Geeking For Good

In the interest of practising what I preach, I'd like to share with you a project I've implemented at work involving Foursquare. RSPCA Australia has a scheme called Choose Wisely:

Choose Wisely businesses serve humanely produced eggs, chicken or pork (or all three) at a Gold, Silver or Bronze level, depending on whether they use them in all or some of their products.

As the participating businesses are restaurants and cafes, I thought it was a perfect way we could experiment with location-based services. If you're in Australia, you can search for "rspca choose wisely" in Foursquare and find the nearest businesses near you that participate. I've put in a request with Foursquare to see if we can have a special badge for venue check-ins, but I haven't heard back yet. So - community feedback time - what do you think?

Today I’d like to highlight a few projects created by some social changemakers doing good for the Australian community.

Riding4acause

• Site: Riding4acause.org
• Twitter: @Riding4acause
• Facebook: Causes page

Riding4acause is a project by to raise awareness for male depression by 3 guys riding motorcycles. Their goal is to raise male depression – which is suffered by 1 in 8 men worldwide. From their website:

They will embark on their first major ride in September 2010, from Sydney to Glen Helen Resort  (see Rides page), joining Steve Andrews from Black Dog Ride, in an Australian wide initiative to educate the community about Male Depression. One year later, in September 2011, the guys will ride across the USA,  from Disneyland to Disneyworld, (the happiest places on earth, full route details here) leaving LA on the 25th of September 2011, arriving at Florida just in time for Biketoberfest.

The Perfect Gift For A Man

• Site: ThePerfectGiftForAMan.com.au
• Facebook: Fan page

The Perfect Gift For A Man is a book with 30 stories about reinventing manhood. The book includes some amazing stories by well-known Aussies in the social media space. While you can download the free e-book, you can also buy a physical copy, with profits going to the Inspire Foundation.

5CentTweet

• Site: 5CentTweet.wordpress.com
• Twitter: @5CentTweet

5CentTweet is a project I only learnt about today, but it looks very promising. The brainchild of @Glebe2037, the project is asking participants to donate 5 cents for every tweet they send during 2010, starting February. At the moment, there is a call for charity nominations to determine which organisation will get the funds. I’d like to start profiling more campaigns like the one above, so if you are involved in any similar projects, please let me know.

When adding online and social media into the traditional communications and marketing mix, it’s easy to be swept up in the technology. Because online can provide us with so many metrics, it’s easy to forget you’re dealing with people, not numbers on a spreadsheet or fancy graphs in an analytics package.

Numbers are nice. But connecting with people is better – and more important.

I think if we can start our work with the mindset of “What behaviour do we want to create that people will want and need?” rather than “How do we do this thing that we’ve always done, but do it better digitally?”, we could more easily be creating these analog interactions in a digital world.

- Nic Hodges, “Uneven Distribution”

If your mindset is to do the same old thing in a new medium, you are selling your organisation short. It’s time to flip your thinking.

• Don’t just make people read your stories. Listen to your supporters stories.
• Don’t just wait for people to come to you for help. Proactively seek out opportunities for you to help people.
• Don’t just create communications. Create community.

Rather than isolating people, the use of social media and other online technologies increases how well-connected people feel to each other and to the causes they love.

- Kivi’s Nonprofit Communications Blog, “2010 Predictions: Number 1 is I’ll Keep Referring You to Beth”

How are you using social media to learn more about your supporters as people, and the stories they have to tell? How are you building a better community?

I put the call out on Twitter the other night to see if anyone would be interested in an Australian social good podcast, and had some positive feedback, so I’ve been thinking about how such a podcast could be run. Here’s some initial thoughts to get some ideas flowing: Motivation – Why start a social good podcast? I’d like to see the nonprofit technology and social good types sharing ideas with the digital community at large. I’m seeing a trend where the lines between digital and social good are blending for the better – take #manweek and Perfect Gift For A Man as just one example. Audience – Who would listen? Anyone interested in the intersection of social good and digital. Material – What would we talk about? How to use technology and social media to advance social good; the theory, execution and promotion of nonprofit/social good campaigns; discussion of wider digital trends and their potential application in the social good space. Given the material, perhaps a 15-30 minute runtime would be ideal. What do you think? Is this something you would be interested in participating in or listening to? Would you be keen to volunteer your time and expertise to help get this off the ground? Leave your comments and ideas below!

