I was watching a documentary on the “Child Witches of Africa”  the other night and it struck me how inhumane man is to man (or in this case innocent children). It is taking place in some of the poorest parts of Nigeria, where evangelical religious fervour is combined with a belief in sorcery and black magic, many thousands of children are being blamed for catastrophes, death and famine: and branded witches. Denounced as Satan made flesh by powerful pastors and prophetesses, these children are abandoned, tortured, starved and murdered: all in the name of Jesus Christ.

I was moved by the efforts of  one inspired, courageuos man to make a difference to this unfolding tragedy, their situation prompted Gary Foxcroft to devote his life to saving these children. He established the charity Stepping Stones Nigeria, in an effort to provide the refuge, comfort and the basics necessary for a child’s development. 

Stepping Stones Nigeria works in partnership with local organisations in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria to build sustainable futures for some of the region’s many disadvantaged children, including protecting, saving and transforming the lives of children who have been stigmatised as being “witches”. Channel 4 broke this story in the UK and consequently won a “BAFTA”

So what has a Website, Blog,  and Social Media (Twitter and Facebook etc) got to do with this. They are the tools and enablers to help get people involved. To get them talking, to  help them find out more, to help get your message out. You might have the greatest cause in the world, but if no one knows about it, then its like that saying “If a tree falls in the forest and you didn’t hear it, did it fall”

I would like to go over some basics for Websites and Blogs for assisting a non profit organisations engage efficientlyand powerfully with their community. In future blogs, I will cover the basics of using “Social Media Tools” like Twitter and Facebook and YouTube for communicating with and empowering your community.

Some Website Guidelines for Non Profits.. 101 

Websites have traditionally been written by programmers in software languages and programming codes like HTML, that required specialist skills, but over the last few years “Open Source” (read free… no license fees ever!!) Content Mangement Systems also called CMS, have been developed that allow companies, NGO’s and individuals to maintain and update websites easily. These are second generation website development tools, that provide cost effective tools to allow people to put up websites and blogs at a fraction of the cost of what it used to be. So what are the basic guidelines for designing a website. You should consider the following.      

• A Content Mangement System (CMS) that allows companies and non profits to easily upload text, images and videos easily instead of getting a programmer in every time to write new code for the website. (see  MSF .. Doctors Without Borders which was developed in Typo3, an Open Source Code CMS ( Content Management System) by Infinity Technologies
• This system should allow multiple users (approved of course with User ID an password)  to update information anywhere, anytime.
• Trained and educated evangelists that you can elicit, to devote time to add content to your Website, Blogs, Facebook and Twitter so you can have high levels of two way communication with your community
• Search Engine Optimised (SEO) so people can find you on Google (maybe even think about Google adwords..Google apparently will consider helping non profits with some assistance)

Blog Guidelines… 101

A blog is where you can put up the latest news and content, that you want your community to read and hear about and they can comment on it ( two way communication). You can upload text, images and videos (eg YouTube) and have it published in minutes. So what are the basics to consider when putting up your non profits blog.

It should include

1. Menu with the link to pages such as.

• About us
• Home (back to your website)

2. Subscription to the Blog by

• RSS Feed as well as
• Email

Note: Put these in both the top menu and right side

3. Search feature for the different blogs on the site

4. Include the following links to each of the following at the top of each blog post (to create some SEO Juice)

• Digg it
• Reddit
• Delicious
• Stumbleupon
• Facebook
• Twitter

5. A Text Box in the right panel to include

A” One ” sentence description of  who your organisation is and what it stands for.

 6. A “Connect with us Box” on right panel that includes connecting via the following means

“Your Organisation on Facebook, Twitter and Subscribe to Blog RSS”

 7. Multi User Blog.. so different users can contribute updated content

 8. Popular Posts Box

 9. Browse by Tag Post Box

 10. Browse by Category

These are some ideas to get you started. So how do you get heard above all that noise ?

