360PR Blog

As many non-profits operate with limited budgets in such a tough economy, to take advantage of social media is a no-brainer.  Many of these tools (Twitter, FaceBook, etc.) are absolutely FREE to use and can be a huge help to non-profits looking to spread the word, interact and gather feedback from various audiences.

This point was made crystal clear during “Thriving and Surviving in Uncertain Times: Digital Marketing Techniques for Non-profits” (#NGOSM09), an event that was hosted by the Council of PR Firms and held at the (awesome) Boston Museum of Science yesterday. A few of us at 360 attended and the speaker line-up included agency execs like 360′s own Laura Tomasetti, Carol Cone of Cone, David Almacy of Waggener Edstrom and local non-profits including The Museum of Science, The Boston Center for Adult Education, and Everybody Wins! USA.

I pulled together a handful of key tid-bits from the session that I thought were worth calling out:

• The use of new media is not an objective – it is a tactic. Don’t get caught up in using the tools for the sake of using the tools.
• Prioritize and pick your platform. Don’t try to dive into all the social media tools at once. Take a stepped approach. Find what works for you.
• Integrate social media outreach with other communications – try to go out with the same message at the same time across platforms.
• The quality of your interaction with a community is more important than quantity.
• Keep online videos short and put the most important stuff at the beginning (people only watch the first seconds of a video, in most cases).
• The Dunbar 150 theory says that the human brain can only maintain stable social relationships with 150 people at any given time. This can be applied to the concept of online relationships as well.
• Think of your digital strategy from the get go – from the very beginning stages of campaign planning.

In addition a number of resources were thrown around at the event, including:

• Twellow.com – Yellow Pages for Twitter
• Twitter.grader.com – helps you find influencers on Twitter
• Qwitter – lets you track people who were following you on Twitter, but are no longer following you
• Going.com – social network for events (great for listing your upcoming events)
• Yelp.com – reviews site (tends to rank high in search engines)
• UStream – live interactive streaming video
• MobileActive.org – blog includes directory listing of nonprofits using mobile tech as well as other tools and resources

For a few more take-aways, check out Don Martelli’s blog post recap of the event. And thanks to the Council for hosting the event!

Filed under: Cause-Related, Digital PR, Events and Conferences, Industry Organizations, Social Media |