To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

• How to Prepare Your Community for a Major Change « The Community Manager – "Change: it’s the one constant in life. Whether you’re introducing a change in ownership, new staff, policy change, technical update, or something else, community members sometimes resist change. Usually, they’re afraid of repercussions that could affect the community they care so much about—so, it comes from a “good place.” That being said, their fears and frustrations can create chaos, and part of your job as community manager is to make transitions as smooth and drama-free as possible. Follow these steps to turn your announcement from a sign of the apocalypse into a community-building win they thank you for."
• Interactive: How America Gives – How America Gives – The Chronicle of Philanthropy- Connecting the nonprofit world with news, jobs, and ideas – The Chronicle of Philanthropy has launched a great new tool: an interactive map of giving data in the US. You can look at total contributions, contributions by household, discretionary income by household, and percentage of income given by household at the national, state, county, and local level.
• Survey says: Most noprofiteers blend their personal/professional brands | Big Duck – "Last week I had the joy of presenting a workshop with the fabulous Danielle Brigida of the National Wildlife Federation at the 7th Annual Bridge to Integrated Marketing & Fundraising Conference in Washington, DC. To gear up for our session on "Mixing Business and Pleasure: Managing Your Personal Brand in Social Media," we asked nonprofiteers (readers like you!) to respond to a quick survey about their own behaviors. We heard from 209 nonprofit staff, consultants, and the people who love us–and some of the results suprised us. While not scientific, the survey offers some interesting insights and we highlighted the key findings in our presentation (included in the slides below and online here). Here are some of those insights…"
• e.politics: online advocacy tools & tactics » How a Twitter Rapid Response Campaign Helped Susan Sarandon ‘Get’ Paid Sick Days – "A coalition of diverse organizations in New York City has banded together to escalate the conversation regarding paid sick days for workers, with an emphasis on getting the NY City Council to pass legislation mandating paid sick days. So far, Council Speaker Christine Quinn has not called for a vote on this issue. But now, it just may happen — after the coaltion (with a little help from their friends) gave us an impromptu course in how to run online rapid response."
• Direct Energy | Direct Energy Contest | Reduce Your Use for GoodReduce Your Use – "Nonprofits, you know it: small changes can make a big difference. At Direct Energy, we’re committed to using our energy expertise to make a difference in people’s lives — so we’re donating up to $100,000 to nonprofits like you to help reduce energy use. Just make a short video of two minutes or less showing us the good work you do in your community. Acceptable submission formats include Windows Media, Quick Time and MPEG (files ending in .wmv, .avi, .mov, .mpg or .mp4). Be passionate. Be creative. Be concise. Tell us about your organization and its vision, how the small things you do make a big difference and why it’s so important that you continue your mission."

—–

Last month, a pop song rose up the charts and quickly became number one on both the iTunes and Billboard Top 100 lists. That song, “Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepsen, quickly also became the soundtrack to an Internet meme—that is, an idea that spreads online (“I Can Has Cheezburger?” is one of the more famous). More than a dozen athletic teams recorded themselves dancing and lip-syncing to the song (many in vans, spurring a Romney and Obama spoof). Many more groups joined in on the fun,recording videos and posting to YouTube. One of the more recent to join in is Sesame Street. That’s right, a widely recognized nonprofit organization has created a parody so that it can propagate a meme.

Whether it’s “Call Me Maybe,” “Sh*t People Say,” or any other meme that comes along, here are three guidelines you can use to decide when and how to get your nonprofit involved in an Internet meme.

Why meme at all?

Why would an organization even consider participating in something like this? It’s fun, for one. Just watch Sesame Street’s video (above) or the Harvard baseball team’s. Everyone involved in an organization and everyone online is, actually, human, and fun is a good thing.

But beyond that, contributing to a popular meme can help make your brand and even your staff more visible. It shows some of the personality of your organization beyond the brick and mortar. You can also leverage participation in a meme to build connections and get new supporters.

That said, having fun, gaining visibility, and making connections with new supporters happens only if you do it right.

