With so many new social networks popping up every day, it’s nearly impossible to keep up with them all as an individual. As a time-and-resource-strapped nonprofit, it’s even harder, particularly if you don’t have any full-time staff devoted to monitoring those trends and making strategic decisions about where you should put your time and energy.

Some nonprofits do, of course, have the bandwidth and the strategic focus to have effective presences on several social networks simultaneously, and to experiment with new ones as they come along. AARP is a great example. They have an awesome team of smart social media staff, creating and curating content every day for Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, and more.

But most nonprofits aren’t so lucky, and thus have to be a lot choosier in where they focus their efforts. While there’s some argument to be made about at least snapping up your org’s name on every new network that comes around, it’s important to make sure you’re creating an authentic presence on the networks that make the most sense to your organization.

So here are some general do’s and don’ts:

1. Do figure out where your audience is first. A simple survey on your website might help you determine where your existing members and donors spend their time. You could also analyze the target audience of each network (for example, Pinterest tends to attract women in their 20s, 30s and 40s, while Google+ tends to be a playground for techies) and determine if that’s a place you’re likely to find your existing supporters, or new supporters.

2. Don’t assume that because a network is popular, it will make you go “viral” simply by being on there and submitting content. Reddit is a great case-in-point here. The people on Reddit are experts at sniffing out and immediately dismissing anything that reeks of self-promotion.

3. Do take time to experiment and consider strategy for each network, but don’t over-plan to the point where you miss the boat entirely. I’d recommend taking maybe an hour or two, spaced out over a few weeks, to experiment with each new network that looks promising. Then making a judgment call about whether it’s a network that’s worth your time, not based on how much traction you’ve been able to achieve (because with that kind of time investment and that kind of time frame, you can’t expect much), but based on how the users interact and what kind of content the users tend to share and talk about.

4. Don’t post the exact same content across all the networks your organization participates in. Each network has its own flavor, its own etiquette, and its own, slightly-different user base. While it may seem crazy-efficient to use a tool to post the exact same content on multiple platforms at once, in reality you will likely be alienating people on one platform or another by doing so. (For example, people get super annoyed seeing Twitter hashtags and @ symbols in their Facebook feed, and likewise people on Twitter get annoyed with incomplete posts that link back to a Facebook status.) The language, the tone, where you place the link –  all those things change with the platform.

Having to craft slightly different messaging for each platform takes time, and time is a precious commodity at a nonprofit. You want to make sure you’re spending the limited time you have maximizing your return on the networks that make the most sense to you.

5. Do engage in conversations with users on the platforms where you’re deeply engaged. Repost their content, ask questions, respond to their questions, and join in various community-oriented threads (like the #nptech hashtag on Twitter).

6. Do be realistic about how much time you can devote to social media as a whole, and use that time well. (If that time is almost nothing, check out this awesome webinar Jan-Michael Sacharko did last year on how to manage social media under extreme time and resource limitations.)

7. Do consider engaging in niche networks related to your cause. For example, there are tons of social networks built around pets, and if you work for an animal-rights organization, that could become a great partnership opportunity.

8. Don’t be afraid to abandon a network if it just isn’t working, despite giving it your best shot. Put your energy into the networks that pay off, and let go of those that don’t.

More great resources here:

• Be Selective With Your Social Networks (Entrepreneur Magazine)
• The Great Fracture (Geoff Livingston)

How does your organization choose which networks deserve the bulk of your time and effort?

Photo credit: Dan Zen on Flickr

Case in point: I met Britney Spears shortly before she became hugely famous. After seeing her sing, I thought, “She’s probably not going to be a big deal.”

Obviously, I was wrong. As I have been on more predictions than I can count.

But that won’t stop me from trying again! Here’s what I think will happen in social media IN THE FUTURE!

1 YEAR FROM NOW
Twitter will become even more niche-focused than it is now, particularly because they’ve started making friends with everybody’s favorite thing on the Internet, censorship.

