If you want to use social media to build your audience, attract new volunteers, sell your artwork, or change the world, there is one thing you can do to make your campaigns more dynamic, interesting and effective.
Use social media personally. Continue reading
Image by webtreats via Flickr
This post is part of a series. Catch up on other secrets to social media success here.
It’s ok to admit it–we’ve all been there. At one time or another almost every organization’s social media strategy basically boiled down to “we’ll make a video that goes viral and then everyone will know and love us.”
As many of us have learned the hard way, setting out to create a single video that goes viral and solves all of our marketing and fundraising challenges doesn’t count as a social media strategy–it counts as a pipe dream. That having been said, creating the right content and sharing it in the right way can help you build a support base. These seven tips will help you get started. Continue reading
Image by Kaptain Kobold via Flickr
I love social media. I also know using it effectively is a powerful advantage for the nonprofits who make the investment. Thanks to that enthusiasm, I sometimes gloss over the medium’s downsides. So when Katya Andresen called for “good, bad, and ugly” posts for the March Nonprofit Blog Carnival, I knew it was time to paint a more complete picture of social media for nonprofits. Continue reading
While the inclusion of this clip may seem like a sad attempt to revive interest in the movie Swingers, I promise there is more to it. There is a strong connection between the advice given in this scene and the key to success in social media.
Did you find it? Continue reading
There are, of course, exceptions to the "people try not to cry" rule
When a novice actor does a scene where his character cries, his first instinct is to “make” himself cry. He does this in one of two ways–either he obsesses over all the sad things in his life, or in the character’s life, until he can squeeze out a real tear; or he pantomimes crying by making crying sounds and scrunching up his face.
Either choice is understandable, but the effect is fake. In the first instance the audience sees a dude who is trying too hard and in the second they see a caricature of real life. Neither is good theatre.
Novice social media users can be spotted in similar ways. The “method” users can be found over-sharing the personal details of their lives from their business twitter account while the pantomimers are busy setting up automatic “thanks for following me, please visit my website!” direct messages.
Luckily, there are other (better) options. Continue reading
Low Hanging Fruit Communications 