 3 Guidelines for Nonprofits

1. Above all else, don’t compromise your values and mission. For some organizations, that means never participating in any of this Internet hokey pokey, and that’s OK. For others, it means being aware of what the root of the meme is, why people are remaking and remixing the content, and how your community will respond. With the “Call Me Maybe” example, the song is very popular and many people in the Sesame Street community have heard it (a lot of Sesame Street supporters are parents that grew up with the show and support it as adults). The Sesame Street show teaches basic lessons through stories of characters in typical situations and common scenarios. The meme video uses the same formula, changing the words to the song and using the well-known Cookie Monster as the lead character.

2. Stick to your voice. You don’t want to get visibility and make new connections using one message, tone, or personality, and then surprise them once they join your email list, subscribe to your YouTube Channel, or follow you on Twitter with something altogether different. Just as Sesame Street did, use the meme as a chance to tell the story you want to tell, showcase the character (or people!) you want in the spotlight, and do it all in the voice you’ve established at your organization. Neither Cookie Monster nor Sesame Street would ever really sing the words as they are written to “Call Me Maybe,” but the “Share It Maybe” lyrics are aligned with the lessons (sharing is good!), the character, and the voice of the show.

3. Plan for it to spread. We’re great at planning our communications regularly (or at least we try), and you can’t release something a little out of the ordinary without some planning too. In the Sesame Street video, the logo is overlaid on the video footage and linked (via YouTube’s link overlay option) to Sesame Street’s subscribe channel. There is also a segment at the end of the video that promotes the channel, encourages people to subscribe, and points to more videos. As the denizens of the Internet are wont to do, they createda still image of the Sesame Street video and added text to capture the spin on the meme from Cookie Monster’s lyrics—in this case, “they” was Mashable, which created the still to promote the video to its fans on Facebook. This meant fans could share it on social media sites like Facebook, where it’s easy to share images. Since the SesameStreet.org logo appeared throughout the video, it also appeared in the still, so even though the folks at Sesame Street couldn’t necessarily follow where fans were sharing the photo, it still drove people back to the organization. I suggest creating a still before sharing the video to ensure that the URL and message are correct. Whatever medium the meme is using, plan to integrate your branding and links (as appropriate) ahead of time, just like you would with a campaign video or image.

The results of doing it right? Just 24 hours after it posted, Sesame Street’s “Share It Maybe” video had more than 1,780,000 views!

To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

• Mattel to manufacture bald Barbie doll – HealthPop – CBS News – "Big news for the campaign for a bald Barbie: Mattel has agreed to manufacture a hairless doll. Mattel company spokesman Alan Hilowitz told HealthPop that the company will produce a friend of Barbie that will have wigs, hats, scarves and other accessories to give children "a traditional fashion play experience." The kids will have the option to remove the wigs and head coverings. The company stated that they will not be selling the dolls at stores, but instead will donate them to children's hospitals and other hospitals, as well as the National Alopecia Areata Foundation."
• Care2 Impact Prize | NTEN – A group of inspiring, talented people! Please help us select a winner for the Care2 Impact Prize! "We invite you to cast your vote to help pick this year's winner of the second annual Care2 Impact Prize, which recognizes individuals in the nonprofit sector who have made an outstanding impact on the field of online advocacy, online fundraising or both. The winner will receive a cash award of $1,000, plus $1,000 to donate to their favorite charity. The prize will be awarded on Thursday, April 5th at the Nonprofit Technology Conference, during the awards luncheon. The deadline to vote is noon (Pacific Time) on Monday, April 2nd. Any member of the NTEN community is welcome to vote, but only one vote per person, per IP address will be counted."
• Sharing photos online – a decision matrix for non-profit organizations : Social Media 4 Good – "Many non-profits, NGOs and International Organizations are of two minds when it comes to sharing photos on the internet. On the one hand, they want their material to be shared as widely as possible, on the other hand they want to have total control. The decision matrix in below will help you decide which photos to share and how."
• 2012 Top 100 Best NGOs by The Global Journal | The Global Journal – "The Global Journal is proud to announce the release of its inaugural ‘Top 100 Best NGOs’ list. The first international ranking of its kind, this exclusive in-depth feature will no doubt stimulate debate, while providing academics, diplomats, policymakers, international organizations and the private sector an insight into the ever changing dynamics and innovative approaches of the non-profit world and its 100 leading actors. Recognizing the significant role of NGOs as influential agents of change on a global scale, The Global Journal has sought to move beyond outdated clichés and narrow conceptions about what an NGO is and does. From humanitarian relief to the environment, public health to education, microfinance to intellectual property, NGOs are increasingly at the forefront of developments shaping the lives of millions of people around the world."
• UNICEF Uses Social Media Monitoring for Annual Flagship Report « Radian6 – Social media monitoring tools, social media engagement software and social CRM and marketing from the industry leader in social analytics. – "UNICEF dedicated the 2012 edition of its flagship report, The State of the World’s Children 2012: Children in an Urban World, to the situation of children growing up in urban settings. Almost half the world’s children now live in urban areas; the report calls for greater emphasis on identifying and meeting their needs. The goal of the communication strategy was to raise general awareness of the issue and offer information and facts for grassroots advocacy. Social media has become an integral part of UNICEF’s outreach strategy for main publications and campaigns."
• Simple Nonprofit Donor & Volunteer CRM & Email Marketing | Wishery – "Running a non-profit is hard work. With good tools and techniques, however, you can greatly magnify your impact – this post describes how to combine two great tools into a powerful yet easy-to-use donor and volunteer management system. While there are a variety of purpose-built donor and volunteer management systems available, they tend to either cost a lot of money, be complicated to implement and use, or both! The set-up described below is nearly free and refreshingly simple."

