We don’t work in Chile & aren’t involved in relief efforts, but here are ways you can help http://bit.ly/bzggc9 (via @LivingGodsDream) #fb

The above twitter update was posted by Compassion International on March 1. I think it is a great twitter update for a variety of reasons:

1. Your non-profit doesn’t have to do everything everywhere

I’m glad that some organizations don’t suffer from the Superman syndrome. Compassion doesn’t have ministries in Chile, and they are not asking for donations to Chile specific efforts. That is refreshing and honest.

2. Your non-profit can succeed by promoting other organizations

How refreshing to think that Compassion trusts their Provider and His people to not run out of donation dollars by giving to other organizations who are helping meet a very large and very current need. Compassion doesn’t seem threatened by the promotion of other non-profits.

3. Your non-profit doesn’t even need original content

If you notice this twitter update is actually a “retweet” from another user, LivingGodsDream. Compassion is just promoting some one else and their organization. Why? Because people are in need and donors may want to help through Compassion International. Problem: Compassion doesn’t work in Chile and shouldn’t (legally can’t) ask for donations to a project they don’t support right now. Solution: redirect giving, caring people to another site where they can easily give.

3. Your non-profit doesn’t have to close doors

The above twitter update doesn’t state that Compassion International will never work in Chile. It just states that they don’t now and aren’t currently involved in the relief efforts. I can imagine that if in the future there is a need and a way to partner with ministries in Chile, that Compassion might do just that.

What do you think?

Does this type of twitter update seem honest, true, and transparent; or cleverly marketed according to social media best practices? Please leave us a comment below.

One of the biggest reasons I hear for non twitter users is, “I don’t get it”

There’s a misconception that twitter is just a more frequent Facebook status update, which some may use it as such but it is so much more than that. I have compiled a list of twitter terms that will help a twitter newbie gain a better understanding of what twitter is and how it works.

• A tweet is a post to twitter.  It can only be 140 characters (including spaces). You will type this into the box at the top of the screen that says what’s happening? (There is a character counter at the top of the screen that lets you know how many characters you have left to use)
• A timeline is a series of tweets displayed on a Twitter page. When you refresh the page new tweets will appear at the top and the older tweets will scroll to the bottom. The timeline you will see on your homepage is that of the people you are following.
• Follow. A large part of twitter is that you can follow certain people/organizations/blogs, etc that you find interesting.  By following these people you elect to see the tweets they post in their timelines which will appear in your twitter feed.
• Following. Just as you will follow people that you find interesting, others will follow you if they wish to see your tweets. (You can put a protection on your account and that will allow you to choose who can follow you)

At the top you will see “following” and “followers” When you click on following you will see all of the people you are currently following. You follow people and they in turn follow you if they find you interesting and wish to see your tweets. When you click on following you can see who all is currently following you.

• @replies. @replies are very important for communicating with people in the twitterverse. In order to reply to someone or refer to someone put a @ symbol in front of their twitter username. (On your twitter homepage there is a @yourusername link and when clicked on will show you all messages directed at you)
• RT. An important part of twitter is sharing. That is where the RT (retweet) comes in. The RT is a way to share other people’s tweets with your followers.
• Hashtags. The hashtag is used to track tweets that are related to a certain topic. So if you want to be a part of a conversation or find out who is talking about a certain topic you are interested in you can add a hashtag for that topic (example: #mobilemarketing #nonprofits) and you can also search for a certain hashtag by typing it into the search box.
• URL Shorteners. Since a tweet can only be 140 characters URL shorteners are great for sharing links. These URL shortening services will take a URL and condense it so that it will fit within your 140 character limit. (Some of these services allow you to track your links so you can see how many clicks a link is getting)
  • Example services:
  • http://bit.ly/
  • http://tinyurl.com/

These basics should get you started but the best thing to do is explore the site, read up on twitter best practices, and decide how you want to use twitter and how you can get the most out of it. Need help getting started? Contact us to see how we can help you get your social media marketing efforts off the ground.

Overall the speech by Brogan echoed many of the things our Social Media evangelists have been saying and provided some excellent insights in terms of business applications. Below are some of the key points from his presentations:

• Every person is in the sales and customer service business regardless of your job title. It is all our collective job to boost our bottom line through sales and take excellent care of our clients.
• Social networking isn’t about the platform or application – it is about genuine relationship building. Building relationships means being friends with people, promoting others and helping not collecting business cards, talking only about yourself or constantly pitching something.
• To be successful with Social Media, you must be where the people are (whatever network or platform that might be) and you must be there before you need to make the sale. We buy from people we like and know. To be that kind of company means you need to have a presence. Anything else is just butting in.
• Reciprocity is what makes Social Media work. You do good for others consistently and it pays off in a big way. He listed several case and points from Dell’s twitter success to how a case of beer and an event sponsorship led to multimillion dollar business for his email provider.
• If you’re not spending 60% of your time on social networks listening, you’re missing out on the real value.

