It’s always a shock to me when I get a phone call from a nonprofit organization, or a letter in the mail, soliciting a donation or inviting me to a fundraising event. Even more bewildering is when I see flyers or posters or ads for these things, with no reference to a social media page of any kind. No Twitter, no Facebook, no YouTube, no nothing. These nonprofit organizations, and there are a lot of them, are missing out on the number one tool to build support, donations and awareness.

There are, however, nonprofits that are doing it well. If you work for, founded, run or volunteer for a nonprofit organization and want to know how to maximize your resources and make the most of your contributions, take a look at these 6 practices that have the potential to change everything:

1. The Use of Calls to Action – In the past, with regards to your internet presence, emphasis has always been put on drawing traffic to your web site, watching and analyzing those numbers to see how you could lengthen the stay of each unique visitor. Web marketers helped organizations find ways to convert visitors and casual information seekers into donors with calls to action and making it easy to donate. When Facebook came about and it launched pages for businesses and organizations, marketers used those pages to draw more traffic to their web site. Now, however, that is a waste of time and is just another step in a process that people will find far too long. You should look at your Facebook as it’s own web site, where all of the traffic to it is not lost if it goes no further than Facebook. Everything you want your audience to see on your web site, should be visible in some easy way on your Facebook page and most importantly of all, you should have just as many, if not more calls to action drawing in donors as you do on your web site. Using Facebook as just an ad for your web site just creates another step for potential donors, and one of the number one rules of the web is that every step in the process, loses someone. United Way of Canada has recognized this and added a big, red, unmissable donate button to the welcome tab on their Facebook page making it the first thing you notice, even before you click the Like button. Click on it, and you’re taken to the donation page. It’s as simple as one step. They are not trying to get you to the front page of their web site, they are not trying to get you to read their mission statement or stats about why you need to donate, they just say, “DONATE”. And people do.

2. Make Use of YouTube – If you’ve never taken the time to immerse yourself in the amazing community that is YouTube, then you need to. It’s truly amazing what has grown on YouTube and what is continuing to grow and which, in my opinion, sets the standard for how video content will be viewed in the future, including Television. One of the greatest things about this community is that it is interactive and real. You can raise awareness for your organization and the issues it tackles, simply by showing the reality of it in crisp, high-quality video. You can also draw in viewers and raise awareness by showcasing the amazing people who help run your organization. Project For Awesome helped create awareness for a lot of worthy charities. The idea behind the Project was to have as many YouTubers as possible create a video showcasing a nonprofit that was close to their hearts. All of these videos were to be posted on one day. The Project successfully took over the front page of YouTube for a day and a lot of great organizations benefited from it. It was a new, unique way to use the YouTube community and I’m sure it won’t be the last time a new, fresh idea builds awareness on YouTube.

YouTube also has a nonprofit program that enables the use of more tools, click here to read about it.

3. Show up in the Facebook Feed – Once a Facebook user clicks the Like button on your page, they’re not likely to come back to it. In order for your organization to stay on their radar, you need it to appear in the Facebook feed and now the timeline. How do you do this? Post status updates, share links, photos, videos. Simple, “How is everyone doing today?” won’t really cut it anymore. Especially if you’re looking to raise awareness and general public knowledge on your issue. When tons of more interesting posts are flying through people’s streams, you need to catch the attention of your Facebook followers. Nonprofits are in a great position to do this considering the vast majority of them are dealing with issues that people don’t really know a lot about, so posting little-known facts, case studies, the human side of your issue, in picture format, video format or even just blog posts, will usually do a good job of catching attention. Encourage your readers to share the content as well by adding a quick, “Please click share to share this with your friends” at the end of your posts.

4. Remind Your Fans and Followers – Social Media can be a loud and confusing place filled with spam, trivial things and anything and everything to draw attention away from you and your organization. Just getting someone to click your like button or follow your updates, is not enough. Even if that person donates at the time they discover your social media presence, it can soon become very easy for them to forget you are there, how to donate, or how else they can help your cause. Remind them where they can go to donate, post often about volunteer opportunities, give updates to stories that received a lot of attention and continually remind them that if they can’t donate or volunteer, that they can help the organization out simply by sharing their content.