Creating Great Content

When it comes to creating great content, there are four important elements, especially with social media, as you can see in the image at the top of this post. You’ll notice that the goal is in the middle of all three because it is always the core of your success and the first step in any decision. The people you want to talk to are closely connected to the goal and if one changes, the other may react. Your tools are defined both by the goal of what you want to do, but also by the people – are they tools that that audience uses and likes? And the content – is that a platform or application that supports that kind of content? Similarly, the content is defined by the goal, but also by the tools at your disposal and the people who will consume it

So, what is the content you want to share? Do you want to be sharing what you know and learn with other volunteers? Inspiring and recruiting your friends to volunteer with you? Or are you trying to promote the organization? Maybe even using these tools to document and share back with the organization all that you’re doing. What you want to be doing with your voice and story via social media will shape the tools and content. Anyone in here want to share what you are now or want to start doing? Start with the goal, and then complete the circle identifying the people, the tools, and the content.

Creating Buzz

On Twitter, look up hashtags that your community uses and follow them to track conversations. Be sure to use relevant (but not spammy!) hashtags in your posts to connect them into related topics. Consider participating or even starting a Twitter chat – the Association Chat is a great example of a weekly chat with an online archive. Be sure to use @ replies to bring people into your conversation directly or thank them for engaging with you. Here are some Twitter-specific tools:

What do you think?

I’d love to hear how you’re using social tools to support an organization you volunteer for, or how you share your knowledge and experience as a volunteer with others!

To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

• The Complexity of Scaling Up « Aid on the Edge of Chaos – "Despite increased prominence and funding of global health initiatives, attempts to scale up health services in developing countries are failing, with serious implications for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. A new paper argues that a key first step is to get a more realistic understanding of health systems, using the lens of complex adaptive systems."
• How can I organise social reporting from events? | ICT-KM of the CGIAR – "Over the last couple of years, whenever we have been involved in social reporting at the Share Fairs, conferences, workshops and smaller events we have attended, we have noticed similar challenges and successes. So, when the ICT-KM Program was tasked with organising the social reporting for the Share Fair on Agricultural and Rural Development Knowledge in Africa in Addis Ababa in October 2010, it was clear that it was high time that we document the social reporting team’s experiences and lessons learned in a generic guide. If you are going to organise an event, a conference or a public meeting, you should seriously consider organising a team of social reporters to help spread the information and stimulate conversations before, during and after the event."
• The Nonprofit Social Media Decision Guide – "With more than 750 million people signed up for Facebook alone, there’s little doubt that social media can be a powerful part of most organizations’ communications mix. But what can it be used for—outreach and engagement? Event management? Advocacy? How about fundraising? For many nonprofits, it’s far more obvious that such tools can be useful than how to use them. We created the Nonprofit Social Media Decision Guide to help organizations like yours determine what results and benefits you can reasonably expect from social media, and to guide you through the process of identifying the right channels for different goals. To help you turn the theoretical into the practical, we included a workbook that applies what you’re learning to your own real-world needs. This year, we updated the entire guide with new research, additional sections on goals and strategies, and information about using social media for advocacy and fundraising."
• 11 Innovative Crowdfunding Platforms for Social Good – "Why crowdsource? In addition to funding, the tools below can engage new supporters, constituents and future advocates. If it’s ideas you’re looking for, collaborative thinking can provide solutions faster and with input from people with diverse backgrounds, thus strengthening the project. Also, by involving people in the early stages, they will feel more connected to the project, and likely repeat their support and advocacy. Below, we’ll look at some of the best crowdsourcing platforms on the web, along with successful campaigns funded on each one."
• The State Of Social Media 2011: Social Is The New Normal | Fast Company – "The state of social media is no insignificant affair. Nor is it a conversation relegated to a niche contingent of experts and gurus. Social media is pervasive and it is transforming how people find and share information and how they connect and collaborate with one another. I say that as if I'm removed from the media and cultural (r)evolution that is digital socioeconomics. But in reality, I'm part of it just like everyone else. You and I both know however, that' I'm not saying anything you don't already know. Social media is clearly becoming the new normal."