 Social Media has been in the news a lot, about how it can be used by business to make profits. What is quite often not realised, is that social media can be utilised to enable non profits and charities to raise money for good causes because NGO’s are all about community, and this raises passion and involvement. Some non profits have worked out early that the power and passion that social media evokes in people can be harnessed for the good.  Other NGO’s have taken a bit longer to realise that social media can be harnessed effectively because it doesn’t cost money it just takes time, a lot of the supporters of charities and non profits are more than happy to spend the time, devoted to helping their favourite charity make a difference. So to help those supporters on the learning curve here are some tips and examples to get you inspired and started. 

“ 20 Social Media Tips and Techniques for Charities, Non-profits, & Philanthropies ” by “Creative Fusion Media” throws a lot of different resources together to assist Non Profits to learn about and use social media, for their causes.

 Nine of my Favourites in this blog include

1. Create a Niche . Oceana’s blog shows great use of dividing their blog into the specific issues and campaigns they deal with, so that you can very quickly see what the causes are about on the very first page
2. Listen, Read and Learn productively using  Google alerts and/or Google reader is a great way to access information. Check out Nonprofit Alltop and Fundraising Alltop to check out what kinds of content does well and to hear interesting new and relevant non-profit news.
3.  Use Social Media Photos. Get a profile on Flickr and create a group for your staff and supporters.
4. Get a social media crash course. Chris Brogan’s Fish Where the Fish Are is a great ebook and a quick read that can help introduce you and your team to social media.
5.  Make it Delicious. Del.icio.us social bookmarking is a great productivity and organizational tool. You can also use it to share info with coworkers, collegues, and funders. The tagging function allows you to separate, segment, and organize your web research and data.
6.  Utilise Blogs such as  WordPress and Typepad to keep the faithful informed, with the latest news and information and resources
7.  Using Twitter For Generating, Managing and Informing Followers for The Cause.  Check out Guy Kawasaki’s tips on getting more Twitter followers,  Tweetdeck helps you manage it, and Darren Rowse’s blog Twit Tip educates you all about twitter and being a better twitterer (is that the word? Perhaps a better twitter citizen, or twitter-zen)
8.  Make Your Own Network or “Tribe”. Make Your Own Social network on Ning. A great example is the Classroom 2.0 group. It only takes 60 seconds.
9.  Using PR to promote the Cause Using Social Media Of course I mean personal relations (as arcane, trite, or banal as that might sound). You can also network on Peter Shankman’s Help a Reporter Out or Wanna Press  (this service just started, so there may be hiccups).

And of course log into one of the top bloggers in the world (Beth Kanter) and she just happens have a blog about non profits which I personally use for inspiration.

Beth’s Non Profit Powerpoint Presentations are on Slideshare

So to wrap it up, once you have learnt some of these skills, you can use it to raise money for your non profit or favourite charity. To inspire you, here is a Post from Mashable by Gradon Tripp that shows how “5 Events That Have Used Social Media for a Good Cause” raise nearly $300,000

But, what we’ve also seen, is social media bringing together people to lend their time to important causes on a global level. By using the sites we LIVE on every day (don’t tell me you haven’t realized you’ve been spending about 30% of your day tweeting)–why not use all of these friends and followers to do something good?

While many people have ideas to start a charitable program or event, actually doing something isn’t as easy. There is planning, event scouting, logistics, food, drink—you name it, it’s tough. Typically, this process can take weeks or months to come together. But, with the help from online communities this process can become even easier, and the results can be nearly instantaneous.

See how (got to love some of these names) Twestival, Tweetsgiving, Tweetathon, Well Wishing and “The Daniella Project” used Twitter to motivate organise and open the pockets of people who cared.

So tell me, what are some of your stories that you can share on how you have used social media for your charity or good cause?

