Social Media

Maybe the question is not whether social media is BS, but whether it is fundraising.

Back in September 2011, Heather Mansfield, owner of DIOSA Communications, gave FS an exclusive peek at her then soon-to-be-published book, “Social Media for Social Good: A How-To Guide for Nonprofits." In this article, she discussed the "11 Qualities of an Effective Social-Media Manager."

If your key donors are not active in social media, how much time should you spend there?

It seems like all the “experts” tell us is to post photos on our Facebook pages to get more likes, comments and shares. Text updates aren’t as sexy, but they can be equally as effective. Here are three specific ways you can boost the number of comments on your text updates.

To get the full benefit of LinkedIn for reaching prospective donors and board members, fundraisers need to be able to count on all of the people in their networks, Anthony Pisapia, director of development and programs at Tech Impact, told participants at the Nonprofit Technology Conference. Sometimes that means turning down invitations to connect — an idea that doesn’t come easily for fundraisers.

At NTEN's 2013 Nonprofit Technology Conference last week, four fundraising professionals discussed social data and what nonprofits should do with it, including how the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and CARE leverage their social data.

For many nonprofits, e-mail is the bridge that Facebook fans frequently walk across on their way to becoming a donor, simply because it’s more private and less distracting than Facebook. This is why it’s critical to have a smart e-mail marketing strategy, in addition to a smart Facebook strategy. No one ever joined an e-mail list just to join an e-mail list. It would be great if this were so, but it’s not.

As a follow-up to my recent post, "8 Tips for Effectively Using Social Media for Social Change," I asked leading nonprofit and communications experts for their best social-media advice for nonprofits to get a well-rounded view of the topic from a variety of perspectives. You will hear from noted nonprofit authors, social-media and video strategists, and experts who have dedicated their work to helping nonprofits communicate effectively and intelligently.

At NTEN's 2013 Nonprofit Technology Conference Thursday, four fundraising professionals discussed social data and what nonprofits should do with it, including how the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and CARE leverage their social data.

Twitter is a micro-blogging social network that consists of individuals sending 140-character messages to either their entire networks or to individual followers. Its integration into other online services has slowly made Twitter a standard in online conversation and information democratization. As a fundraiser, this is a tool that should not be overlooked. Here are five don’ts when sharing your fundraising page on Twitter.