brief bio of someone underneath his/her avatar within the group.

This is how the current discussion format still appears within most groups:

This is how the discussion looks within the newer version of Linkedin groups:

In summary, this is what Linkedin tells you is new in Groups:

I think it’s really about highlighting individual contributions, making participation easy with the “like,” and making connections easier with the “follow” button. The question is, will new connections still be strong ones?

What do you think about Linkedin’s new look? Are you participating in a group that has it already – and how do you find that the new look affects your participation?

Image courtesy of Jeremy Levine Design

A recent Reuter’s article: Top Ten Trends in Sustainable Business, focuses on the best trends in “green business,” I’m struck by how many of the points are applicable to sustainable social media. Here are my top trends in sustainable social media (hat tip to Reuters):

1. A deeper understanding of what sustainable social media means

Sustainable social media is not about creating a Facebook page so people can find you, or tweeting your blog posts automatically, it’s about long term engagement. Sustainable social media means creating conversations, really listening to your stakeholders’ needs, bringing stakeholders into your company for their input, and creating long-term strategies for deeper two-way engagement. If you have a deeper understanding of what sustainable social media means, you’ll see the return in customer loyalty, volunteerism, deeper engagement, and a host of other actions.

2. Your employees are your secret weapon

True – they know and love your organization. Let your employees tweet, use Facebook, answer questions on Yahoo! Answers, post questions on Linkedin Groups, and more…on the organization’s behalf. They are the customer and client touch points. More and more companies are creating social media policies. You could create a social media policy for the workplace, ideally clear and simple, and as open as possible. Here are a number of collected social media policies.

3. Speaking with rather than to your customers

The beauty of social media is that it allows real conversation. That’s called Web 2.0. Your stakeholders are using social media because they are asking to be part of the conversation. Bring ‘em in! Dr. Phil asks his Facebook fans questions. Donor Tools asked its customers where they should volunteer via their blog. Where can you get the great ideas your stakeholders have to share?

4. Storytelling and social media dance the perfect tango

You have a back story. Your products, your services, and your organization have a back story too. People don’t want statistics and data, they want people, stories, and personal connections to the company. Use social media to give it to them. Here is a moving video about Abe’s Market that isn’t about Abe’s Market at all – but the producers who sell their organic goods to Abe’s. And I dare you not to cry at this moving video story from the organization Darius Goes West.  What’s your story? How can you use social media to convey the story? How can you gather even more stories from the people who are engaged with your organization? Stories sustain interest, and your social media efforts.

5. Transparency is the badge of social media trust

Social media begs transparency. Don’t hide anything because there are hundreds of people who would love to know the dirt and don’t mind digging for it. If you know your organization is hiding something, or not being as forthright as it should, it will come out… Eventually… somewhere on social media. And then it will be a big mess. Just look at Habitat UK. And here’s another true story: I know of a company that set up five twitter accounts so that the related accounts would retweet the company’s account. The same company also created a fake Facebook account to “friend” people and eventually encourage them to become a fan of the company’s Facebook Page. Fraudulent? Yep. Uncool? Totally. I’m waiting for someone to “out” them.

The more transparent your organization is, the more trustworthy your social media will be. And sustainable social media is all about building and maintaining trust.

6. There really is such a thing as ROI

People will argue that you can’t determine return on investment from social media. Or return on influence. Or return on insight. I disagree. You can clearly see the effects that social media has on sales, membership, website visits, conversion rates from social media channels, online campaigns, and more. To create ROI, it’s critical to determine ahead of time what your organization’s goals are for social media. If it’s more online mentions, measure that. If it’s donations, or memberships, then track the activity through social media channels. Sustainable social media means measuring the return.

7. Create a strategy. Then follow it, and adjust it.

Your approach to social media should be strategic. Without an overall strategy, you’re just throwing pasta at the wall and hoping some of it will stick. The trend is away from individual channel approaches, towards a comprehensive strategy (as it should be). To do that, review your organizational and program goals, internal capacity, time, and level of commitment to social media. Create a social media strategy that supports your goals, and gets your organization where it wants to be. Define the channels you want to use, how you will use them, and how using each channel will help your organization meet its defined goals. Implement your strategy and adjust as needed. Sustainable social media means having a recipe and following it so that you are using social media effectively to support the company’s goals. And adjusting as needed (see #9).