I was at a trade show a few weeks ago and a guest to our stand at Infinity Technologies came up and started talking to us about his web site, that had just been completed by another web designer, and wanted us to have a look at it and see what we thought (about its SEO). So after a brief look we determined that not even SEO 101 basics had been implemented despite his clear directions to the company he had engaged, he left our stand, and I am sure the company who had done the work received a very interesting phone call. 

Search Engine Optimisation is one of the foundations of getting found, whether that is for your blog ,e-commerce site, or your non-profit organisation that is competing for the donation dollar for the cause that matters. Yellow pages are hardly used any more and I have heard of small companies spending upwards of $50,000 a year on this type of media with almost no results with 85% of all purchasing decisions are starting with a Google search, $50,00 can be invested in an SEO strategy, enhance your website, allow you to devote some resources to content, put up a blog, get your twitter site and campaign up and running, and plan and start a social media marketing program and run pay per click campaign on Google. So have a look at these blogs just implement a few of the tactics and strategies and keep learning, but most of all have some fun along the way. 

1. “How to Grow Your Google Authority”

Authority Leads to “Google Authority” so says Chris Brogan from his blog on Blogging and New Media. So what is the real route to better Google rankings? Many new Internet marketers obsess over Google pagerank believing it to be the route to rising in the search results, where in fact pagerank is just one of many factors involved in your search engine ranking and, most misleading, what you see in the Google Toolbar is very inaccurate anyway.

People look at Wikipedia and think they rank so highly and so often because of pagerank, or perhaps because they have a gajillion links, but there is another powerful element we can overlook if we are not careful.

Once relevance, links and keywords are taken into account, the true engines of search engine success are now believed to be “Trust” and “Authority”. But what do those phrases mean in this context, and how do you get more of the good stuff?

So what is authority in your blogging? Authority in general means that people trust you to supply expert insight. The good news is that authorities trusted by human beings are also trusted by Google.

“If a site is an authority in your industry, you can bet that it will be for Google as well. So if you’re a web designer, a link from Smashing Magazine or A List Apart helps, as a lot of other web design sites will be linking to those sites, thus causing those sites to be ‘hubs’ in the web design space.”
– Joost De Valk, Yoast

Authority in a search context takes into account all the elements of a site then determines a grading on the spectrum from completely authoritative through to no authority at all. The more authoritative and trusted your site, the better you will rank.

In fact, being an authority in Google’s eyes is a game-changer. The rules are quite different for authorities and authorities can get away with much more gray and risky behavior than other sites.

There are many factors that directly influence your Google authority including the domain (a .gov is going to be more trusted than a much easier to gain .info), quantity and quality of links, plus traffic elements.

2. Social Media & SEO: The 5 Steps to Success

Lee Odden in this guest post with Mashable lists 5 suggestions on using Social media to optimise you site on search engines. (Lee Odden is the CEO of TopRank Online Marketing and editor at Online Marketing Blog.)

Now because of the GFC ( Great Financial Crisis ) company marketers are charged with improving performance with fewer resources and shifting marketing budgets from traditional to digital tactics like SEO and social media. There are significant benefits from combining search engine optimization and social media marketing tactics ranging from increased social network discovery via search to the ability to attract links for improved SEO.

Making the most out of combining SEO insights with social media marketing tactics can be accomplished with a roadmap that identifies the audience you’re after, the goals you’re trying to reach (and can measure) as well as a strategy that sets the stage for the tactics you’ll use to execute your game plan. Read on to get a better understanding of how SEO and social media complement each other and a step by step guide for creating a social media roadmap.

3. “SEO For YouTube – How To Search Optimize Video For B2B Marketing”

 This is a great blog from Hubspot showing you how to optimize your YouTube video for SEO . Content including videos are an important partg of  inbound marketing.   Given that YouTube is by far the most popular video website, you should be publishing videos there.  You also need to be able to optimize your videos to show up higher in searches on YouTube.  Here’s a great practical demonstration of how to optimise your YouTube Videos.

