Comments on: Social media resources for civil society associations

By: Olly

Olly — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:17:24 +0000

I think it really depends on what they want to use social media for. I get slightly scared about people thinking they have to be on a particular platform or social network for the sake of it or to tick a box. I also worry slightly about “x charity is doing this, so we’d better do it as well”. If Twitter doesn’t work for your charity, that’s OK.

Either have a specific plan on what you want to achieve, or just go on and start a conversation.

I’d also point them to http://www.mysociety.org - there is some pretty amazing stuff on here, and pretty much all volunteers.

Olly

By: David Wilcox

David Wilcox — Sat, 23 May 2009 09:09:13 +0000

I’ve bookmarked a lot http://delicious.com/socialreporter/ in research for the Social by Social handbook due out soon http://socialreporter.com/?p=559 It’s going to be Creative Commons, so we could look at how to develop further for specifically nonprofit assocation usage.

By: Irregular Enterprise mobile edition

Irregular Enterprise mobile edition — Fri, 22 May 2009 18:11:29 +0000

[...] I’d usually say: ‘Pft.’ Today taught me a couple of things that may yet change my mind. Suw Charman-Anderson, a UK colleague randomly Tweeted about Folksy.com. It’s one of those nick-nack type sites that [...]

By: Beth Kanter

Beth Kanter — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:33:46 +0000

I have lots of materials on my blog
http://beth.typepad.com and my wiki
http://bethkanter.wikispaces.com

In addition, I suggest you also check out the WeareMedia project - nonprofits in the us - social media starter kit
http://www.weareamedia.org

By: Gary Mortimer

Gary Mortimer — Mon, 18 May 2009 10:58:41 +0000

This is exactly the question a group of my friends need an answer to yesterday!!

They are trying to save an oak tree in Somerset.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=84615665070

Very much a need help now and quick thing, that Facebook group has 400 plus members, but in some ways, so what!!

The developers won’t give a monkeys.

They have started a twitter http://twitter.com/LucombeOak but with 6 people following I guess Lucombe Oak is not going to be in the trend cloud soon.

Can social media networks create enough noise fast enough to make a difference I wonder??

What weight does having x members of a group have??

I’m asking questions, not answerign them sorry!!

By: Yishay Mor

Yishay Mor — Mon, 18 May 2009 10:26:01 +0000

My advice is always: just do it. start a blog, open a twitter account. Don’t tell anyone at first, then slowly start exposing to friends for feedback. Then start reading about it.

The problem is that too many managers (NGOs as well as businesses) buy a book, get excited, and then task someone to “blog for us”. That just doesn’t work. To understand the medium, you have to be in the medium.

By: Russell Tanner

Russell Tanner — Mon, 18 May 2009 10:18:28 +0000

NCVO’s ICT-Hub produced a good ‘how-to’ and practical case studies of how organisations have used social media, which are downloadable from their site: http://www.icthub.org.uk/publications/