We have been using Tumblr for a few years and in the hopes of inspiring you and your colleagues to consider creation of a Tumblr presence for your nonprofit by sharing some insights we’ve gained on using this very popular social network. Tumblr got going in 2007, and really took off a couple of years later […]
#PR: Astroturfing Politics And Marketing – It Can Be Disasterous For Both
With only a few months to go before the new administration takes office, we examine the notion of ‘grass-roots‘ as associated with popular movements or opinions came into the American lexicon at the turn of the twentieth century. The, er, ‘grass roots’ of the term, according to Answers.com came a generation earlier and specific to […]
#SOCIALMEDIAMARKETING: Fine Tune Twitter Use To Enrich Outreach
The idea of using Twitter can overwhelm some, and how to use it as a smart tool for strategic engagement seems downright contradictory to many. Yet as the social-networking platform matures – Rather, as the people who use it explore that myriad ways to make it work for them – an ever growing number of […]
#SM4NP: Scoop.it! For Information ‘Curation’ & Social Interaction
Last year we explored Pinterest, a social network that puts a premium on visuals and offers ‘pin boards’ of topics collected/bookmarked/’pinned’ by the user. The metrics on the platform show amazing growth over the last few months, and many are still waiting for an invitation to join up. Scoop.it! has, on the surface, a strikingly […]
#VIDEO: The Knowledge Fountain Promos
The Challenge: The Knowledge Fountain offers not-for-profit organizations a spectrum of short courses online covering fundraising, communications, organizational development, social media, and productivity software. It is a start-up venture co-founded by MKCREATIVE owner, Marco Kathuria and Don Akchin, of Don Akchin Strategic Marketing. The startup was looking for a cost-effective way to tell it’s story […]
#SOCIALMEDIA: It’s OK To Say ‘No’ To Your Social Networks
You know you want to… We are often extolling the virtues of particular social-networking platforms or encouraging specific strategies to reach out to your audience(s) across these platforms. When moving through the ‘tubes’ of our social networks, it is easy to think that each post we prepare is the most important one ever and that […]
#HOWTO: Tweak Your Organization’s Facebook Site For Graph Search
In February, 2013, we talked about what Facebook’s latest feature, Graph Search, is (namely, a way to combine keywords, categories, and what friends are saying about them within Facebook) and it is not (namely, a challenger to Google’s search algorithms across the internet). In this article, we want to help you and your organization make […]
#HOWTO: Establish A Tumblr Account & Why You Should Do So (VIDEO)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PUXnDZUcQY[/embed]
A while back we talked about the blogging platform Tumblr, and the series got a great deal of response from you our audience, and we really appreciate your interest and feedback! We want to step up that earlier discussion with a series of video how-tos that will show you a Tumblr account, what can be […]
#HOWTO: Setup A (Free) Scoop.it Magazine For Your Community
We introduced Scoop.it and Pinterest recently because we think these information-sharing sites offer a great platform for nonprofits and charities to share their own news as well as related images or stories in their sectors. As promised we have returned to round out this mini-series with a guide to help you setup a Scoop.it e-magazine site. […]
#SOCIALNETWORKS: Is Pinterest Of Value For Nonprofits? You Bet!
Pinterest can seem like an upmarket yard sale at first glance… One of the hottest discussions about social-networking platforms concerns Pinterest, whose membership and engagement have exploded in 2014. From January to February of this year alone, Pinterest drew over 100 million new visitors to its site. The simplicity of setting up ‘boards’ and […]
#HOWTO: Curate Information To Make Sense Of Your Nonprofit’s Ambitions
‘Content Curation’ is one of the essential concepts when it comes to preparing and writing stories for online consumption. The term refers to the activity of collecting, sharing, and responding to information on the internet in a consistent and focused manner. A ‘curator’ is traditionally defined as “a keeper or custodian of a museum or […]
#SOCIALNETWORKS: What Makes Pinterest So Engaging? It’s So Simple.
