A Minute With Ephraim Gopin, International Fundraising and Social-Media Consultant

"I'm sure you've all heard of [LinkedIn], but are you using it? They have 175 million users- — and it's very underutilized by nonprofit personnel. Or as I call it: Social Media's Ugly Stepsister. Need to do research on a donor or a corporate partner? Look at the person's profile on LinkedIn. Need to connect with someone? Ask to connect, and now it's a one-on-one conversation. Much of social media is showing people you're an expert in a specific field. LinkedIn has groups on every topic imaginable. You can join those groups, like and comment on posts, and possibly post your own blog posts as well. It's all about the engagement. Finally, it excels at lead generation because of its business nature and because it's one-on-one and not a 'group setting' like Facebook or Twitter."