Here are a few snippets from some of the team members who attended. Feel free to follow up with them on Twitter for all of their event postings and more.

@Cymberly Practice honesty, integrity, sincerity. Life principles can actually apply to business principles as well!

@KirbyRenee In Social Media you need to listen, share and connect

@Miiacom Chris Brogan recommends building equity in relationships before asking for anything. The challenge is to determine the optimal timing and method for non-profits to form and manage relationships with donors before asking for donations. We already know how to engage them as donors. But building and managing a community of interest around the non-profit’s mission that remains relevant to prospective donors until they decide to give? Not so much. We have work to do.

And last but not least feel free to check out some of the pics and video we collected while out. We’ll be prepared with better equipment next time we’re out…

I also heard about Nomee, a platform aggregator tool for basically every major social network. We’ll spin through it at the is7 media lab and let you know what we think.

Social Media Marketing has rocketed into the online development space over the past few years and quickly become an essential component of any multichannel campaign. Unfortunately, because the medium is so new many organizations are missing the mark when it comes to using social networks for marketing. This is mainly due to a huge misunderstanding with how Social Media works. If you want to use Social Media effectively, your organization needs an understanding of the differences between traditional marketing methods and how Social Media works. And to explain that, we have to talk about economics for just a moment (we promise, no boring bar graphs or complicated math).

Social Economics Vs. Professional Economics

Every situation in life plays by either social economics or professional economics and mixing the two is where we run into trouble. Here’s an example.

Say you are invited to a dinner party and the host cooks an amazing meal. After eating the delicious food you compliment the cook and say “this meal was so incredible I must compensate you for it. Is $100 enough?”. Now I’m sure you’d never do that because it would be unspeakably rude. Dinner parties among friends operate on social economics which are hinged together by many unspoken rules like not offering money to your friends for their gestures of hospitality.

Alternately, if you had hired your friend to cater the dinner party it would be perfectly reasonable to sit down after the meal and go over the bill line by line. This is assumed and understood that when it comes to business matters an entirely different set of rules applies.

This matters in the realm of social media because social networks all operate on the social economics system. Hopefully you can see the conflict starting to emerge here. Traditional marketing platforms are interruptive and work on a professional economic system. Social Media works on a social economic system and thus requires a new set of rules.

So you can see how many organizations who elbow their way into social communities blaring their message with loudspeakers are often ignored. The summation point here is that you can’t apply traditional marketing methods or professional economics to Social Media.

Most of us participate in at least one if not many social communities. However, when we turn out minds to marketing to these communities we forget all of the irritations we hold about organizations who show up and don’t respect our space. With this in mind we’ve put together a few basic to keep you from applying professional economics to something inherently social. Violate them at your own peril.

• Social Media is a communication medium not a broadcast medium.
  
  This means that you must be willing to engage in a two-way conversation with people instead of just scheduling fire and forget messages.
• Social Media is a community not a target audience.
  People are on social networks to communicate with their friends, explore shared interests, consume content, distribute their relevant messages and connect with new people. The key is to find people who would be genuinely interested in your message.
• Social Media requires frequent attention not marketing automation.
  How many times a day do you check your Facebook? The point here is that people have Social Media consumption routines and in order to connect you must be active on the network – usually daily. People expect a prompt reply.
• You cannot be successful on every social network.
  Do you want to cultivate many random contacts or a dedicated group of passionate friends? To engage a passionate group you must focus your efforts. In reality you should pick 2 primary networks (no more than 3) and label any other social activity as secondary by prioritizing it appropriately.
• Social Media require resources
  Building friends takes time and energy. Give Social Media the resources it needs to succeed. That means appropriate man power and time. Intermittent busts of Social Media activity looks sketchy.

In summary, Social Media is much like going to any other social event. The people who are engaging, care about others and take time to form meaningful relationships will grow a garden of friends to help them. The guests who are obnoxious will be shunned and never invited back. Don’t let the online layer of technology separating you from the user fool you. Social Media is a very real kind of social interaction and success hinges on having good manners not pitching your idea to as many people as possible.

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