8. Website integration

Social media shouldn’t stand on its own. Sustainable social media strategy means that your entire web presence (including social media profiles and activities) ARE your website. It’s not just your URL now. I’m pleased to see more integration between websites and social in the last year. Examples are Facebook’s new “Like button” that you can put on your website, the social sharing features (tweetmeme, addthis, etc), integration of YouTube within websites and the blog on the home page. Until recently, the blog was always relegated to its own page, or a separate site. To create sustainable social media, you have to integrate the social into the website, while the website should also send readers out to your social spaces. It’s all one site.

9. Fear of Failure: to succeed, you can’t be afraid to fail.

Platforms change all the time, the audience becomes more savvy and jaded, and it’s a brave new world every day in social media. One day you think you understand a platform such as Facebook, and the next day Facebook changes the world. However, I’m starting to sense a fear of failure that may fossilize into a mindset as social media becomes more common. I hope not.

Trying is succeeding. Trying something new, solidly based upon strategic planning, is sustainable social media. Failure teaches important lessons to you, and to us all. It’s a big social media lab right now, and we’re always on the lookout for new combination that work. Don’t be afraid to try.

10. Stakeholders are upset if you’re NOT listening.

If you aren’t at least listening for mentions of your organization, key products/services/brands, then you’re missing out on the conversation. Customers are most often going to use twitter to complain and praise…and ask for attention. Set up web alerts of all types. It’s best to listen and respond. The expectation now is that you are listening. If you are not responding, little problems quickly become big ones. Listen and respond.

I think these are the big ones. What other trends are you seeing in Sustainable Social Media?

As most Facebook users know, Facebook changed its entire ecosystem a little over a week ago. Facebook created social plugins, an open graph, changed the “fan” setting to the thumbs-up “like” button, changed personal privacy settings, created Community Pages, links personal interests to automatically-selected pages or search queries, and…I still can’t find where the groups I belong to are showing up on my profile. Whew.

Facebook has always used the power of influence marketing to show you what your friends are doing on Facebook. In a new study by McKinsey consulting, word of mouth marketing is shown to be the only factor that ranks in consumer influence at every step of the purchase decision process. And every step of the process of becoming engaged with an organization as well, I would suggest. When I used to be a community organizer, I really encouraged “friend to friend organizing.” The power of a personal recommendation by a trusted influencer is incredibly strong. Virtual friends may not be strong influencers, however, but they are stronger influencers than strangers.

The Like button weaves influencers together, and networks together, easily.

Here are two examples:

Categorizing Friends vs. People who Like Your Facebook Page

Did you notice that when you go to a page, you now see the people who like divided into two categories? Facebook has always embraced the concept of influencers, and now divides the “people who like”a page into two sections:”friends who like” (those you are personally connected to on Facebook) and “people who like” (with whom you are not connected).

Facebook is not-so-subtly influencing you to Like a page your friends like, or Like a page that people who influence you also like.

Your Friends Influence You All Over the Web

You’ll soon begin to see the Like button all over the web. At the top of news articles, blog posts, websites, videos, etc. Facebook makes it very simple to grab the code for the Like button and place it anywhere on your websites. The Like buttons automatically display the names of your personal Facebook friends who also Liked the same content.

When you press the button it will appear in your Facebook news feed, and also become part of “interests and likes” in your personal profile.

With the Like button, Facebook enables your organization to become a network weaver.

I also see great opportunity to use the Like button to spread nonprofit messages and attract new supporters through network weaving:

1. Lower barriers to participation. As Jordan Viator wrote very eloquently in her summary of how Facebook changes might affect nonprofits, “there are less boundaries than ever before in getting people “engaged” with your cause.” I agree with this. However, I also think that the quick Like and lower fan barrier also means lesser commitment. Think about how you can motivate the really committed core within your organization to Like your Facebook page, and also Like it all over the web. When we see the same core group of people Liking our organization’s content on the web, the Like button’s influence grows. In other words, it’s not a fluke that someone clicked that button once; fans demonstrate greater organizational commitment when they Like something by your organization in several places on the web.