In case you missed it in my tweetstream, I went to Social Media Club Sydney last night to see MC Hammer. Hammer is an absolute class act. Charming, articulate, and really well-versed in social media. His talk was very engaging and peppered with anecdotes that demonstrated Hammer is actually a major geek. He truly gets social media and has much to teach celebrities, brands, agencies and nonprofits. Some of the parts talk that resonated with me:

Why would you embrace social media as a brand? … You should never let somebody else tell your story.

I completely agree with Hammer in that brands should be using social media to help control flow of information. That said, in the case of nonprofit organisations (and to some extent, brands), they need to be encouraging other people to tell their stories too – interweaving the stories of an organisation and their supporters can enrich the social media experience for all involved.

Don’t run – engage. The humanising of your product is actually an asset.

Another takeaway that’s perfect for non-profits. Don’t be a faceless organisation – be human, be social – we’re talking about social media after all.

… be disruptive and shake up the world.

While the comment was aimed at entrepreneurs, I think it’s relevant for all – if anyone is to make a difference in the world, you have to be disruptive. Upset the status quo and make things better. In addition, Hammer talked with us about citizen journalism, social media analytics and gadgets. His talk was such a positive experience, and it was great to hear about social media from someone who lives and breathes it, in a very authentic and awesome way. Kudos to Social Media Club Sydney for the great night, and thank you MC Hammer for your time!

This week saw the wider public gain access to Twitter lists, and the posts have been rolling in about how nonprofits can incorporate Lists into their social media strategy:

• Geeking For Good: How non-profits can take advantage of Twitter Lists
• Amy Sample Ward’s Version of NPTech: Twitter Lists for Nonprofits
• John Haydon: Why Twitter lists are huge for your non-profit or small business [video tutorial]
• Wild Apricot Blog: Twitter Lists 101 (the original post is older than a week, however it’s a great resource and comments have continued well into this week)

In other news, Causes on Myspace is shutting down due to lack of activity (HT @rootwork). Entries are open for AshokaTECH’s “Blog your way to Hyderabad” competition, for those interested in an all-expenses-paid way to get to the event. The winner will be the official blogger, and will be expected to tweet, maintain a live blog, and interview attendees. Earlybird registrations are now open for the 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference in Atlanta.

I’m presenting at Website Redesign: Managing and Working with Social Media next month, so I’m hurriedly trying to finish my presentation before the due date.

My topic is Exploring the different platforms – where I’ll be discussing the various social media platforms, how to maintain your presences there, and how social media can be incorporated in websites to make them more Web 2.0.

The audience will be mostly corporate types, and from the looks of the speaker list, I’m the only non-profit person presenting. Here’s what I’m hoping to impart:

Look (and listen) before you leap.

Find out where your audience are already. Using tools such as Forrester’s Social Technographics Tool, you can gauge the existing behaviour of your target audience in the social computing space.

Find out what people are already saying about your brand, products or services online. The tools are free and readily available, such as:

• Google Blog Search
• Twitter Search
• Facebook Search
• YouTube or YouTube Comment Search

If you have the budget, sign up to social media monitoring services – two Australian-based services are dialogix and BuzzNumbers.

Be open. Engage.

Don’t lock your social presence down. Let people comment on your YouTube videos, write on your Facebook wall and leave comments on your MySpace. Opening your company up to positive comments and potential criticisms is a good thing. Respond. Interact. Be human. Put your name in your Twitter Bio, and sign off with your name on Facebook or MySpace posts.

You don’t need a huge budget to get social

Nor do you need to make a huge impact to get value from social media. My organisation has some pretty good follower numbers across various platforms, but we’re not after numbers. We’re after engagement. If we can inspire just a small group of followers to take action or make a comment on an issue, I’m happy.

Integrate social media into your website.

Your website is no longer the only touchpoint for your brand. That’s why it’s essential to reach out and connect on social networks. Be aware that people use social networks for different reasons, therefore adapt your strategy for each platform.

