Technology
14 Advanced Twitter Tips
Twitter Like a Pro
The last two articles Tweet or Not to Tweet and Tweet Tweet Nonprofit should have gotten everyone up-to-date on the basics of Twitter. Now that you have your twitter account set up and hopefully following a few people as well as being followed I wanted to take this space to give you some tips to get you tweeting like a pro as well as being well mannered in the twitter arena (etiquette). Read on to get some more advanced Twitter tips… This is only an except the complete article can be found at the link below…
Top 10 Reasons Nonprofits Should Blog
Top 10 Reasons Every Nonprofit Should Have a Blog
Part of the Series “Be a Social Media Expert Series” here.
When you start and run a nonprofit, you’ve just signed up to become the best storyteller in history. If there is anything you need to do well, it is to develop your story and then tell it over and over and over again. See http://oceangrand.org/a-simple-fundraising-formula/ for a step-by-step on how to develop and tell your story. Telling your story needs to happen in all kinds of ways, shapes and forms and in this article I am going to explain why your nonprofit should have a blog and be telling your story on it. Read on and I will break this complicated subject down into 10 bite-sized pieces.
Blogs and Web Sites
Blogs are not much different than web sites anymore except for a couple of critical differences. Web sites contain mostly “static” information which is information that you or a webmaster puts on the site, but once there, rarely changes. It resembles a brochure on the web more than anything. On the other hand, a blog has pages also, but the “blog page” (like what you are reading here) has ongoing posts or stories that are easily changed and updated. The blog gives you the ability to quickly post new information without needing the help of a webmaster. The other pages on a blog can also easily be changed. So in essence a blog is a web site with multiple pages that are easily changed with the addition of an area that has ongoing new information posted to it. It much better resembles an effort to tell an ongoing story. There are a lot of added benefits to having a blog rather than a static web site, that I will outline 10 reasons below, and then take you through the 10 reasons to set up a blog for your own nonprofit.
Blogging Benefits
I get asked a lot if every nonprofit should have a blog and I personally believe they should. Every nonprofit understands the benefits of having a newsletter whether it is one you design, print and mail or one that you put together on the web and send out in an HTML email. A blog, if done well, can serve as the newsletter for your nonprofit with constant updates, success stories, pictures, and needs that are accessible by more people in more ways. When I say accessible in more ways, I am referring to RSS and email subscriptions which we will cover below.
Benefits of a Blog For Your NonProfit
1.Easy to Update
Blogs are much easier and quicker to update for the average person. A new article or change can be updated and be live on the web as fast as you can type and push the publish button. This gets your most relevant information to the web and in front of the world quicker than any other method. No more static web pages; instead, every page on your site will be relevant… This is just an excerpt, see the link below for the
complete article…
Tweet Tweet Nonprofit
So you are ready to Tweet? Great. If nothing else, give it a try and see if it is for you. As a nonprofit or any business, the more avenues in which you can make yourself available to others the better your chances of developing relationships that stick. For more on building relationships that stick, read http://oceangrand.org/building-nonprofit-relationships-equals-success. Twitter is an avenue that can make a huge difference in your knowledge about how to run a successful nonprofit and is a great way to stay in touch up-to-the-minute with supporters, donors, volunteers and grant makers. Read on to learn how you can use Twitter to make a difference in your nonprofit.
Last week we talked about whether “To Tweet or Not to Tweet”, read that here. Hopefully you’re reading this because you have decided to tweet. Take it from us, for an organization that stays in touch with lots of people, nonprofits and others all around the world on a minute by minute basis, you can’t get better than Twitter. By using Twitter, we can keep in touch with all the nonprofit news, initiatives, info on nonprofits we work with, while keeping all that want our information informed up to the second. It’s awesome and once you get the hang of it we believe you will agree. I will briefly run through the benefits to you and your nonprofit using Twitter, then list the steps on how you can get started “Tweeting” yourself. This is just an excerpt, see the link for the complete article…
Tweet or Not to Tweet?
I am writing this after spending the morning on Twitter and FaceBook. You may not have any idea what I am talking about or know just enough to believe it is a waste of your time. That is the whole reason we at Ocean Grand have decided to put together a series of ongoing articles around “social media” for non profits. Read on to learn how social media is here to stay and how you can get on board to help your nonprofit become more successful.
The key to getting, keeping and engaging donors, funders, and corporations is by building a relationship with them. There is no alternative to building relationships, the relationship comes first and always first. There is also no alternative, not even through social media, to engage your non profit supporters in the “flesh”. However, social media is a great platform to tell and retell your story (read more about “your story” here). The more ways you are able to get the information and successes out to people who are interested in them the farther your reach. Social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc) is another way to get your story and successes out to those that want to know about them, plus find some others that maybe interested in the mix.
Social media is also a way to keep donors and others up-to-date with your cause and what you’re doing to impact the world in a simple and easy way. A couple “tweets” (tweets are short messages on twitter) a day will help all those following the progress of your non profit to know what you’re doing today to help the cause. Likewise, it is a great way to invite people to your fundraisers, events and projects. By using Twitter, others who get your tweets can pass the message along very easily, possibly generating lots of buzz about your upcoming function. If those tweets are also posted automatically on your FaceBook “wall”, then you have reached two audiences that otherwise would have had no idea what you were doing. For example, maybe you are holding a fundraiser or event in Virginia. Several tweets throughout the day from your mobile phone and everyone around the world knows how it is going.
This morning I wrote an article on “What Have You Done Lately That You Are Proud Of?” When I posted the article from the Ocean Grand blog http://www.oceangrand.org the post was tweeted and then also sent to our FaceBook wall. Almost instantaneously several people joined our twitter following who were not following before. The link to the article in the tweet was also clicked on and read by many from our twitter following. It was a quick, easy and effective way to let those that were interested know there was a new article.
Slife for Nonprofits
Many working for or running a nonprofit are their own boss. Something catches your eye during the day on a blog (hopefully this one) or what was supposed to be a quick task takes you spinning into the timeless abyss. Before you know it 5:00pm rolls around and you barely accomplished anything during the day. Knowing where you time goes and how to prevent it is where Slife comes in. Whether you work on a Mac or PC Slife can help you track where your time went and put help in place to keep you focused.