2. More exposure within Facebook. As Ashley McFarland writes, “instead of dropping targeted links into your text, allow a user to click the familiar “Like” button and save yourself so much work!” Placing the Like button on your content means that you expose more people to it: all Likes are shared via the news feed on Facebook. All Likes are entered into someone’s interests in their profile.

3. New fans from outside of Facebook. The new Insights for your pages are at http://facebook.com/insights. Insights now display sources: if your page acquired new fans from within Facebook, or outside of Facebook. You should see the external source fan count begin to grow due to the new Like button.  Facebook is working hard to bring you more “people who like your page”and offering you more exposure.

Here is a screen shot of the new insights page:

4. Understanding your supporter’s interests helps your organization become network weaver. With the new Open Graph, website admins now have access to information about where a Page’s fans are visiting elsewhere on the web. If you put the button on your website,, Facebook promises all sorts of great information about what else these visitors do on the web. As Ashley McFarland wrote to me in an email, “the big thing for smart NPs is that they will be able to widen their nets and gather their own information on a similarly large scale. Like options embedded in the content of your website? For free and with only a simple snippet of code? Fantastic!”

I see in this opportunities for cross-promotion, strategic partnerships, alliances, and information sharing. Nonprofit (and corporate) organizations can take this information and create network maps of where fans visit, have a sense of fan’s other interests, and better understand their needs. Though I personally am a bit worried about privacy issues with the new Facebook, I can’t argue that this type of information would benefit organizations tremendously.

In Beth Kanter’s blog post about the new Facebook changes, she writes that Robert Scoble thinks that “a website that doesn’t have Facebook “likes” on it will seem weird sooner than we think.”

I tend to agree.

This is the second of two blog posts from the We Are Media Listening session at the 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference. In Part One, I wrote about how the American Red Cross thinks about listening. In Part Two, I’ll pass along insights and tips from Danielle Brigida (National Wildlife Federation) on how to build a listening dashboard out of free tools.

With a limited budget, and one full-time social outreach staffer, NWF is on top of its mentions, shares them internally, and actively uses keywords to continually monitor conversation trends and find new fans. The are successful at converting listening to fans, engagement, and metrics. And to say the least, it’s quite impressive. Here are some takeaways from the session:

Build your listening dashboard into one central listening space, such as iGoogle or an RSS reader

Danielle suggests monitoring online mentions through an iGoogle account, or an RSS reader. Try to grab an RSS feed from each listening channel so that all new mentions are automatically updated and fed into your RSS reader or iGoogle page. Try to automate as much of the listening process as follows. (Many of these channels also offer automatic email alerts.) Example: Search for a keyword on BlogPulse, add the search query to a RSS feed reader. All new keyword mentions will feed into your RSS reader or iGoogle.

The really important thing is to know your keywords

Find the important keywords to monitor, and use basic query language to narrow your searches. Example: search ["national wildlife" - refuge] returns all mentions of national wildlife but nothing that refers to a refuge. Keyword searches can inform the questions people have about your organization – and will provide value to the organization. (Keyword research is also great SEO information to create blog post titles, content, etc.) Refine listening tools to get exactly what you want, and constantly search for new keywords, noting keyword trends. Some tools:

Google Keyword Tool: If you type in a term, it will show you the other terms that people are using when they are also searching for your term. I typed in the term “NWF”  and it returned a list of common phrases that people use to search for NWF. Here’s a screen shot:

Google Insights Search: It allows you to compare keywords. Great use for SEO in blog post titles, etc. Great for searching what people are talking about by geographical area, by trends, and more.

Wordtracker: Looks at how people are talking about a certain keyword. Shows how often people are searching for keywords over the past year. Keyword searches can also inform the questions people have about your organization – and will provide value to the organization.

