I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources all over the web every day. Here are some of the most interesting things I’ve found recently (as of September 16th). You can join the conversations in the comments, or click through to the original posts to find what others are saying. …
Great reads from around the web on September 13th
I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources all over the web every day. Here are some of the most interesting things I’ve found recently (as of September 13th). You can join the conversations in the comments, or click through to the original posts to find what others are saying.
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 Desert of Community Building | Geoff Livingston's Blog – "One of the most crystallizing moments of my online career was when Ike Pigott said social media was an organic process. This analogy struck me as inherently true, in large part because of the significant amount of time and care one has to invest in building an active community. Like a farmer who invests love and labor day after day watching her/his fields slowly yield beautiful fruits and vegetables, community developers must tend to their community and build relationships through thoughtful interactions, valuable content, and empowerment methods. Most marketers and communicators fail to realize the imperative of engaging the Fifth Estate as a group of people just like them."
- Breaking Down Silos Does Not Just Apply to Communications | Common Sense – "How often do you hear that communication silos don’t work? Quite often, right? We’ve probably read at least 10 posts on that over the last couple of years. They are right, of course, that for communications to truly be successful all parts of the engine need to be working together. Marketing needs to be talking to PR needs to be talking to customer service and so on… Without true integration, you’re a ship that’s dead in the water. Funny thing about this silo concept… it can also be applied to research."
- How charities are using virtual gifts on Facebook to raise money | Social media agency London | FreshNetworks blog – "Virtual gifts are big business. Even in its earlier days, many people on Facebook were paying money to give their friends virtual flowers, and Farmville makes a great success out of selling trees and sheep to people to gift to others as part of the game. What we have learned is that people are willing to pay money for virtual objects, and even more so when they are gifts to other people. Seeing this trend, many people are tying to explore ways to integrate virtual gifts into their social media strategy as a way to make money. Few are doing this successfully but as with many examples of successful social media there is much we can learn by looking at how it is being used in the not-for-profit sector."
- How to Piss off an Online Community – 4 Recent Examples | Search Engine Journal – "People are resistant to change. We find solace in our daily routines. And because social media sites have become a part of that routine (for better or worse) even small changes to those services can effect us. So while not every change is bad, and most (if not all) will have their naysayers, some changes are just harder to swallow than others. Here are 4 recent (and very public) examples of changes that caused the respective communities to lash out."
- Luther Lowe: The Positive Side of Negative Reviews – For everyone who is trying to convince their boss, coworkers, or colleagues that "someone saying something bad" isn't as scary or bad as it may seem, here's a great case study for you!
Great reads from around the web on December 2nd
I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources across the web ever day. Here are some of the most interesting things I’ve found recently (as of December 2nd). You can join the conversations in the comments, or click through to the original posts to find what others are saying.
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).
- ReputationOnline » Blog Archive » Jonathan Waddingham on ‘Can you turn fans into consumers?’ – Jonathan Waddingham from JustGiving has a great post up today: "The advent of Facebook fan pages has been great news for brands wanting to create communities without having to build their own social network. In many cases, it’s largely pointless trying to create your own community when the people you want to attract are already part of another one… But what do you do with your fans once you’ve got them?"
- How Facebook turns active users into community managers – without paying a dime (video) | Powered by John Haydon – John Haydon has a great post and video discussing facebook's strategic design that empowers users to be community managers. "You want to develop a stronger, more passionate community. You want your members to invite like-minded folks to join your community and you want the cultists to encourage others to be more active. You them to do both of these things regularly. And you want this all to happen naturally – because it won’t happen if you push."
- Social Media Analytics: Twitter: Quantitative & Qualitative Metrics | Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik – "Twitter is amongst new media channels that are challenging how we communicate, with whom we communicate and perhaps most fundamentally how we (Marketers) influence people. … So in this post my hope is to share with you what is unique about measuring one such channel, Twitter. The blog post is also sprinkled with my own words of folksy wisdom as to how you should use the channel for maximum impact."
- Is Your Organization Human Enough for Social Media? — SocialFish – "Social media can be overwhelming. There are so many tools, none of which you’ve used before, so you don’t have an intuitive sense of how they work, let alone if they are really helping you get the work of your organization done. And if you’ve gotten into these tools at all, you’ve probably noticed that they are not implemented in the same way as many other initiatives within your organization. You’re not sure who’s supposed to tweet or blog, and suddenly there are people outside of your staff who are saying things your staff used to say."
- Three Ways You Can Help Build The Future of NABUUR | NABUUR Blog – "NABUUR exists so people like you can make a real difference for communities worldwide. With your contributions, you have improved the lives of countless others. You have proven it works. Now, your talents and time are needed to take the next step: make NABUUR itself self-supporting and driven by a global community of volunteers. In the last year alone, the numbers of volunteers and villages have doubled. Together, we learned how to connect, share and work together via the internet, without bureaucratic controlling bodies. NABUUR is following this path itself: already, many of you have taken over work that previously required office staff. And a bold next step is ahead! From January on, NABUUR will be volunteer-run: no more office staff. The NABUUR platform will remain online, and limited central support will still be available, but how it will develop will be up to the community to decide."
Great reads from around the web on November 25th
I come across so many great conversations, ideas, and resources across the web ever day. Here are some of the most interesting things I’ve found recently (as of November 25th). You can join the conversations in the comments, or click through to the original posts to find what others are saying.
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).
- E-Commerce News: Customer Loyalty: If You Build a Branded Online Community, Will Customers Come? – "Despite the enormous popularity of peer-to-peer social networking, the adoption cycle for branded online communities has been relatively slow. That a growing number of consumer brands are transforming their existing static Web sites into interactive online communities is a trend that is not only recent, but also rapidly accelerating." What do you think? Do you have a branded online community for your organization or project? How did you ensure participation and membership?
- ProjectRSS for describing projects (part of the Open Philanthropy effort) – I've recently come across this project from John Brennan (@worldlyjohn on Twitter) and am interested in what you all think about it! "Open source software exists in the computer industry. Open architecture exists in the construction industry. Yet only recently has there been a push for standards in communication of the philanthropic industry. The time is now. Open Philanthropy is about sharing. Open Philanthropy is about community. Open Philanthropy is about working together to increase the size of the proverbial pie (not the piece)."
- The Report | Think Social – "This is a first draft of a longer effort dedicated to the study and advancement of developments in social media in the public interest that enable people to write history by acting online. It features concept definitions and examples for ten trends that we believe are shaping the use of social media in the public interest. We have compiled this list through interviews with public- and private-sector leaders; analysis of initiatives, organizations and government programs; reviews of industry and mainstream news coverage; and submissions from thousands of online participants."
- Five Social Media Fundraising Trends for 2009 – Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media – "Over the past six months, I've been collaborating on a book with Allison Fine, titled "The Networked Nonprofit" and we've been sifting through stories, research, and seeing many patterns. So for this post, I'd like to share 5 fundraising trends that we saw emerging in 2009 related to fundraising and social media and that will most definitely continue to have impact in 2010."
- Miro Community – "Miro Community lets you bring together all the videos about a topic, a community, or product into one elegant website, no matter where the videos are hosted." GetMiro.com is an open-source, non-profit video player and podcast client, check out the tool here: http://getmiro.com