Online tools that connect people to real world actions in creative and accessible ways have the potential to rapidly accelerate social change.
Social Actions is a nonprofit initiative committed to making it easier for people to find and share opportunities to make a difference. A search engine on SocialActions.com helps users find ways to take action for the causes they care about from 50+ online action sources including Kiva, DonorsChoose.org, Change.org, DemocracyinAction, GlobalGiving, Idealist.org, SixDegrees, VolunteerMatch,Care2 and others. Social Actions creates incentives such as the Change the Web Challenge to encourage the distribution of their open API (Application Programming Interface) to websites, blogs, social networks and mobile devices and include everything from volunteer opportunities to micro-credit loans.
The overall goal of the SocialActions site is to make the web more action-oriented and to make it easier for people to make a difference.
Check it out.
Cheers!
Dave Sharp
Sharp Consulting Group, LLC
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Nonprofits on Twitter...
Not a day goes by when someone in the Nonprofit world or Public Sector doesn't ask me about Twitter. Here's a great post by Lon S. Cohen (Director of Communications at the ALS Association of Greater New York) listing "26 Charities and Nonprofits on Twitter".
Lon's list includes great examples of organizations that have embraced Twitter for building awareness, making new friends, engaging communities and raising funds.
And, it's clear that more and more local, national and global groups are experimenting with Twitter everyday.
It's very easy to get started. Twitter provides a free easy-to-setup interface; the potential to reach a huge engaged audience; and, the ability to engage with people in stimulating conversations. It's a natural platform for any organization seeking recognition for their mission or building a following.
Please share your thoughts.
Cheers!
Dave Sharp
Sharp Consulting Group
Lon's list includes great examples of organizations that have embraced Twitter for building awareness, making new friends, engaging communities and raising funds.
And, it's clear that more and more local, national and global groups are experimenting with Twitter everyday.
It's very easy to get started. Twitter provides a free easy-to-setup interface; the potential to reach a huge engaged audience; and, the ability to engage with people in stimulating conversations. It's a natural platform for any organization seeking recognition for their mission or building a following.
Please share your thoughts.
Cheers!
Dave Sharp
Sharp Consulting Group
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Tools and Tips for Monitoring Conversations about your Organization on the Web…
There are lots of ways to keep track of the conversations taking place on the web regarding your group or organization. Here’s a short list of social media marketing tools to help you keep track of what is being said about you on the internet.
1. If you don’t have a personal profile on Facebook, create one. Then create a business page on Facebook. Invite your friends, stakeholders, members and customers to become fans. It will help you keep track of your “friends” as well as start, facilitate and track conversations surrounding your org. Depending on your goals, you can also create a Facebook Group page and/or Cause page.
2. Want to follow conversations on Facebook? Signup for Facebook Lexicon.
3. Sign up for a Twitter business account. Start following tweets and joining in the conversations about your group or organization.
4. Once you are on Twitter, you can use Twitter Search to follow keywords across the millions of conversations and posts.
5. You can also search for any word on Twitter using Tweetscan.
6. Twilert allows you to receive email notification when something is mentioned regarding your organization.
7. GoogleAlerts is a great tool that helps you track your org and relevant conversations.
8. Sign up for an account on HowSociable. This is a great tool for tracking conversations.
9. If you come across a negative comment about your organization or group, respond with kindness and transparency. Craft your response strategically. Most of the time, you can turn the negative comment around just because you were listening.
10. If you are interested in tracking industry trends in the online space, you should check out Trendpedia.
11. Create a LinkedIn group for your organization or group. This is a great way to keep stakeholder communicating, collaborating and sharing.
12. There are many monitoring services if you have the budget. Just Google “reputation management” or “web monitoring” services.
13. If you don’t have a blog… start one. Be topical, relevant, and keep at it. Encourage comments and sharing. And, it’s ok to fall off the wagon. Just get back on (I’ve fallen off many times) and try to keep at it (at least once a week). It gets easier once you have established the habit.
14. Finally, set aside some time every day to monitor conversations about your group. It is important to stay on top of the conversation.
Social Media is here to stay. It’s very dynamic and keeps on changing. Jump in and start using a couple of the tools listed above.
Cheers!
Dave
Sharp Consulting Group, LLC
1. If you don’t have a personal profile on Facebook, create one. Then create a business page on Facebook. Invite your friends, stakeholders, members and customers to become fans. It will help you keep track of your “friends” as well as start, facilitate and track conversations surrounding your org. Depending on your goals, you can also create a Facebook Group page and/or Cause page.
2. Want to follow conversations on Facebook? Signup for Facebook Lexicon.
3. Sign up for a Twitter business account. Start following tweets and joining in the conversations about your group or organization.
4. Once you are on Twitter, you can use Twitter Search to follow keywords across the millions of conversations and posts.
5. You can also search for any word on Twitter using Tweetscan.
6. Twilert allows you to receive email notification when something is mentioned regarding your organization.
7. GoogleAlerts is a great tool that helps you track your org and relevant conversations.
8. Sign up for an account on HowSociable. This is a great tool for tracking conversations.
9. If you come across a negative comment about your organization or group, respond with kindness and transparency. Craft your response strategically. Most of the time, you can turn the negative comment around just because you were listening.
10. If you are interested in tracking industry trends in the online space, you should check out Trendpedia.
11. Create a LinkedIn group for your organization or group. This is a great way to keep stakeholder communicating, collaborating and sharing.
12. There are many monitoring services if you have the budget. Just Google “reputation management” or “web monitoring” services.
13. If you don’t have a blog… start one. Be topical, relevant, and keep at it. Encourage comments and sharing. And, it’s ok to fall off the wagon. Just get back on (I’ve fallen off many times) and try to keep at it (at least once a week). It gets easier once you have established the habit.
14. Finally, set aside some time every day to monitor conversations about your group. It is important to stay on top of the conversation.
Social Media is here to stay. It’s very dynamic and keeps on changing. Jump in and start using a couple of the tools listed above.
Cheers!
Dave
Sharp Consulting Group, LLC
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