Facebook, meanwhile, will become more and more central to our online experience, deepening their connections throughout the Web. Fewer sites will require you to create a unique login and more will allow you to use Facebook as your universal key to access their sites.

Coming on Facebook’s heels will be Google+, which is also working to become the central part of your online social experience. I feel like it’ll take them longer to get a foothold, though, so they’re going to be a much bigger force…

5 YEARS FROM NOW
Sometime in the next five years, I imagine there will be a BIG privacy snafu with Facebook that’ll be significant enough to drive a lot of people away from Facebook, and Google will be waiting, with open arms.

Google has a key advantage over Facebook: it is generally good at taking risks, then listening to their users and learning from their mistakes. With their intensified emphasis on supporting startups, we’re going to see even more innovation coming from their side of things, and I think it’s safe to say that social networking as we know it today will look radically different five years from now. (And if you don’t believe me, just think of where it was 5 years ago.) It’ll be even more effortless, pleasurable, and integrated into daily life, and I think it’s more likely Google will bring us that experience than Facebook.

10 YEARS FROM NOW

…Yeah.

So even if these predictions don’t materialize (and I’m really hoping the last one won’t!), I think it’s safe to say that things are going to change a lot. The leaders in the industry are going to dance around each other, and new players will come on the scene and dominate unexpectedly, whether briefly or for a period of years.

What all this means is that platforms don’t matter in the long run. Technology doesn’t matter in the long run. What does matter, amid all the changes, is that organizations be open-minded and anticipatory, adapting their strategies to use these new technologies effectively. That’ll help in the short run, at least.

But in the long run, what matters goes even deeper than that. In my mind, the best thing these platforms have to offer is to give you a much better picture of exactly WHO your donors, members and prospects are. Anyone who knows even a little bit about marketing knows the central tenet is to “know thy audience.” What better tool to accomplish this than to cull the data you can gain from social media?

You can do this in a few different ways: by listening to people discussing various keywords related to your cause, by listening to people discussing your organization, or by looking at and aggregating the data surrounding your existing donors, prospects and members.

No matter how you do it, though, the important thing is that you’re using social media for more than an end in and of itself: you’re using it to inform your broader strategy as an organization.

Your future donors and members will be online. Period. Now is the time to figure out what makes them tick.

What are your predictions for 1, 5, and 10 years from now?

Photo credits: Hatwoman, cambodia4kidsorg & Alaskandude on Flickr

George Ford of the Foundation Center walked through the Foundation Center’s newly-updated online tool at a webinar yesterday that drew 50 people. You can watch the recording below.

I signed up for an account early on, but hadn’t really gone back to it in awhile, so I decided to give it another try in light of the recent hoopla. Pinterest is surprisingly addictive, though I’m seeing a lot more pictures of dresses than I expected to. (Then again, my friends on Pinterest are largely in the target demographic of 18-44-year-old women.)

Pinterest has given me a forum to collect and share recipes, book recommendations, things that make me laugh, and even a small (but growing) portfolio of stuff I’m particularly proud to have written for various blogs.

But the fun doesn’t end there: there are practical applications for your nonprofit as well. AARP and the National Wildlife Federation have found good ways to target niche audiences on Pinterest, and one of our friends at the RAD Campaign recently posted a bodacious brainstorm of 42 creative uses for Pinterest targeted at specific kinds of nonprofits.  And if those aren’t enough, here are 17 more fascinating ideas for organizations.

Some guidelines to consider as you dive into Pinterest (courtesy of The Huffington Post):

• Be useful.
• Pinterest users are looking for ideas and inspiration.
• Create categories that reflect what users are looking for.
• Give the job to someone who has an eye for aesthetics.
• Learn from Pinterest superusers.
• Don’t just pin, repin.
• Let your supporters pin for you.
• Add “pin it” buttons to your blog or web site so your visitors and supporters can create their own pin boards that highlight your cause.

Has your organization tried Pinterest yet? Tell us your story in the comments.