5. Make Use Of Care2 – Care2 is a social network for the nonprofit community. Like any other social media outlet, there is spam, there are annoying people and there are piles and piles of trivial information. It is, however, a social network for the nonprofit community and therefore, is a rich source of people who are already socially conscious and have the inclination to want to do good. I have found, when working for nonprofits, that using the News section of the Care2 web site can result in an absolute ton of traffic to your web site, your Facebook page and any other place you want people to go. It is essentially a sort of Digg, but with a focus on nonprofit organizations. Here, you can post links to your blog posts about your issues, or links to your videos, etc and people vote it up if they like it. If it becomes popular enough, it can explode your traffic and awareness overnight.

6. Start Using Facebook Causes – There are so many reasons why this is an absolute must for any serious nonprofit organization, such as the fact that you can accept donations through it, you get a special information page just for nonprofits, you can offer motivation for watching your videos or viewing your contact as well as extra tools to help entice your followers to share it. Your followers also have the opportunity to raise funds and recruit new followers for you, with a ranking system profiling the most successful at these things. Your supporters can also ask that in lieu of birthday gifts, their Facebook friends donate to your cause and the Causes app continually reminds them to post about it, send it to friends. You’d be amazed how successful this is in raising money. I have done it for my own birthday and raised a significant amount of money for a charity that I support.

Raising awareness for a nonprofit on the web, while there are so many other distractions, can be a difficult thing and it can take some time to build up the kind of audience you want. Stay on task and don’t give up. Ask your followers on a frequent basis what you can do to make it easier for people to support you, and actually listen to their responses. The whole idea behind social media is being social. If you do this, you will be successful and your hard work will pay off.

Recently, I had the pleasure of upgrading to Mac OS X Lion. Since the Macintosh operating system went from the old, classic OS to what we now know as OS X, Lion has been the most significant update for me. The new features are numerous, but here are my 5 favorite:

1. Launchpad – This brings some of the functionality of iOS to your Mac. If you have a trackpad or magic mouse, it brings even more functionality, allowing you to utilize some of the new multi-touch support in Lion. Here is a great video explaining how to get the most out of your Launchpad:

2. Airdrop – This is such an amazing tool. The basic gist is that any two computers using Airdrop can drag and drop files to send them to each other, without even being on a WiFi network. All you need to do this is to be in the general vicinity of the other computer and both computers running Lion. There’s literally no configuration or setup. It really is as easy as that. Check out this video to see more:

3. Digital Document Signing – this is something I have struggled with a lot, as my clients and I sign agreements before we start work. With some of my clients being around the globe, it is impossible to sit in the same room and sign a document together, so we usually had to rely on scanners or fax machines. Now, in Lion, you can sign a document by holding your written signature on a piece of paper, up to your isight cam and it will add the signature to your document. Here’s a quick little video to show you how it’s done:

4. Mission Control – This is a way better way of handling what used to be Exposé – it’s clearer, easy to open and close and way easier to manipulate. Here’s a Mission Control video:

5. Full Screen Apps – this is absolutely brilliant for so many reason, but most of all, for me, it’s great for my 3 year old son. It keeps him in the app and out of things he shouldn’t be in. Here are some other great examples of using full screen apps:

These are my top 5 favorite new features in Mac OS X Lion – what are yours?

10 Twitter Tips for your Small Business

If you take your business marketing strategy seriously, you probably already have a Twitter account. That’s a good start, but do you really know how to promote your business in 140 characters or less? Twitter is fun, Twitter is challenging, Twitter can be dead annoying (info overload!) but it’s without a doubt an amazing tool for direct marketing.

The following Twitter Rules are a guideline for the small business owner who wants to make it on Twitter. Some of them refer to the Twitter etiquette, some explain common Twitter terms and some offer a better understanding of Twitter as a marketing tool.

1. Tweeting Ratio:

Tweeting like crazy every few minutes will not only be frowned upon by the community (especially when tweeting for your business), it will also be completely counter-productive. Each new tweet that you post replaces your previous tweet on your followers’ timeline. Tweeting too often will reduce your tweets’ actual reach.

2. Hashtags:

Marked by the symbol #, hashtags turn certain terms and keywords into (searchable) tags . By adding the hashtag #camera, for instance, you increase the chances of your tweets being seen by people who are interested in photography and cameras. Using multiple hashtags in one tweet is considered spam, so use them scarcely and wisely.

3. Check Out The Competition:

Use Twitter to find out what’s going on with your competitors. You don’t have to follow them as a Twitter user, but you should follow their activity. It’s a priceless insight – for free!

Read the rest: 10 Twitter Tips for your Small Business | The Official Wix Blog.

