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).

• Semphonic Web Analytics Consulting: The X Change Non-Profit Analytics Challenge – "The Non-Profit Analytics Challenge is a rare opportunity for the brightest analysts in the digital measurement field to collaborate & assist non-profit organizations to optimize their websites. The Analytics Challenge is a ½ day event at X Change conference on September 13th. Semphonic President and Conference Founder Gary Angel says " What a gift to have the best minds in the industry to work together and the big bonus is helping 2 chosen non-profit organizations."" Apply today!
• Twive and Receive Reveals the Top 20 Most Generous Cities & Who Would Win In A Fight Between the Hulk and a Kitten | Razoo Media Room – "Julie Nations, the Executive Director of The Ellie Fund said “It’s been the best communications outreach program we’ve ever done. Like every nonprofit, we wanted that prize money, but this was a bigger opportunity. It got us using social media in a way we hadn’t before, and our supporters loved it. This was a real chance to harness social media across all platforms. We reached out to people we’ve never met and got them onboard. Martin Luther King Jr. said ‘Everybody can be great because everybody can give.’ I say everybody can be great because everybody can Twive!”"
• What Are We Accomplishing and How Do We Know? | NTEN – Here's a great run-down from Amy Luckey of the process to use in exploring and evaluating your organization's impact. And she uses NTEN as an example so you can see all the work we've been doing to figure this out for our strategic plan, too: "What does your organization do?" That is a question most nonprofit folks can answer pretty easily. We have our elevator pitches ready to go. "What is your organization accomplishing?" Now that's a different question, one that's not as simple to answer for most of us. It's also one that is increasingly being asked by potential donors big and small.
• 7 Social Media experiments we tried with the 99% Power Coalition | NetSquared, an initiative of TechSoupGlobal.org – Joe Solomon does a great job sharing the tools, tactics, and mini-campaigns used in the recent 99% Power Campaign. I don't necessarily agree with all the tactics, but I SO appreciate him sharing their work! What do you think? Would love to hear your thoughts.
• 75% of Young Adults Gave to Charity Last Year, Study Finds – News – The Chronicle of Philanthropy- Connecting the nonprofit world with news, jobs, and ideas – The new Millennial Donor Survey is out! "Charities rarely make deliberate efforts to solicit young adults because they think people in their 20s and early 30s are unlikely to give. But a new survey of more than 6,500 people ages 20 to 35 shows they are inclined to give—and are more than willing to ask their friends and relatives to do the same—when they feel passionately about a cause. About 75 percent of young people who provided data for the 2012 Millennial Impact Report said they gave money to a nonprofit in 2011, while 70 percent said they have helped solicit donations by encouraging colleagues and others to support a cause."
• Case Study: Feeding America and the Spark Generator | Call2Action – Great case study about Feeding America's recent multi-channel campaign: "Feeding America is the nation's leading domestic hunger-relief charity. They work in tandem with a nationwide network of member food banks in the fight to end hunger. Their annual September campaign, Hunger Action Month, is a massive effort to educate communities on the scope of hunger issues in the United States and empower them to take action. Feeding America has utilized numerous Call2Action Sparks. This time, they had a variety of videos featuring well-known celebrities like Matt Damon, Taye Diggs, and Ana Ortiz. They were looking to harness the power of all the local food banks' (over 200) online communities."

A simple commitment

One key to the spreadable and shareable success of the IAVA campaign is that the ask is clear but very simple: to go silent for one minute at 12:01 pm today in honor those who have given their life in service, and their families. The timing coincides with the President’s remarks in Arlington, but one minute of silence can be pledged at any time, really.

The simple call to action also lends itself to participation by many, including government officials. Here’s an example of a Senator showing his support for veterans through participation in the #gosilent pledge:

Tracking silence

IAVA’s #gosilent campaign is a terrific example of social campaigning because it uses tools and tactics that make it easy for the organization to track, measure, and evaluate success – in real time and after the campaign is over. For starters, using a hashtag that is clear to understand (#gsfvt “go silent for veterans today” would be really confusing!), obviously tied to the campaign, and reflective of the call to action means it is likely people will use it and engage. Plus, there are many tools to track the usage of hashtags and even archive them or annotate them, making both the tracking and the reporting much more streamlined.