4. Video “How To Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile For SEO in 4 Minutes”

There are two really quick things you can do on LinkedIn to optimize your profile for SEO — both to make your LinkedIn profile more discoverable, and to make your profile work for you by sending some SEO authority (link juice) to other pages on the web that you choose. The video explains it all and shows you exactly how to do it in under 4 minutes.

In my line of work in the Web and Internet industry I never cease to be amazed at how even the basics of SEO are very often not done. SEO is also not a destination, it is an ongoing journey and challenge to ensure that you have the best chance in an Ocean called  the Web that your company, NGO, or name will  will be found  when that key word or phrase is put into that search engine. To every one of my clients I strongly suggest that they invest in SEO or why even bother to take the time and investment in developing a website. What is the point of spending $50,000 or $100,000 if you are going to be on page 100 of Google.

We are entering a new phase in business where commerce is moving more and more online and it is a different  game, so you need to win or your competitors will.

As I promised in my last post, here are 6 more great resources on using Facebook, for companies, personal branding and NGOs (Non Profits). What you will find in fact is that there isn’t 6 but a “Bonus” which makes 7, which is about “5 Tips for Enhancing Your Brands Presence on Facebook”.

A lot of people end up being passionate about one type of media, like Facebook, Blogs, Twitter, YouTube and MySpace, to communicate, interact and market themselves and their organisations. What you have to keep in mind is that they all work together and provide synergies.   Remember that your communityand the Web is made up of  individuals and they all have different ways of taking in information. Some like reading, others listen to a podcast, the younger generations may want to watch a video, and maybe even an email from time to time. I am sure you have contacted people and left a voicemail and there was no answer but send an sms and hey.. you get a reply.. so what is great about the evolutionary social media space and especially Facebook is that almost all the different types of communication can be found in one location. So communicate in different ways in different places and you might be surprised by what happens. The only thing is that we all tend to have is limited resources, especially time.

So have a look at these resources, hopefully they might save you some time.

1. “Why Is Vin Diesel So Popular on Facebook?”

With all due respect, I wouldn’t put Vin Diesel in the upper echelon of movie actors. But on Facebook, the Fast & Furious star is second to none among the Hollywood elite.

He’s currently adding hundreds of thousands of fans daily, and with more than 3.4 million of them at the moment, the only “person” bigger than Diesel on Facebook is President Obama. How’s he doing it?  Simple: Authenticity.

It’s really one of the first lessons you hear over and over again when talking about marketing your brand in social media – whether it’s a company or a person – but so many stars still put their brand in the hands of professional managers on sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter.

Diesel appears to have been doing this too – up until about a month ago when his updates went from standard fare – clips of TV appearances and an event schedule – to authentic updates and interaction from the star.

2. “Building Your Online Brand With Social Media Tools”

Social Media tools have an enormous power to put you in contact with thousands of people. Attention on its own is useless, what are you going to do with that attention?

If you want to build your online brand you have to know how all your activities work together. You need a consistency and congruency. Each part of the social media puzzle builds into a picture people have of you, how they imagine you to be relates to how you really are to the degree you get this stuff right.

If you are approaching social media in a haphazard way, do not be surprised if things do not work out exactly as you hoped or imagined they would.

3. Basic Facebook Strategy: 5 Simple Steps

Facebook is my #1 favorite social networking website. I have done so well with facebook that it took me many months to even look at another social media website.  I suggest that you start with facebook and dedicate more time to mastering it than the other social websites.

Many marketers are exclusively focused on Twitter right now and forget about Facebook.  Facebook has it’s own rules and you can get banned if you don’t follow them.

Here’s the basic Facebook strategy in 5 simple steps.  You don’t want to do too much at once, or you get banned. Doing  a little bit at a time adds up quickly.

4. 10 Ways to Use Facebook to Increase Traffic to Your Website

More than 115 million people login to Facebook every month. It is the largest social networking tool and a great place in the web for building your brand and driving traffic to your site. However, if you are not familiar with the viral techniques that work in the Facebook platform, soon you will find your brand tarnished. You can gain quick exposure to your businesses using the techniques discussed in this article.