A lot of the Facebook pages for business I come across on a day to day basis, are making the same mistake. They just keep posting, over and over again, about themselves and make no effort to learn about their fans and followers. Narcissism has no place in a successful social media campaign, so here are some tips on how to post to your Facebook page and have a great response.

1. Ask questions that you think your audience will like answering. Think of the things that make people proud or happy and ask them about those things. Their children, their company, their spouses, or their favorite music.

2. Post polls – these require close to zero time commitment to participate in and still result in having your opinion heard. Facebook users love a good poll.

3. Post a photo – Facebook users love photos especially if you post photos of things or people that your audience all agree are interesting. For instance, if you own a car customization shop, post pictures of your work. You can safely assume everyone who has clicked the like button on your page has that interest in common.

4. Post a video – although these tend to get slightly fewer interactions due to workplace restraints and audio requirements, they are still quite effective, especially if you’ve thought of what your target audience might like to see before posting.

5. Tag people – you have to be careful while using this Facebook feature. You don’t want to appear spammy. When the occasion calls for it, you can start typing a friend or page you’ve liked in your status update. Facebook will offer suggestions from your friends list, so choose the name if the person or page you want to tag from that list. Once selected, it will link to their profile or page from your status, and it will also appear on their profile. It’s a great way to get the attention if someone who might appreciate the status update, and ensure an interaction.

6. Hold a contest. One company I worked with held a tag line contest on their Facebook page and the winner received a prize. The winner was selected by how many likes their slogan received on the company’s Facebook page. The page erupted with new fans and wall postings.

7. Nostalgia – post an update about remembering something all your fans will remember as well. Post a song or a video if you can. Nostalgia is the most powerful emotion in marketing and will get people involved any time.

Do you have any suggestions on how to get your Facebook fans and friends more involved in your Facebook presence? Post them in the comments or on our Facebook page by clicking the widget to the right.

Bullsandbeavers.com posted this great article about finding great content to tweet:

Use Hashtags:

People use the hashtag symbol # before relevant keywords in their Tweet. Hashtags categorize tweets to show up more easily in a Twitter Search.

Clicking on a hashtagged word in any message displays all the other tweets in that category.

Hashtags can occur anywhere in the Tweet. Hashtagged words that become very popular are often Trending Topics.

Get to Know Your Niche:

Great content can also be found within your own Twitter following. Be sure and re-tweet the friend within your niche.

Another great place to find Twitter content is on the Internet.

For instance: my niche is ‘outdoors, fishing and hunting’. I can find a lot of great content by visiting blogs and online magazines that write about my interests. The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, National Geographic, Sportsman Channel, or Field and Stream are just a few examples of where I can find interesting articles, news and photographs for my niche.

Read the rest of this article: How to Hunt for The Trophy Tweet

Here’s a really good read about Social Media Mistakes and how to avoid them by Tech N’ Marketing :

-Spam: The following is a scenario that happens at one point or another in almost every company. Someone in the company hears a story about Twitter or another social media platform and decides to give it a shot. They pitch it to the CEO and the company decides to take advantage of this “new thing” called social media. They hire some newbie who has been tweeting for 25 seconds, and tell him he has to meet a sales quota. That person then opens an account on Twitter for the company and begins to spam people on Twitter. “Check out our new <insert any product here>”. “Have you heard about <insert name of company here>, check us out here <insert link to company site>.

What amazes me is that after all this time, people are still sending me such messages daily. It does not work and you are pretty much eliminating any chance of creating a good name for your company on the Web by using these tactics. Will you get a few clicks? Yes. Will it help your company in the long run? Absolutely not.

-Number of Followers: A conversation I had with an acquaintance of mine the other day, made my blood boil. He was showing off to me that he has a certain absurd number of followers on Twitter. I replied that I did not even know he was on  Twitter, to which he responded “I am not”. He apparently used some spammy tool to build up his follower count artificially in order to leverage that number when corresponding with companies.

While this is probably an effective method for getting quality customer service, it is otherwise completely worthless. This is an extreme case, but people talking about their follower count, using it as a sales pitch, and bragging about their followers is something I see almost daily on Twitter and other sites. What these people do not realize is that the number of people that follow them is close to irrelevant. How much they interact with these people, the level of responsiveness, engagement, and dialog that these followers provide, now that is key. There is no direct correlation between the two and I have seen many people on Twitter with tens of followers that have more correspondence with their followers then other people with hundreds of thousands of followers or fans. Numbers do not matter in social media.

