Yesterday Alyssa and I were able to attend the Open Media Foundation's (OMF) annual community breakfast. Thanks very much to The Denver Foundation for inviting us!

Community Shares is a big believer in engaging web content. We believe that our website should be a vibrant and vital part of our overall communications and needs to attract new and returning visitors rather than serving as a static placeholder which is rarely used or visited.

Content is everything when you're building an online presence and OMF can help you build it easily and cheaply.

Tony Shawcross, Executive Director of OMF said in his speech that the top 10 websites in the world are all driven by the people who visit them. OMF's mission is to put the power of media and technology into the hands of the community. They encourage others to think of media as any and all content that reaches an audience. I think that this is a very accessible and inclusive definition and if more nonprofits take this definition and run with it we'll be able to highlight the areas of our society that the mainstream media fails to report on.

If you're looking to take the next step in your social media and general online presence as an organization, please consider utilizing the services of OMF. They can help you be strategic and provide the tools to help you move in a new direction.

Common Sense Social Media for Your Nonprofit

Jason and I just wrapped up a training for the Fall 2010 Colorado Nonprofit Association Conference titled: Common Sense Social Media for Your Nonprofit.


View the entire Common Sense Social Media PowerPoint here.


Key Take-Aways:
CHOOSE THE TOOLS LAST

• Forget the tools themselves initially
• Each tool is used for different types of conversations
• Who do you want to talk to?
• How/Where do they like to interact?
• What do they want to talk about?
• Now choose the tools you use!

Create a stakeholder list for your organization (who you do talk to you and who you want to talk to) and then find out where they spend their time online.  For Community Shares, that looks like this:

• Individuals – Personal Facebook
• Nonprofits – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube
• HR Directors – LinkedIn, Industry Blogs, Comment Boards
• Local Media – Comment Boards, Twitter
• Local Foundations – (late adopters) Twitter
• Innovators – Twitter, Self-Published Blogs, Industry Blogs, Comment Boards
• Connectors – LinkedIn, Personal FB
• Industry Peers – (late adopters) Twitter

This means we need to be on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and start reaching out to comment and interact on industry blogs.  (Welcome to Digital (non)Prophets!)


USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO EXTEND YOUR BRAND

• brand has attributes
• word used to describe brand – functional and emotional
• brand has benefits
• experience of association
• because I use this product, I am this
• because I give to this nonprofit, I am this
• attributes are important, benefits are more important

CREATE A STRATEGY TO MAKE IT EASY TO PARTICIPATE
In a future blog post we'll share our specific strategies for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and My Colorado. For now, here's our umbrella strategy:


Community Shares intentionally uses social media to extend our brand reach and validate our brand attributes and personality.  Please refer to our brand attributes and personality when selecting and composing content on social media sites.  All posts should work in harmony with our branding goals.