—–

For over a year now, I’ve been moderating and facilitating a monthly online discussion for people working as community builders and for those looking for feedback on community building efforts. It’s called the #CommBuild chat and was born out of a facilitated monthly Twitter chat called #4change. Often in these chats, participants discuss the online tools they are using and new platform functionality, all with the hope of finding ways to increase community engagement. For example, this month’s online chat, normally coordinated via the text chat platform CoverItLive, tried out a new platform, Google+ Hangout. This video chat application is part of Google+ and allows up to 10 video participants to come together—great for #CommBuild participants because they get real face time with each other.

So when Scoop.it, a new content curation platform, hit the web recently, the #CommBuild network seemed like the perfect place to try it out.

Whether you’re interested in community building, hot air ballooning, or the way robots work, you’re never going to be the only person talking about it online. In fact, the web is so full of information that many organizations are finding it useful to pull together topic-specific content on the web and make it available in one place. These can be useful internally and externally—you can share news with colleagues or create a dashboard of resources for your community. Scoop.it positions every user as a content curator. Unlike a blog, which positions us all as topic experts with a soapbox of our own, Scoop.it makes it possible to pull together media of all kinds—blogs, news, videos, etc.—from many different resources.

How it Works

Scoop.it has an impressively intuitive interface for just being in a beta launch. You pick your topic, add a description of the collection, then you can begin searching for relevant articles and other media to include. Scoop.it provides automated searches to match all the keywords you include on your topic—check out the image below to see automated searches on Digg, Twitter, and Youtube.

You can “scoop” content (add it to your topic page) from the Scoop.it dashboard. You can also browse the web and “scoop” up content about your topic using a bookmark (when you join, you can follow steps to add the Scoop.it button to your bookmarks bar). Once you’ve added information to your topic, you’ll want to share it. Every time you add a piece of content to your page, you have the option of sharing the link to your page via Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

For the CommBuild topic, I used Scoop.it’s built-in search feature to add news articles and blog posts to my page—they show up as suggested content, and you can click to dismiss or add to your page. Once I put a handful of items on my page, I clicked Share and tweeted that I’d created the topic to my network. Just like that, it was out there. I then opened Tweetdeck, a desktop application for managing Twitter and other social platforms, and watched the stream of content from Twitter flowing by. As I saw links of interest—especially ones shared by the #CommBuild community, I added them to the Scoop.it page by clicking on the bookmark/browser extension and scooping (saving) it! Almost immediately, people replied with links to related resources, creating a place where the #CommBuild chat could go to stay on top of news and posts related to community building.

Why Scoop.it is Worth a Try

We interact with articles and other media all day long, so pulling it together under a central topic should fit into that flow. Scoop.it makes it easy to collect and share the things you’re reading, talking about, and interested in without the feeling that you’re adding a whole new platform to your daily work. I’m excited to see organizations diving in to Scoop.it to organize news and information about their cause, neighborhood, or organization. One word of caution: A topic name (in my case, “CommBuild”) can only be used once, and your name may already be taken, just like unique URLs on Facebook and user names on Twitter. I think Scoop.it could become a very interesting space for real time data in situations of natural disaster and crisis communications. I would love to see Scoop.it allow for group use so that multiple people can collaborate to maintain a single space.