Read the rest of this article here: Twitter and Social Media Mistakes that Drive Everyone Nuts

Judy Dunn guest posted over at the Top 10 Blog, this fantastic top 10 list of things your blog readers wish you knew:

3. I want to know what your blog is about—right away.

Do you have a tagline? A short one-liner that tells visitors right away—on the home page—what your blog’s mission/purpose is?

Do you list categories of the topics you write about in your sidebar? You don’t have much time (or space) to convince your visitor she is in the right place. Use them wisely.

4. I want stuff I can find quickly with posts that are helpful and easy to read.

Think of your visitor in a red Miata, racing at 70 miles per hour. Because that’s what’s happening when she hits your blog. She depends on road signs to help her find her way.

She’s a scanner. She skims through your stuff looking for the interesting, helpful parts.  That means that white space and frequent sub-heads are your friends. Use them liberally. Avoid long pieces of text in your posts.

Read the rest of this article here: The Top 10 Things Your Blog Visitors Wish You Knew

Here’s a great article on keeping your Twittersphere uncluttered and manageable:

Mobile

While Tweetdeck has a mobile application for both the iPhone and iPad (coming soon), I prefer to use the Twitter application for my mobile devices because I like the user interface. I continue to monitor the same conversations as my desktop. Tweetdeck allows for syncing between all devices, another benefit for its users.

Automate Tweets

I built my community one tweet at a time over the past 4-years, in order for me to continue to provide value, I must provide content consistently and frequently. My mentor is Guy Kawasaki, so I am a student of the controversial “The Art of the Repeat Tweet.” Posts from blogs that I contribute too, including this one, are repeated 4 times every 6-hours. Additionally, I manually schedule blog posts and articles written by others that I find will be valuable to my community with the same frequency.

Read the rest of the article here: How to Stay Organized on Twitter

ProBlogger posted this list of 15 resources for Bloggers they hadn’t mentioned before and some of them are really cool:

4. BlogDash

What is it? A tool designed for blogger outreach.
How does it work? For publicists, it claims to provide the tools required to reach bloggers who’ll care about their story. For bloggers, it lets you set up your preferences for how you like to be pitched—email? LinkedIn? Twitter? The choice is yours. BlogDash also lets you select the type of opportunities you’re open to receiving, such as products to review or events to cover.
Bonus info: More than 25,000 bloggers are currently listed.

5. TinyLetter

What is it? A very simple newsletter tool you can use for free.
Why is it worth bookmarking? If you’ve ever wanted to charge your readers for a newsletter subscription, but lacked the technical set-up know-how, TinyLetter is as simple as they come. Simply create your account, decide what you’ll charge per month (or of you’ll charge at all), and embed the sign-up form on your blog. Easy.
Other options? The Letterly.net concept is similar, however readers must pay to subscribe.

6. Timely

What is it? A Twitter tool that tells you the best time to tweet for maximum impact.
How does it work? By looking over your last 199 Twitter messages, Timely analyzes the best times to schedule your tweets for the highest engagement. Including a link to your blog? Well then of course the more people who see it, the more traffic you’re likely to get from it.
Also note: Timely is free, but the pro account features also include letting you post to Facebook.

Read the rest of this article here: 15 Blogger Resources Not Previously Featured on ProBlogger

Here’s a great article from Pam Sahota:

How much time do you spend on Twitter? I know I sometimes spend more time than I intend to, looking for the latest news, latest updates from friends, and the coolest stuff going on in my city and cool stats and info to link to and blog about. Fortunately, for me…and you – there are plenty of ways to save time on Twitter and not waste time we could be spending on other things like work!

The following are my suggestions on how to save time…

(1) Trunk.ly – A tool that helps cut through the clutter of finding and keeping up with social media news that you view awesome and important.  It collects any links that you share on Twitter (and other social networks) in order for you to go back and be able to search them when you have time. It bookmarks them in a way that is easily searchable for you. Why waste time trying to find that link, Trunk.ly has it all stored away for you, ready and waiting.

(2) Tweetdeck -  Too many followers, too little time? I have friends who have over 50,00 followers and I wonder how they do it. Yikes! Platforms like Tweetdeck are super helpful! You can organize your followers in lists in order to differentiate from people you know in real life, those who are folks from certain industries, news sites, local folks, and more. This is especially helpful for community managers who are trying to keep track of their competition, customers, and potential customers. A time saver and possible lead gen tool if used to our advantage!

Read the rest here: 5 Ways to Save Time on Twitter