What the NWF primarily uses to search for mentions

The NWF uses BoardReader, Socialmentions, IceRocket, Technorati, BlogPulse and a few others to catch all of the NWF online mentions. Danielle also thinks about where the conversations and traffic might be within social channels, and specifically search those sites internally periodically (such as internal YouTube search).

Other places they search

Backtype: It will keep your comments in one place. Can search for comments by keyword.

BackTweets: When searching twitter, it will pull up the redirected links/shortened links mentioned on twitter. Twitter’s internal search doesn’t bring this up.

Buzzzy: This is the search engine for Google Buzz. Can search by keyword to see if people are using your keywords.

IceRocket: A broad search engine to search the social platforms. Click on the “Big Buzz” tab of it to get all the recent mentions. Can create an RSS feed of any search query except for within the Big Buzz tab.

FollowerWonk: It searches all of the Twitter bios. Can search for keywords in a title. Example: the NWF might search for anyone who mentions “garden” in his/her bio.

Internal organizational sharing

Danielle pulls important and relevant mentions into the social bookmarking site Delicious. She’ll take any exact quote/mention within an article, and copy it into the “notes” section of Delicious. She tags it with a predetermined private tag for other NWF staff to read. Delicious will keep track of the top tags and the #of mentions of that tag/year. This helps anyone, including NWF, track what is being talked about most. Wendy Harman of the American Red Cross tracks every place that she has commented with the tag “comment” to keep track of where she has started relationships.

Google Bundles: Using keywords, you can create Google bundles for groups of people. Within Google Reader, expand the “all items” and open the “browse for stuff” section. Click “create a bundle” at the very bottom. Title it, describe it, drag RSS feeds that you want to include into the box. Click “save.” Click “add to my shared items” and then someone can subscribe to my bundle. So, if there is a large number of people and you want them to know what you’re reading, they can click the blue subscribe button and subscribe to your bundles! Can help staff and coworkers to become experts in a certain area.

Tracking stats through social sharing

AddThis: Track # shares and where they share, sends a weekly email summary.

PostRank: First create an account, then add your blog into PostRank (mostly used for blogs). It creates an engagement metric based on number of social shares. If you click on the engagement metric, a drop down menu reveals how people are sharing it.  It is a very small cost/month to get the advanced analytics. It shows you a graph that maps out when your highest engagement was with a certain post.

How do you compile your dashboard?

Danielle Brigida (NWF) and Wendy Harman (ARC)

I just returned from the 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference in Atlanta, and loved the sessions. Over the next few days, I’ll publish my notes from several of the valuable workshops. This blog post is taken from my notes at the We Are Media Listening workshop, presented by Danielle Brigida of the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and Wendy Harman of the American Red Cross (ARC). Today’s post is the first of two blog posts from this workshop. Part One reviews how and why the ARC listens online, and Part Two describes how to build a listening dashboard from free online tools.

I was struck by how the American Red Cross thinks about listening as a tool for building community, internal professional development, and organizational development.

This is how the American Red Cross thinks about online listening:

Listening is about relevancy. The ARC is mentioned about 700 times a day across many social media platforms, and ALL of their social media content is informed by listening to the things people care about.

Listening can spur organizational change. The ARC has made several adjustments based on what people are saying about the organization. Example: during Haiti, everyone knew about the text code to donate, but also the people trapped in Haiti were using that code to tell the outside world about the situation. Lesson learned: ARC needs to figure out a way to separate out different conversations during crisis.

Listening is about reputation management. The ARC actively seeks to connect with people who are upset or happy about our work, and offer help and resources, and this is a very proactive way to manage reputation.

Listening gives us great data to help us do our work better. There is also a big market research element to listening: because there is so much social data to analyze, the ARC can become much more informed about the data from listening.

Listening is about professional development. Wendy also believes that every person in the internal organization should be familiar with what is going on in his/her field; what it is that they do daily. Knowing what is going on makes employees better at their jobs.

Social media is open to everyone: volunteers, chapters, and employees. Listening builds community. The ARC created a flow chart of its response strategy. It also created a social media handbook for the chapters. For employees and chapters, the ARC encourages anyone to respond and engage but the ground rules boil down to #1: disclose your relationship to the ARC and #2: talk only about what you know. Through listening, local chapters and the larger ARC build communities of trust and communities of care.