5. “9 Great Facebook Resources and Posts”

Mashable has provided resources and analysis of Facebook from building a better Facebook page to making a truly viral Facebook meme, They have served up articles from expert guest writers and Mashable team members that aim to educate, inform and help build your business or personal profile on the popular social network.

6. “30 Applications for Doing Business on Facebook”

Think  LinkedIn is the only place for business? Facebook is growing rapidly and it’s becoming a destination for businesses and business professionals alike to establish a presence. Here are over 30 Facebook applications to help promote, network, communicate, collaborate and accomplish more with your business.

Which apps do you use?  Please feel free to add them in the comments.

7. “5 Tips for Enhancing Your Brands Facebook Presence”

So – you’ve set up a Facebook public profile for yourself, your brand or your company, or your non profit  and you’re starting to post content. Now what?

If you’re like me – a tinkerer and tweaker – you might be interested in ways to fine-tune your profile for maximum affect.  So here are five tips to optimize your activities on Facebook, including the right way to create profile and thumbnail graphics, how to show different content to Fans and non-Fans, creating DIY vanity urls, and how managing what and when you post can lead to greater success.

Facebook  has been adding new functions and features that enable Companies, Non Profits and Individuals to promote their brand, raise money and increase sales and have conversations with their communities and networks. The following posts are some of the latest reviews and studies of what is unfolding in “Social Media” in the Facebook space, that I have come across and provided updates on my Twitter site . Facebook’s user base is reportedly  approaching 300 Million and still growing fast. Twitter is becoming mainstream. Online video usage is up 53% in the last 12 months on sites such as YouTube as Social Media continues to revolutionise the Web. How to use this fast emerging media is a constant challenge. These are some posts from bloggers such as Beth Kanter, John Haydon and others that will help you develop your own strategies for working and enabling this technology.  

1. Facebooks Application Profile Pages Might Give Brands a Boost  

This post covers how pages are valuable in helping brands? Similar to users’ own profile pages, these public pages feature a stream of information about the brand, including notes, photos, or items from other applications. Users can comment and like items that brands share, such as a video, and see activity about the page in their own home streams. And, in terms of applications, brand owners can already integrate third party applications — a video application could be used to feature a brand’s video in the page, for example.

 2. 5 Lessons Celebrities Can Teach Us About Facebook Pages

 This post covers some of the “good and the bad” that celebrities who are on Facebook can teach us about promoting Your “Personal Brand” including lessons on being authentic and offering fresh content. It includes examples of  how the celebrities use Facebook including Britney Spears, Ashton Kutcher, Vin Diesel, Michael Phelps, and Lady GaGa

3. Here is The Low Down on How Non-Profits Can Use Facebook… from Facebook   

This Page is a resource for non-profits and other organizations for the social good. It  The page was built to harness the power of Facebook and bring positive change to the world according to Facebook. This is facebooks own hints and recommendations to use facebook for NGO’s. 

It includes What can other non-profits learn from ONE? ONE is an advocacy and campaigning organization of over 2 million people and growing, from all walks of life all around the world, uniting as one against extreme poverty. It is a non-Profit with 84,464 fans

If you go to http://www.facebook.com/ONE you’ll see that the default tab you land on is a tab called “JOIN ONE” rather than the tab “wall.” This provides a more customized experience and also promotes sign-ups for ONE’s email list, something that is important to many organizations.

 4.” So you Want a Facebook Fan Page for Your Nonprofit? Here’s the Scoop!” 

 A question that everyone asks – “When should my group set up a Fan Page versus a Facebook Group?
Best Answer yet:   Set up a Facebook FanPage as your main presence or outpost and use a group for more adhoc, smaller organizing. Some great examples of how Non Profits are using Facebook check out these 3 NGOs use of Facebook.  Red Cross Fan Page,  One Campaign and Stanford University.