IAVA also set up a microsite for the campaign, in this case it is a specially-designed sub-section of their main website that is branded and focused on the #GoSilent pledge. It shows a pledge counter, providing a sense of collective participation as soon as you visit the site, and asks you to take the pledge:

You are then prompted to fill out some basic information. I think it is incredibly smart that they include the drop down menu for Veteran Status. This will help them segment and personalize messages in the future based on service involvement, or civilian status.

The thank you page provides direct links to encourage sharing immediately, making it easy for someone to spread the link and hashtag to their networks. You will also note that the pledge counter has increased just in the 30 seconds or so that it took to fill out the form on the previous screen. For many people, when they give money or make a pledge online, they want to see that thermometer increase, or the dial move, or the counter jump ahead. IAVA has done a great job ensuring a live count is active on the site for visitors to see their number add to the total.

Sharing across platforms – Twitter

IAVA have made it clear from the thank you page that they are concentrating their efforts on Facebook and Twitter where they have a large community and many people and many different organizations will also be promoting Memorial Day activities. Here’s an example of the Twitter stream following #gosilent where you can see a message from IAVA, someone sharing a video of Taps filmed in Arlington Cemetery, someone dedicating their moment of silence to classmates, and tweets in direct reply to each other giving thanks for service. The #gosilent hashtag is not just a stream of people posting a templated message or retweeting a call to action from IAVA, but is truly a coming together of people remembering and honoring veterans – exactly as the campaign would want it to be.

Sharing across platforms – Facebook

On Facebook, IAVA updated their cover photo and profile photo to align with the campaign for today and combined make a great example of using the Timeline profile features:

There are a few key features I want to point: First, since the Facebook Page guidelines specifically say you cannot include URLs, they’ve used a great work around by making their profile photo the hashtag. Most people, at least those that would be participating on social tools, would recognize the number sign and phrase as a hashtag and use it in their posts, or search for it to see posts from others. Another terrific decision they made was to include the carrot “>” with a call to action “Sign the Pledge with IAVA”. We’ve been conditioned that when we see a carrot and a call to action online that we can click there to be directed to the next step. However, since it is a Facebook photo, when you click on it, the photo opens in a preview viewer and you can see further information and the link to the microsite in the photo description to the right. Both of these actions make it clear and easy for people to learn more and take action while still playing by the rules of Facebook.

Sharing across platforms – Instagram and Foursquare

IAVA didn’t confine their own use of social tools to Facebook and Twitter, as their supporters would be using other tools, too. The key to true cross-channel engagement like the #gosilent campaign is to link your accounts or use common profile names so that supporters can easily find you. In this case, they were also able to use the campaign hashtag to find participants and have them tag their content anywhere so it was tied into the campaign.

Here we can see a photo taken to accompany a FourSquare check in:

You can also see examples of Instagram photos being shared on Instagram with the #gosilent hashtag:

Instagram photos being shared on Twitter with the #gosilent hashtag:

And even Instram photos being shared on the IAVA Facebook page (note the number of shares and likes in just an hour!):

I’m really excited by the way that IAVA used social media today to celebrate Memorial Day by connecting their supporters, growing their supporter base, serving their mission, and helping so many people be part of something simultaneously local wherever they were and in the nation’s capital. I think it’s a terrific example of the way we can coordinator content and actions across channels to help spread a message or a campaign.

Sharing across platforms – Email and mobile

Whenever I’m checking out or even participating in a campaign across social channels, I always watch for an email to see how the organization has planned to use the email address I gave them when I donated, pledged, or otherwise signed up, to engage with me again right away. IAVA’s #gosilent campaign did send an email to thank me for pledging, and even though it is a text-only email, they make sure to hyperlink text to direct people to share on Facebook and Twitter. Additionally, they use this email to provide ways for people to share back with IAVA how they are going silent and remembering those that have served – the email even offers that people can simply email their stories or photos right to IAVA directly, providing a way for those that don’t want to share or are not using social media to still participate.

Additionally, the email offers a mobile short code that people can use to sign up for a text message reminder before the 12:01 moment of silence. Again, I think this is an excellent example of getting sign-ups in your database, helping people follow through on the call to action, and moving on your mission. I am curious to know how they follow up with the mobile subscribers or invite them into future campaigns via their phones.

What did you do to celebrate Memorial Day today? Did you #gosilent?