How the ARC monitors online mentions and keywords: They use Radian6

ARC uses Radian6, a paid listening service. At the click of a button, Radian6 creates  big-picture graphs depending on what kinds of information you want. Easy to share most important conversations. Example: Radian6 can produce a graph of the intersection between the keywords American Red Cross, Haiti, Donate, Flood, and Blood. One can see from this graph how to best connect with people and what most care about from their conversations. It’s also easy to view where people are talking about “American Red Cross” online: mainstream news, twitter, blogs, etc.

Radian6 also makes it easy to find relevant keywords to keep an eye on them. The application will create a cloud graph of the words most closely associated with the organization over the last 90 days (Ed note: interesting feature!). Cool feature: users can run a “river of news” to see why there is a spike in mentions. The river of news will show all the mentions at any points, which can help organizations identify trends, missed conversations, and other items.

In part 2: Danielle Brigida explains how to build a killer listening dashboard out of free listening tools

Two new data sets about the value of social media came across my laptop recently: Idealware‘s “Using Social Media to Meet Nonprofit Goals” survey of nonprofit staffers using social media, and the State of Small Business report from Network Solutions and the Center for Excellence in Service.

The results are so similar to the nonprofit survey results that the conclusion is hard to ignore: social media actually is an effective tool for customer retention and attraction.

Social media is actually perceived by those doing it to work! In particular, the top benefits are seen as reaching new audiences and enhancing existing customer/audience relationships.

Here are some highlights from the Idealware survey of 459 nonprofit staffers using social media:

1. Nonprofits believe that social media is helping them to enhance relations with their existing audience and reach new audiences through the top platforms.

Most organizations feel that most social media channels are effective for enhancing existing relationships and reaching new supporters. The least effective platforms are MySpace and Linkedin. Blogs, video-sharing, Twitter, and Facebook are felt to be the most effective tools.  The surprise to me is that video-sharing is perceived as highly effective for enhancing relationships.

2. Most nonprofits are using a combination of Facebook, Twitter, video-sharing and blogs to reach out and enrich relationships online. The data shows that there isn’t a relationship between the size of the organization and the number of channels it is using. The responses show that, in general, nonprofits are using and regularly updating one to three social media channels.

I’m not surprised that Facebook is the most popular channel used, but I am surprised that 56% of nonprofits are using Twitter and 80% of them  update Twitter regularly. Two other points to consider: the blog is not dead (45% of nonprofits have one) and video sharing sites once again prove to be popular (49% have them).

Conclusions: Nonprofits are finding value in Twitter, Facebook is widely adopted and “known to work.”  These platforms must be seen as engagement tools to be taken seriously at this point. The blog, though time consuming, is the long form to express your message and enhance relationships with existing supporters. Video-sharing is the crouching tiger. Regularly maintaining one to three platforms is an industry standard.

3. Nonprofits are not yet satisfied with the results of social network fundraising. I don’t think this is any big surprise, as both social network donors and donation strategies are still in their infancy. The survey reveals that, of all the social networks, 41% of respondants believe that Facebook is most effective for raising money. (And that is the highest percentage of approval of any network channel.)  I suspect respondents mention Facebook because it has an affiliated fundraising platform, Causes, that is simple to use and easily accessible. Let’s see what next year’s survey results bring: I’m guessing that they will bring higher satisfaction and a stronger sense of nonprofit social network fundraising effectiveness.

This is also the only platform where Linkedin is rated on par with Twitter, video-sharing, and blogging, at 30% effeciveness. The Idealware study remarks that this is surprising, but I don’t find it surprising at all: Linkedin is an incredibly effective channel for targeted donor research and deeper interaction with potential donors and foundations within Linkedin Groups.

Here’s one more set of similar survey results: the performance of social media tactics for US small businesses in December 2009.

According to “The State of Small Business” report, small businesses are also using social media to successfully attract new customers, increase awareness, and stay engaged with existing customers.