The Foundation Center recently completed a comprehensive redesign of our online database for individual grantseekers, Foundation Grants to Individuals Online, a source for detailed descriptions of nearly 10,000 foundation programs that fund students, artists, researchers, and others.

Foundation grants to individuals can be tough to come by. After all, foundation support overwhelmingly goes to 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations. However, support is available in the form of scholarships, fellowships, arts and research grants, support for attending conferences and seminars, and fiscal sponsorship, among others. With Foundation Grants to Individuals Online you can customize a search based on 15 different search fields including types of support, plus geographic criteria, fields of interest, and keywords.

How can this help you? By conducting a targeted search you’ll find detailed funder profiles including valuable information such as program areas, limitations, application information, financial data, links to social media, and more. What you learn about these funding prospects will help you throughout your proposal development process, from choosing your best matches, to making an initial approach, to the formal application or proposal, and beyond to maintaining a relationship with that funder after the grant.

An example: Let’s say you’re researching gender issues and financial access in the developing world, and you’re interested in finding financial support for writing a book on these issues. You could enter women, economics, developing countries, and other similar terms from the fields of interest search index, and research, publications, travel grants, and project support from the types of support index. There are a lot of options that allow you to find a substantive list of potential funders, and more options to narrow your search further to those foundations that are accepting applications or those that have given more or less than a certain dollar amount.

And about that redesign? We’ve made Foundation Grants to Individuals Online faster and easier to use, adding information like social media links and more funder background information, and we’ve begun updating the database weekly instead of once per quarter, among other enhancements.

In addition to Foundation Grants to Individuals Online, the Foundation Center has many other offerings for individual grantseekers available at grantspace.org, including webinars and in-person training and a grantseeking knowledge base with lists of FAQs. Keep up to date with these events and courses and check out Foundation Grants to Individuals Online at gtionline.foundationcenter.org. The Foundation Center has a lot of resources to offer; call or email us to find out more!

info@foundationcenter.org

(800) 424-9836

Look out, kids, there’s a manifesto looming on the horizon of this blog post!

Ahem.

Today, I’m going to expand upon the flowchart I posted on Tuesday (pictured right).

I subscribe to lots of blogs and several Twitter searches related to nonprofits and technology. I scan hundreds of new items a day. And at least once a week, I still see a tweet or a blog post (sometimes several) asking the question, “Should your nonprofit be on social media?”

In 2007, this was a valid question. But guess what? Not anymore.

If your organization is still asking itself that question, you aren’t just risking becoming irrelevant…your entire mode of thinking has already become irrelevant to a society that has dramatically shifted and expanded its means of communication.

Quite frankly, I’m tired of hearing what some still consider to be “valid” arguments against social media:

“We don’t have time.”

“We tried it, and it didn’t work.”

“We reach out to a population that isn’t on Twitter.”

“Nobody cares what we ate for lunch.”

As a simple counter argument, I am going to point to what has happened to the newspaper industry and the recording industry in recent years.

The consumer-driven Internet has been a serious force to be reckoned with for at least 15 years. I worked at a newspaper from 1997-1998 that was still using computers with orange-on-black displays and a DOS-like operating system. When I asked my coworkers what they were doing about the Internet, most would scoff and say it was just a fad. Or that it was just for people wasting time in their parents’ basements. Their audience, they said, still loved the printed page and had no use for this trendy stuff.

Sound familiar?

Over time, of course, we all know what happened. Slowly, reliable news sources began to pop up online…for free. Some newspapers started panicking and wildly experimenting; most continued to scoff: “People still need us for local news. I guess we can put our content online for our subscribers, but why should we give away that which we normally charge money for?”

They refused – REFUSED – to shift the paradigm…until it was too late. Much too late.

The same thing happened with the recording industry. They dismissed online file sharing as a fad, then tried to go after the people using it, then tried to kill the services that allowed it (and they’re still beating that dead horse), and only many years later did they try to offer a valid alternative to it that still earned them money. They lost a lot of money trying to beat the paradigm back into where it was in the early ‘90s before they realized they were the ones who had to change.

