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

How Wired is your Nonprofit?

Following are questions that nonprofit organizations should use to figure out how well they are doing in meeting the demands of their supporters. These questions are excerpted from Allison Fine’s new book, Momentum: Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age
(Jossey-Bass).

· Reputation Management: Do other people and organizations trust you and your organization? How do you know? How can you increase and strengthen that trust?
· Outreach: Are you reaching out to new people and organizations to learn with and from them? Do you approach networking as an opportunity to push your "brand," and/or to strengthen a connection with others?
· Recognition/ support: Do you support and celebrate your alumni and other ambassadors to other groups and communities?
· Community Building: What information are you sharing with the world? Are there other kinds of information that you could share?
· Outreach: Are your Web site and other communication vehicles inviting to strangers? Can anyone looking at your information figure out who you are? Which individuals are critical?
· Search Engine Friendly: Do your communication vehicles (e.g. Web site, brochures, plans, proposals, reports) use words that people understand, or language that says that your organization is made up of really smart people?
· Community Building: Do you think of questions from outsiders as time-suckers that need to be answered, or as the beginning of a conversation?
· Community Building/ Outreach: Do you ever introduce people for no other reason than the fact that they should know one another? Does that include introducing collegial organizations to potential partners/ alliances/ funders? What do you expect in return for these introductions?
· Sharing: Do your supporters (board members, donors, volunteers, members, friends, etc.) ever talk to one another about your organization (cause, charity, mission) without your prompting?
· Sharing: Can you help your volunteers start their own conversations, have their own meetings, and develop strategies to support your efforts?
· Recognition: Do you celebrate achievements by other organizations in your network?
· Collaboration: Do your participants (board members, volunteers, clients, collegial organizations) watch you make plans or help you to make them?

Share your ideas and comments.



Cheers!
Dave