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

I do work with businesses to develop social media strategies, just as I work with nonprofit corporations. Yesterday, I gave a presentation at Nefesh B’Nefesh on the topic of Integrating Social Media Into Essential Business Functions. It was a lot of fun to think about using social media to support other business functions besides marketing.

Guess what? Social media is not just a platform for marketing and sales.

In fact, the idea for this presentation was formed when I began to investigate collaborative internal communication technologies for working on team projects. Then I started to wonder: what other business functions are supported by social media? Do social technologies actually increase efficiency in business functions? What would be the ROI of using them?

In a previous life, I was a small business consultant – thus, this presentation was created to answer these questions.

I looked at human resources, training, internal communication, product development, customer service, and sales/marketing. I purposely omitted a few areas (accounting, IT), but please chime in with your ideas for integrating social media platforms and technologies into all areas of business. At the end of the presentation, I offer the examples of Best Buy and The American Red Cross, two companies that have embraced social media.

I’m now beginning to to think about a similar presentation for nonprofit organizations. What are the essential organizational function areas that would benefit from social media integration? I’m thinking (out loud here) about member/client/organizational recruitment, program development, membership engagement, internal communication, human resources, and of course…fundraising. Do you already integrate social media into certain function areas at your nonprofit? Are you exploring this now? What are the ROI metrics? I’d love to hear your thoughts, and experiences.

Update: For some reason, I cannot embed this presentation into my blog, I’m linking to it instead. If you see a “tv” icon next to the link, hover over it and the presentation will pop up. (Some days, technology doesn’t work like you want it to.)

Social media is a public platform. More specifically, all of your Facebook updates, Twitter updates, Flickr photo tags, Slideshare comments, blog comments, and just about any other social media commentary can be found using Google or other search engines. And as of last week, Google now indexes much of our conversation nearly in real time.  I think of these public conversations as social media’s virtual “front yard.”  (Hat tip to Hildy Gottlieb for beautifully expressing this idea in her blog post.)

But for every front yard, there is a back yard. And the back yard is where relationships are made.

Where are the back yards? These are the private spaces where conversations continue, out of the public eye. Some examples: In Facebook, it’s the inbox.  On Twitter, it’s the Direct Message (DM). On Linkedin, it’s “reply privately” to a group discussion. On Friendfeed, it’s the private conversation. On blogs, it’s when the blog owner writes back to the the commenter via email.

Getting invited into the back yard is kind of a big deal, and that should also be a goal if you want to deepen engagement with some of your ties. It’s both a leap of faith and an extension of trust. The back yard invitation moves a very weak personal tie – someone you’ve just met online but never in person – to become a stronger personal tie.Over time, I’ve experienced this general progression from the front yard, to the back yard, to inside the kitchen.

I’ve diagrammed the “strength progression of social media ties” below – and I would also love your thoughts about this diagram:

After talking via Skype, or VOIP, or in person, what’s next? Besides creating personal friendships, we may also be able utilize a person’s “whuffle” (social influence, as coined by Tara Hunt) if need be, on behalf of our causes.

It’s worth repeating that social media builds relationships, and that relationships build brands and organizations. (Which is why we talk about how the number of followers doesn’t matter, but Dunbar’s number does.)  A related post on this subject is Beth Kanter’s post on measuring impact, not influence and social influence reach versus affinity. Backyard conversations build relationships. After all, the best ideas do happen over a good meal and (sometimes) a few beers out on the back deck.

Here are a few questions for you:

• How have you seen the progression from weak tie to stronger tie to personal tie in your social media travels?
• How can organizations capture this for their good as well?
• What trends do you see in the progression from weak to stronger interpersonal ties?

I’m looking forward to this blog conversation!

Image courtesy of Brande Jackson

In nonprofit engagement, there are two sides of the social media conversation. On one side, organizations use social media to initiate conversations with existing donors, generate buzz and find new stakeholders. The other side of the conversation happens on the stakeholder end. Donors (and other stakeholders such as volunteers, members, participants) check out your organization online for more information, or to get involved more deeply. Most nonprofits approach social media strategy from just one side of what I call the “social media relationship.” Just as a nonprofit wants to publish its news online and converse with stakeholders, donors want to know more about and engage with nonprofit organizations online. A relatively new Harris Poll of nonprofit stakeholders offers insight into the stakeholder side of the social media relationship.