What do you think? How do you collect and share content now? How would you use a tool like this in your organization or work?

To follow more of the things I find online, you can follow @amysampleward on Twitter (which is just a blog and resource feed), or find me on Delicious (for all kinds of bookmarks).

• Introducing WebAPI ✩ Mozilla Hacks – the Web developer blog – Really excited by projects that help close gaps, provide accessibility, and increase portability of all things webby. Check this out: "WebAPI is an effort by Mozilla to bridge together the gap, and have consistent APIs that will work in all web browsers, no matter the operating system. Specification drafts and implementation prototypes will be available, and it will be submitted to W3C for standardization. Security is a very important factor here, and it will be a mix of existing security measurements (e.g. asking the user for permission, like Geolocation) or coming up with new alternatives to ensure this."
• How to collect email subscribers on your Facebook Page – Have you added a custom welcome page and/or email sign up form to your Facebook Page? If you haven't, John Haydon will tell you how: "From what I’ve seen, most nonprofits have no idea that you can add to your list — that precious database of your supporters, donors or newsletter subscribers — by strategically using a customized Facebook Welcome Page or custom tab. Notice the word “strategically.” Collecting email subscribers on your Facebook Page takes a lot more than simply adding an opt-in form to a tab — you’ll learn how to do that in just a moment."
• Google+ vs. Facebook vs. Twitter vs. … Part 1: T… – Lithosphere Community – "Michael was voted a 2010 Influential Leader by CRM Magazine for his work on predictive social analytics and its application to Social CRM. He's a regular blogger on the Lithosphere's Building Community blog and previously wrote in the Analytic Science blog. 'What I’m going to talk about today, are some of the network properties and social principles behind some popular social platforms. Of course, I will compare and contrast them to the new kids on the block (i.e. Google+), and talk about their behavioral implications.'"
• Grants Maps – I'm a huge fan of maps and I love social impact – check this out: "The Skillman Foundation has partnered with the New York City-based Foundation Center to provide Skillman Foundation website visitors with a custom version of the Foundation Center’s Philanthropy In/Sight data visualization platform, which utilizes Google maps to show the scope and reach of the Skillman Foundation’s work in Detroit."
• Library Value Calculator | Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library – I love this! What a terrific way to help tell the story of your impact in the community – I can see something similar working for all kinds of organizations, schools, and more. "The Return on Investment (ROI) Calculator determines the value of library services in Topeka and Shawnee County based on per capita spending of local and state funding. For every tax dollar you pay, the library returns several to you in reading, research, programs and other services. Here's an opportunity to see your tax dollars at work."

Templates

• Community Map Template: http://bit.ly/DIYcommunity
• Content Map Template: http://bit.ly/DIYtemplate
• Metrics Template: http://bit.ly/DIYmetrics
• Listening Dashboard: https://amysampleward.org/2009/10/27/how-to-create-a-listening-dashboard-for-your-organization/

Books & Collections

• We Are Media
• Social by Social
• #SOCIALMEDIA NONPROFIT tweet Book01
• Managing Technology to Meet Your Mission
• Networked Nonprofit

Resources

• Tools and Apps to Energize Your Base
• 5 Steps to a Successful Social Media Strategy
• Google Analytics for Facebook Pages
• Google Analytics for Wikispaces
• List of Social Media Management Systems
• DIY Community Engagement Metrics
• Crowdsourcing vs Community Sourcing
• Slacktivism: Turning a Like into Social Change
• Sustainable Community Building
• Community Building: Landscaping for Gardening

Questions? Ideas? Examples you’d like to share? Drop any questions or things to add to the resource list in the comments here for others to check out!

Location: Toronto, ON, Canada

Topic: Social Media Success in 30 Minutes Per Day

Description: The world of social media expands every day, supporting all those arguments
and doubts about whether it’s worth the time and energy to get started when
it seems there’s so much to learn first. But, just like all of the other areas of
our work, and even life, we just need the tools to help us be deliberate and
strategic! This session will review some of the primary components of social
media strategy building, online engagement, and even how do get started
with just 30 minutes per day.

Related Links:

• MyCharityConnects
• CanadaHelps
• Conference agenda
• Slides and resources