What is your organization's primary topic of conversation online? If you don't know the answer to that, you may find that is the crux of the issue with your online strategy. Without knowing and owning the online conversation topic, your organization is doomed to wander aimlessly about in the online desert. To get at this, I often ask this simple question: "What about your industry or issue is so interesting that you want to have a conversation about it?" Taking this simple question a step further, I'll often ask: what topic of conversation is interesting to potential fans, can define your organization, but isn't about the organization itself? Knowing your conversation, then owning it, offers a map through the online desert to real engagement, trust-building, and advocacy. This post includes three examples of nonprofits who really know what their conversations are about, and execute them superbly.

The single most frequent question that I get from nonprofit organizations who want to use Twitter is "how do I get started?" My response is to follow The Twitter Rule: Less Broadcasting, More Conversation. The embedded slide deck includes strategies for using Twitter to create social capital and conversations.

Florence Broder, Social Media Manager for the Jewish Agency for Israel, writes about how the Jewish Agency uses social media, especially Twitter, to successfully and meaningfully connect with stakeholders online.

Engagement is critical to creating stronger organizational relationships, but it is relatively difficult to really engage followers on Twitter. Having a conversation with followers is one of the easiest way of engaging, but it is hard to have a conversation with every one of your followers. Here are five ways that nonprofit organizations are creating spaces for real engagement on twitter.

Charity: water has sent out an interactive thank-you to all its Twestival donors. In doing so, it has used all the best lessons from a recent Community Philanthropy 2.0 study and applied it to its own donor base. Donors want to be involved, learn about the impact of their donations and hear about success stores. Charity: water has done all that and more...convinced me to give again.

A new set of data shows that Twitter drives one in every five visitors to social networks, and more visitors to blogs than the search engines do. How can you take advantage of this knowledge? This post analyzes the data and offers suggestions for better Twitter usage to take advantage of this information.

What are the pros and cons of using Mr. Tweet to help your non-profit get the most out of Twitter? Does Mr. Tweet, "your personal assistant." help non-profits find key influencers? I look at how non-profits are using Twitter, the value of an assistant like Mr. Tweet, and other resources for connecting to non-profit Twitterers.