 5. “How To Create A Powerful And Engaging Facebook Page”

 Facebook is undoubtedly one of the most popular social media services used by individuals, businesses and non-profits to connect with people. Groups and Pages are excellent options to leverage the large network and reach of this popular platform. Lately, Facebook Pages have become quite popular among businesses to show their presence in a much better way building engaging and long lasting relationships with users and fans. Let’s see how to make an interactive Facebook page that gives a reason to your fans to stay, interact and promote your cause.

 6. “New Facebook Pages: A Guide For Social Media Marketers”  

As more and more marketers use Facebook as a key conduit for brands online, it is important to note some of the new changes to their Business Pages. Following last fall’s overall redesign, these pages will now migrate to the same Wall and tabs design that personal profiles have used.

7. “How To Build Your Personal Brand on Facebook”

 With over 200 million active users, Facebook has become a personal, product and corporate branding hub. Every brand that exists on Facebook  has the same core features and benefits, such as the ability to create a page, share resources, add multimedia and much more. You have a unique opportunity to leverage this platform for career success or as a playground for you and your closest friends.

Look out for my next post which will have another 6 more great resources on using Facebook, for companies, personal branding and NGOs.

The processes involved in creating a social media campaign has been open to many discussions by many people as to how to do it effectively and as I indicated in my last blog I would give a further insight  into one type of approach to social media marketing after my recent discussions with Fi Bendall.  Her approach requires initially setting a baseline so that the success of the campaign can be measured. It also requires that thorough background research be done before the campaign is implemented. Following is an overview of her processes and strategy. 

Step 1: Research & Prepare

This involves the following Activities

• Identify social network channels, e.g; social media neighbourhoods, third party influencers, etc
• Identify activists target habits – online by segment
• Identify Opinion leaders in the group – This is done  by targetting activists who frequently offer or are elicited for category-related advice through Self Designation (opinion leader scales*),  Key Informant,  Professional Activity,  Digital Trace and Sociometry
• Identify the best “Social media marketing” practices against each group and their habits
• Listen and monitor the tone of the communications online, so any social material we create is in the “tone and speak” of the online communities.

Step 2: Engage Due Diligence

No social media campaign should be undertaken without due diligence. The community not organisations owns the social channel. Due diligence in social media is to “listen”. Providing a clear insight into “What’s on our minds”; “What’s our emotive triggers”; “How are we speaking – tone and language” ; “Where are we hanging out online – What is the online social neighbourhood?”.

This research and preparation grounds any strategy and recommendations, it is also a process of ongoing analysis to keep up with our society and their thoughts to best serve the right message, the right engagement, at the right time, for maximum viral input.

Step 3. Monitor Blogs and Provide Feedback

• So you can use blogs for ongoing research and, following the conversation threads to track influencers and engage with them as advocates
• Posting feedback, helping your client through training to conduct an ongoing, resource light post back strategy and implementation
• Providing snap-shot tracking reports
• Monitor the activity with access to your own analytics to see where the uptake and successes are to prove:
• Measure the volume of traffic
• Breakout the volume of uptake generated by the social media marketing activity as opposed to the normal traffic
• Measure the impact of the social media marketing activity

 Step 4. Engage with Blogs

We will engage with specific elements of the blog community to create new highly emotive conversations and useful content pieces to the online wider audience than the traditional activist base you already has. We will create debate to the broadest reach of audience who may not even be aware of the issues. We will put the issues front of mind through powerful emotive commentary that they can connect with. We will understand the emotive arc through the initial research phase of the activity, because we will ask them.

Step 5. Enable Social Media Online Consumer Relations through

• Listening to online conversations
• Identifying opinion leaders
• Developing content based on what is learnt
• Participating, commenting and generating interest
• Becoming a resource
• Supporting your client to build your online personality through the training program
• Syndicating RSS content
• Using your social media user generated content, cut up and repurposed for Online Consumer Relations.