So, tell me…how are print journalism and the recording industry doing these days?

Meanwhile, those companies and industries that caught on early and kept up with the trends profited, by and large. Yes, the tech bubble burst (pretty much the exact moment I graduated from college – thanks, Universe!), but the strong companies survived: Amazon and eBay have revolutionized how we shop; dozens of dating sites have changed the way people find mates; and now, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and the rest have changed the way we communicate…whether you like it or not.

The question is, what side of the fence do you want to be on? It’s not necessary to jump, panic-stricken, onto every new trend that floats by. But lack of experimentation, fear of risk-taking, and refusal to shift paradigms have claimed many victims in the last ten years (think Borders and Blockbuster, for recent examples). And the nonprofit sector is not immune.

No matter what your nonprofit does or who it targets, I guarantee you there is very little to be gained and much to lose from ignoring social media…and many advantages to using it strategically, in a way that makes sense for your organization. Whether that amounts to listening (like my listening post I described at the beginning, even if it’s just as simple as regularly searching for your brand on Twitter and blogs), participating, using it to gather data about your audience, or some combination thereof, is up to you.

I hope we never STOP asking the question of “how best” to be involved in social media. The answer to that changes, and your organization needs to be open to anticipating and planning for those changes. But for the love of Gozer the Gozerian, let us stop asking the question of “whether” to get involved in social media.

Because, Ray, the answer is “YES!”

Today, thousands of new domains are up for grabs. One of the most important to the nonprofit community is the .NGO domain.

It’s important that the right organization be chosen to run this new domain and the nonprofit community is rallying around the Public Interest Registry, and their .NGO effort.

Public Interest Registry (PIR) is the nonprofit organization that currently manages .org, and they’ve been doing that for more than 25 years. PIR needs community support to make sure that they receive consideration before other for-profit interests who might also apply for the domain.

We can make sure that .NGO stays in nonprofit hands by signing this petition.

Why you should sign the petition

Under the management of PIR, the .ngo domain will only be available to nonprofit organizations. This means that there will never be doubt over whether your organization is legitimately a nonprofit – you can simply point to the fact that you were able to acquire an extension that’s available to only non-profits.

Please, if you work for a nonprofit organization, sign this quick and easy online letter of support today and pass it on to other nonprofits in your community. If you don’t work for a nonprofit but with one, ask them to sign it and pass it on.

And by signing the petition, it does’t mean that you’re committing to buy the .NGO domain once it’s out; you’re simply showing supporting the ideas that .NGO domain that should be used exclusively by nonprofits should be administered by a nonprofit.

Together we can show ICANN, the international body that regulates domain extensions, that the nonprofit community is a unified force.

But we loved the creativity people showcased! All the entries and supporting materials are displayed here.

Without further ado, here are our top picks:

• Absolute favorite:
  Mark Miller, Children’s National Medical Center
  Mark will get a $100 Amazon.com gift card*!
• Next favorites: 
  Alanna Sobel, National Park Foundation
  Alison McQuade, League of Women Voters
  Alanna and Alison will each receive $50 Amazon.com gift cards*!
• Super honorable mention:
  Alison Risso and Ifdy Perez, Razoo
  We loved the playful videos they created using their card materials (check out our Prezi of all the entries to see them), so they will be receiving a special, playful gift from us.

But wait…there’s more!

We were so wowed by the creativity and effort put into each of the entries, and had such a hard time deciding which were our favorites, that we’ve decided to give a $25 Amazon.com gift card* to each person who entered. So if you entered, please DM @smallact your email address.

* For those who can’t accept an Amazon.com gift card due to organizational policy, please let us know in the next 24 hours and we’ll make a charitable donation in your name instead.

We’re in the process of choosing our favorites and will announce the winners Monday, but in the meantime, you can see the entries below. Our friends Ifdy and Alison at Razoo even created videos to accompany their entries!

(We recommend clicking the “fullscreen” button for the best viewing experience.)