Conversely, people who do visit your website may not realise you’re on various social networks. Make your website visitors aware of this, and you can enhance their experience of the brand.

• Put social network badges prominently on the homepage.
• Create a “social media” page on your website.
• Make your media release section interactive. Embed YouTube videos and Flickr galleries in your online press releases.
• Embed Twitter Gadgets that automatically update with brand keywords on various pages.

What are you thoughts?

Earlier this year I attended the ConnectingUp Australia conference and had the pleasure of meeting Peter Deitz, founder of Social Actions. I love the idea of the “open philanthropic web” that Social Actions is creating. The platform provides many opportunities for people wanting to take action relating to the causes they are passionate about.

With over 60 action sources, there is a constant stream of ways for people to change the world. The Social Actions API is where the real beauty of Social Actions lies. Developers can take the data and create any number of mashups – such as web widgets, Wordpress plugins, Facebook apps and Twitter feeds.

The action sources are US- and UK-centric, however that does not stop Australians from using the platform. Two quick ways to take advantage of Social Actions is using Twitter or Delicious.

• Twitter – use the hashtag #takeaction in your tweets.
• Delicious – use the tag takeaction when saving bookmarks.

These will then be picked up by the Social Actions API – I told you it was simple!

My first foray into playing with the Social Actions data was to create @OzActions – which tweets Australia-related actions. It took less than five minutes. You can follow this or any of the other Twitter Action Packs to be alerted of opportunities relating to issues you care about.

Leave a comment, or connect with me at my.socialactions.com.

Rumour has it that Twitter Lists have now been rolled out to half of all Twitter users. I believe that the Lists functionality will provide non-profits with some great opportunities for outreach and engagement, not to mention enhance the Twitter experience for organisations and their followers.

Below are just a few List building ideas for non-profits:

1. Your organisation’s chapters and campaigns. If your organisation is federated, with multiple state- or city-based chapters, group these together in one list with any campaign-specific accounts. This will help you and your followers keep track of what is happening across all organisation accounts at a glance. No more hunting through the timeline or Twitter search for the latest news!
2. Related international organisations and campaigns. As above, keeping track of what’s happening will keep you and your organisation connected globally.
3. Organisations that are somewhat related to your organisation. If you work for an animal welfare organisation, you could follow organisations relating to animal therapy. Organisations focussed on poverty abroad could follow organisations that deal with issues relating to poverty, like health or microfinance, both abroad and in your own country.
4. Celebrities, politicians and others with a high profile. Whether you know they are supporters of your cause or not, keeping track of high-profile people could help you easily recognise and act on tweets that relate to your cause.
5. Media. As with celebrities, keep track of what journalists and bloggers are tweeting about. You never know when an opportunity to discuss your organisation could pop up.
6. Volunteers. What better way to keep volunteers engaged than to know what’s going on in their life and keep in contact? You may want to keep this list private.
7. Retweeters and people who have contacted you. As above, this can help you keep track of those people who are influenced by your organisation. An added bonus of this is you can work out just how many of your followers are actively engaged with you online. For example, if you have 1000 total followers, and 300 people in this list, you could gauge that your influence is quite high. Nurture these relationships, as these people – your most important Twitter assets – are reacting to and passing on your messages.

   Now, these lists could take some time to set up and maintain, but I see them as an essential part of non-profits’ social media activities.

   What lists will you be setting up? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

I’m excited. Really excited. Want to know why? TweetsGiving, one of the most successful events held that shows how well social media can be used for social good, is on again. Last year during TweetsGiving over $10,000 was raised in 48 hours, which was then used to build a classroom in Arusha (Tanzania). This year, it’s back. And I’m proud to be organising the Canberra event (details TBC). Part of the proceeds will go towards improving the school in Arusha, as well as funding new projects by other Epic Change partners. Last night, one of the ‘TwitterKids of Tanzania’ (see #TwitterKids or @ShepherdsJr for related tweets) sent me a message on Twitter. That made my night – and is a perfect example of what I get out of Twitter – the ability to connect with new, interesting people. So a big “Hujambo!” to Gladys and the other TwitterKids of Tanzania – I’m really looking forward to TweetsGiving and the chance to help you!