Offline, Multi-generational, Multi-media, Social Media Marketing, Mash-up Meetup

My daughter, Tara is 26, and I’m 56. Tara grew up in a world with cell phones, the Web, instant messaging and Google. I was born into a world when TV had just been introduced, manual typewriters were in use, man hadn’t walked on the moon and we shared a telephone line with our neighbors (party lines). Our interests in life are very different. However, we both share many common interests: art, cooking, reading, philanthropy, social networking, and “making a difference”.

Tara and I just made a presentation about Social Media Marketing at the Northwest Development Officers Association (NDOA) Winter Conference in Seattle. More than 350 nonprofit development professionals from the Pacific Northwest were in attendance at the full day meeting. The audience was a mix of NPO executive directors, development directors, marketing communications managers, event managers and others. Senior and junior non-profit professionals from different organizations represented at the conference.

The conference theme was “Stability in an Unstable Economy“ and it was clear from the beginning that everyone in attendance was very worried about the impact the economy was having on "business".

Our break-out session, “Return on Engagement: Leveraging the Web to Make New Friends, Engage Communities, Build Lasting Relationships and Increase Donors”, was well attended with more than 125 participating. The focus of the presentation was the Web, specifically social media and social media networking, and the profound impact on nonprofit organization fund raising. The interactive presentation shared tips on blogging, podcasting, online polling, photo sharing, tagging, social networking, vidcasting, wikis, etc. I think the presentation was well received judging from all the questions, comments and requests.

After the session was over Tara and I were struck by a couple of things.

1. Social Media Marketing is a Hot NPO topic. The audience was really interested in the topics we touched on (from a personal and professional point of view) and is hungry for more information, tips, ideas and case histories.

2. NPO Social Media Marketing is still at a very early stage. It was clear from the beginning of the session that web/ social media experience among our session attendees was all over the map. The younger, less seasoned NPO managers were old hands with Facebook, LinkedIn, blogging,meetups, mashups, Twitter, Flickr and de.li.cious. Others in the session had much more limited experience beyond email, awareness of YouTube, and searching with Google. The range of perceptions, apprehension, knowledge, trial and use is all over the map but falls along generational lines.

3.Questions about privacy, ethics, transparency and use need to be addressed. There were many questions raised about the use of Social Media Marketing as NPO communications and fund raising tools. These are rich topics for future workshops and blogs.

Partnering with Tara was a great idea. Her perspective about communications, community engagement, social media applications and networking provided the group with a generational perspective I wasn’t able to provide. My perspective was similar in some respects, but very different in others. I may try to convince my youngest daughter, Erica (20) to join us next time. Her social media use and perspective is vastly different from mine (at this point she won’t “friend” me on Facebook because it’s lame). I’ll text an invitation to join us.

More to follow. I’m going to blog about the presentation topics over the next couple of weeks. Please share comments, thoughts, and ideas. Thanks.

Cheers!
Dave