In March 2009, a Harris Poll of “engaged Americans” (defined as those who have volunteered, donated or advocated in the past year) revealed surprising results.

1. They are talking about your organization to others
61% of those adults polled have recommended a nonprofit they support to someone else. In particular, the Harris Poll results reveals that they are speaking to them about your mission (78%), achievements (53%), opportunities to donate (42%), and opportunities to volunteer (35%). They are be speaking because they care. They are also speaking about your organization because they are engaged.

2. They want to be more involved, and many don’t know how
A summary of the Poll results states that “nearly two-thirds of engaged adults would like to become more involved with the nonprofit or charity they support the most. And, while the most common reason for not actually doing more, cited by 51%, is lack of time, roughly one in ten simply don’t know where to begin.”

3. They want to follow the social media activities of your organization
64% of respondents stated that it is important for non-profits to use social media to communicate with supporters . 47% say they would be interested in keeping up with the non-profits they care about through social media. In other words, engaged Americans want nonprofits to communicate with them through social media and almost half want to actively follow your organization’s social media activities.

Engaged Americans want to keep up with nonprofits through social media because they want to be more involved.

When they are involved, engaged Americans take action as a result of using social media!

Astoundingly, 80% of engaged Americans have taken action “as a result of something they read in a nonprofit of charitable organization’s blog, RSS feed or social networking site.

That’s huge! The chart below illustrates how engaged Americans have taken action:

I’ve written down a few starter questions that might help you to engage stakeholders online. I’m sure there are more!

•    Is your nonprofit active in the same social networks as your donors?
•    Are your social media profiles displayed prominently throughout your website?
•    Does your e-newsletter include automatically hyperlink URLs to your  social media sites? Do you provide hyperlinks to take action?
•    Is there an easy way to donate online through both the website and other online social spaces?
•    Are there easy ways your stakeholders can help you achieve your mission online: signing an online petition, voting for an award, sending a letter to a legislator, signing up to volunteer
•    Is it easy to RSVP to an event online, and pass the event along?
•    Do you have “share” buttons next to the mission, achievements, and volunteer opportunities on your website or blog?
Which nonprofits are really giving engaged Americans opportunities to interact and share on the website and in their social spaces? Do you have other starter questions to add to this list?

Resources:
Over the Wire: That Newsletter is So 1999
Over the Wire: What’s a Nonprofit to Do?

Nonprofit organizations need to raise funds constantly. Fact. They also have programs, mission and special activities that must be funded. Fact. There’s all this trendy talk about leveraging social media to raise money – and the question I get asked most often is

When does social media lead to more money?

That’s not the right question. The right question is:

When does engagement lead to more money?

Annual reports do not create a relationship. Email updates do not create a relationship. Alerts do not create a relationship. These are all examples of one-way communication. Relationships are about two-way communication.

I’ve also seen a lot of nonprofit organizations using social media fail to create relationships using these tools. Automatically feeding blog posts through a twitter feed does not create a relationship. Using your organization’s official icon and not associating a person’s name (in either the description or title) to the twitter account cuts short the possibility of a relationship. Publishing a blog but not commenting on other blogs or responding to comments on your blog…does not create a relationship. Consistent Facebook wall posts that do not engage or ask questions…stop conversation.

These methods of using social media are, quite honestly, no better than the old newsletter and annual report. If you are going to commit time and energy to social media, pick one or two platforms that make sense for your organization and act as if you want to meet people and learn from them. They want to talk to you, and you should want to listen to them. That’s why your fans and followers online are following your organization, after all. So talk. Yes, publish your newsy updates, but ask questions and listen…learn…engage…and respond.

Engagement leads to donations – really, it does – but you have to put the time into creating the relationship first. Or re-creating the relationship with your stakeholders. Social media is a great tool for doing this, as social media tools are merely platforms for creating conversation.

When you are listening, responding, and engaging –

then asking for money to support this great relationship is a natural extension of the conversation.