 Step 6. Optimise the Social Media by

• Increasing your linkability
• Making tagging and bookmarking easy
• Rewarding inbound links
• Helping your content travel
• Encouraging the mash-up
• Implementing “Keyword” strategy incorporation
• Developing contextual links within the body of the content
• Citation strategy

Step 7: Reporting

1. Pre-activity word of mouth benchmark report will be supplied at the start of the research,

2. Ongoing snap-shot reports to measure results. The reports will measure social media marketing & advocacy success

3. Ensuring Check’s and Benchmarks are  enabled by:

• Using ‘control areas’ where the word of mouth campaign is run in order to measure the effect of the campaign
• Measuring changes in word of mouth pre-and post-actions and track online word of mouth to measure changes of the ratio of word of mouth
• Tracking recommendation rates and how they change over time
• Including an online element that allows use of web statistics and online feedback to measure reach and participation levels
• Reporting on the brand behaviour within the environment and the impact on the brand as a result of the new social contact methods

4. Final Report 

In Summary What Should be the Outcomes of  the Social Media Marketing?

• Extending communications beyond the organisations traditional borders
• Speaking the voice of the individual
• Targeting influential’s
• Encouraging engagement with the community
• Being sensitive to “social speak”
• Creating critical authenticity
• Becoming highly interconnected
• Make news travel fast
• Enabling feedback and interaction as a fundamental core of your activities

The use of Social Media and its role in helping Charities and Not For Profit Organisations engage with their community is becoming very evident. I was talking to Fi Bendall the other day who has worked in this area extensively, including Amnesty International Australia and Earth Hour Global and below is a snap shot of her findings.

“The impact of social media, from blogs, to video, to the rise of user-generated content has been widely reported. The impact of the social web on society has had a major impact on how the public are addressing global problems, and how citizens are becoming social activists to raise money and support for social causes through the power of social media.

Online sites, such as Kiva.Org, Causes on Facebook, DonorsChoose and Change.org have been pioneers in the way humanity views philanthropy and activism, as well as how many individuals go about trying to improve life on our planet. Online social activism has become a sector bound together by a growing critical mass, in online usership, online community with an expanding acceptance in the worlds of philanthropy, politics, activism and marketing.

The online world is always “turned on” and always “connected” and delivers results, for example:

The US 2008 presidential campaign generated tens of millions in contributors supporting candidates, in particular the social media campaign by Obama being the most famous. Kiva.Org, a not-for-profit start up uses social networking to direct loans from everyday people to small-scale entrepreneurs in the developing world. It grew from zero to more than 270,000 leaders in less than three years making loans of $26,149,810 USD. DonorsChoose, hot-housed in a Bronx public school just after the year 2000 delivered more than $25million USD to school teachers. GlobalGiving a not-for-profit founded in 2002, has funnelled more than $6million USD to 900 projects around the world. Cause on Facebook leveraged social networks most popular hub, to sign up 12 million supporters and raise $2.5 million USD for various causes.

People have the ability to get vocal, be part of a solution and lobby governments in a way they never have before. Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans sent the online social community into a frenzy of donations, missing persons posting and consequentially firing up American society’s horror and sheer anger at the latency of their governments response to the disaster. The online call to action became so loud that the Bush Administration had to make a public announcement on the issues of getting aid into the State so late. The online social environment is a fertile ground for fast-moving social activism, allowing for an individuals charitable involvement that is both personal and open to the world. Together through social connections, Ben Rattray, founder of Change.org calls them the “mega-public” a vast inter-connected army of people, who at least in part, want to change the world.

Of late, Australia’s own natural disaster, the Victorian Bushfires is still generating a mention every 9 minutes online as the author types, within 24 hours of the major centre of the fires hitting, tens of thousands of people joined a supporters group on Facebook, millions in donations were generated through Twitter and Tweetfestivals alone.

Social media has allowed for “self-organisation” and it delivers online social activism, non-profit fundraising, connected social entrepreneurship, political organising, flash causes and digital philanthropy. It overlaps into the larger world of organised charity and non-profits of politics and policy organisation and changes them. Millions are using social networks to raise money, push for votes, bring attention to some cause, big or small, that will make the world a better place. It is important to note that the most successful organisations using the social media channel are the ones who adjust their business and social models as they go along to keep in tune with the online highly emotive community chatter.

Social Media Audiences and Social Causes

There are distinctive differences emerging between the generations online, that any social media cause campaign should consider, in terms of content and strategy.

• 12-24 year olds – To their generation they live online, their causes are online and there is no separation between virtual and reality. They wear “the badge” even if their donations are the smallest of other demographic groups to make a statement.
• 24- 55 year olds – The most likely group to pass a message on, get vocal and behind a message, they will collaborate to move the wider collective group into making an action.
• 60 years old plus – The fastest growing audience online in Australia today and are recorded as being the most similar to the “tech savvy” as the younger audience demographic.

Sources: Mckinsey; Nielson; Audit Bureau of Circulation Au.

Social Media Demographic and Insights
Courtesy of the following Foundations: The Columbus Foundation, The Saint Paul Foundation and The San Francisco Foundation.
The analysis of social media power users revealed the group was younger than the traditional composition of donors one would find in a charity’s database. Forty-seven percent were aged 30-49, 40 percent were under the age of 30, and only 13 percent were 50 or older. Almost two thirds (62 percent) were female.

• 30 years and younger were not a high dollar donor generation: Only 4 percent donated $5,000 or greater in 2008, and only 11 percent donated more than $1,000.
• 20 percent of those between the ages of 30-49 gave more than $5,000 and 41 percent gave $1,000 or more, demonstrating potential for higher dollar contributions.
• 50 years and older, 47 percent gave more than $5,000 and 66 percent gave $1,000 or greater.
• The rest of the analysis focused on the 30-49 and over 50 age brackets as they represent the greatest opportunity for online cultivation of high dollar donors.
• 30-49 age brackets and the over 50 bracket have used social media to discuss philanthropy.
• 84 percent of the social media savvy aged 30-49 and 55 percent of those older than 50 used conversational media for these purposes.

N ote: This confirms social media is a potential growth area through which major donors can be cultivated.

Some of the statistics that show that “Trust” in social media is significant among social media savvy would-be donors.

Sixty one percent of those aged 30-49 trust social networks and blogs to provide important information, as is the case with 44 percent of those 50 years or older.

With 30-49 year olds, social media use is also very high with
* 91 percent of users participating in social networks
* 81 percent participating in blogs
* 56 percent participating in message boards.

Among those 50 and older
* 94 percent participate in social networks
*78 percent participate in blogs
* 60 percent participate in message boards.

Of all the forms of social media used by 30-49-year-olds, “only social networks and blogs received greater than 40 percent rankings” for “trust.” Specifically, 66 percent trust social networks and 50 percent trust blogs. In the over 50 bracket, 62 percent trust social networks and 42 percent trust blogs.

One of the most interesting learning’s from this data was that both the social media savvy groups in the 30-49 age bracket and the over 50′s prefer social media, with Blogs being the second most trusted source.
Whether for personal use or trust in third party sites, blogs represent the second most viable source of information next to social networks (among both the digital rich and the traditional brackets). After blogs, message boards, forums, wikis and review sites were all deemed more credible than videos or podcasts.

Social media savvy respondents demonstrate a significant opportunity for NGO’s to provide social media. Among 30-49 year olds, 81 percent said they would participate if the information was highly credible and of strong quality, and 77 percent said they would participate if it came from a trusted source. Even more telling, 86 percent of those 50 and older said they would participate if the information was highly credible and of strong quality, and 84 percent would participate if social media came from a trusted source.”

In the next post we will cover some of the processes involved in creating “Social Media Strategies”.