Pinterest was released as a private beta in March 2010, which makes it something of a late-comer (or the ‘second generation?) of social networking platforms. Its mission was “to connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting,” and its modus operandi was to encourage people to ‘pin’ whatever they found interesting online […]
#SOCIALNETWORKS: Let Flickr Tell Your Nonprofit’s Story As It Happens
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R_MWGFvDEE[/youtube]
A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. And with digital social media, images are becoming both more common and more powerful as platforms such as Facebook and Google+ emphasize the photo and graphic qualities of their social-media networks. A kind of ‘visual economy’ is developing, within which social networks are competing and users […]
#VIDEO: Rob Wu of Causevox Tells Us About Developments In Online Fundraising (Part II)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cliy6mWf-30[/youtube]
Last month we posted our first interview with Rob Wu, co-founder of the online fundraising and social-media platform Causevox. We wanted to talk with him because Causevox rolled out the latest version of its platform late last year. Our conversation proved so interesting that we couldn’t contain it in one post, so today we bring […]
#HOWTO: Plan A Film Screening/Festival As A Fundraising Opportunity
As the year’s projects and fundraisers and festivals start rolling onto your computer’s calendar, you might be looking for an opportunity to host a one-off event that can bring much-wanted PR, good karma, and even some financial support. How about sponsoring a film screening? (MKCREATIVEmedia co-produced a film festival for one of our clients earlier […]
#NEWS: THE KNOWLEDGE FOUNTAIN LAUNCHES ONLINE CLASSES & SOCIAL SITE EXCLUSIVELY FOR NONPROFITS
http://youtu.be/ajF0oSL3qrI
The latest entry in the rapidly-evolving distance learning education market is a new online education service geared exclusively to people who work for nonprofit organizations. The Knowledge Fountain, which launched today, is offering a spectrum of courses online covering fundraising, communications, organizational development, social media, and productivity software. The site pitches its product as “just […]
#SOCIALMEDIA: Facebook Quietly Rolls Out ‘Gifts’ & Nonprofits Can Get Them Too
Over this past spring Facebook has been expanding its Gifts service as a way to offer presents to family and friends. The service can be activated by clicking on the bowed gift box that appears on your organization’s News Feed or on the page of the person or nonprofit you want to give the gift […]
#PHILANTHROPY: Zuckerberg’s Millions Suggest New Style Of Giving By Young
Mark Zuckerberg always makes headlines, and few were as stunning as the ones he made in the fall of 2010 when he donated $100 million to the Newark, NJ school system − a system with which he has no personal connections whatsoever. His generosity was intended to help right the ship of one of the statistically […]
#SOCIALNETWORKS: Pew Research Keeps Us Up With Changing Faces of Internet
The latest surveys carried out by the Pew Internet and American Life Project are tracking both the most popular online social-networking platforms and the kinds of people who are using them. We enjoy sharing such findings with our readers because the information the folks at the Pew Internet group can help nonprofits refine their online […]
#SOCIALNETWORK: Are You Prepped For Rollout Of Facebook Graph Search?
Facebook’s Graph Search was announced a couple of weeks ago and it is being rolled out through the Facebook0sphere through February. Though many wondered if Facebook were challenging Google, the fact is Facebook is trying to rejigger how you can access information within Facebook, not how you wend your way through the tubes of the internet. […]
#PHILANTHROPY: #Sundance & A3 Foundation Extend Cooperation for Asian-American Artists
Though the Initial Public Offering of Facebook devolved into comic fodder last May, the fact remains that it made many people quite wealthy − especially those who had been working with Zuckerberg’s company from the early days. A number of those who cashed out their stocks and jobs at the social-network giant have since turned toward […]
#SOCIALNETWORKS: Questions & Answers Can Be Shared On Quora
The Latin term ‘quorum’ (pl.pronoun: ‘of whom’) has almost no connection to what the term means in Anglo-American law, namely: “the minimum number of members of an assembly that must be present to make the proceedings of that meeting valid.” Without digging too deeply into the Oxford English Dictionary, the term evolved from Norman circuit […]
#HOWTO: Keep Your Facebook Page Updated While Mobile This Holiday Season
As the Christmas Season approaches, most of us will be taking a bit of much-needed downtime from our nonprofits and charities. Many will also be traveling to see family as well. Unfortunately, the concerns of nonprofits and charities do not take holidays, and you might want to keep people updated via Facebook on what your […]
#HOWTO: Setup New Facebook Pages & The Types Available For You
With the adjustments and reworkings on Facebook over the last 6-odd months, it’s time to update our periodic series on Facebook pages − Next week we will continue with more information about the scuttlebutt around Promoted Posts. Facebook updates its interface and algorithms periodically. Usually the public response splits fairly evenly into the “love it” and […]
#HOWTO: Use Crowdbooster To Marshall Your Social Media Conversations
Numerous social-networking monitoring sites are out there by now: Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Klout, Tinker… As programmers develop new tools, and social platforms like Facebook or (even!) MySpace evolve, the staff at a nonprofit can feel overwhelmed with the changes. What is important to remember in this fast-changing communications environment is that you are looking for […]
#SOCIALNETWORKS: How To Promote Facebook Posts & Why You Might Not Want To
This past summer Facebook launched the opportunity to purchase ‘Promoted Posts’ that − for at least a $5 fee − would be promoted across the Facebookiverse. The more you paid, the more broadly the algorithms (aka ‘magic’) circulated the post. It was hailed by many for- and non-profit organizations as an opportunity to push through the background […]
#HOWTO: Setup A Pheed Account & Why It Could Prove Valuable For Nonprofits
Alright, I admit that when I first heard about one of the newest social networks out there, Pheed, I was underwhelmed. Are we not overwhelmed with social networks as it is? But both professional engagement and personal curiosity got the better of me, and I signed up. The interface looks rather like Tumblr, whose praises […]
#COMMUNICATION: Is Your Nonprofit Staff Conversing With Both Audience & Each Other?
As social networks and social marketing have matured over the last two or three years, a debate continues as to how effective social media is to inspire action (be it making a purchase, donating to a cause, or risking one’s life in a revolution). But it seems to me that the argument is both older […]
#DEVELOPMENT: Do You Have Big Plans For Your Big Data? Not So Fast…
The latest buzz concept is ‘Big Data.’ Like most buzz concepts/ words, its definition leaves much up to the mouth of the speaker. Big Data, whatever the specifics, refers to the large amount of information that can be collected from online activity and exchange of information (on social networks, for example). The ability to aggregate […]
#SOCIALNETWORKS: Can Niche Online Networks Outperform Your Nonprofit’s Facebook Page?
Our participation in online social networks seems well beyond the status of a ‘fad.’ In some parts of the world, people risk censure − if not their lives − to post important information on such platforms as Facebook and Twitter. These social networks are the current heavy hitters, of course. But what about developing people’s interests in […]
#SOCIALMEDIA: How Can We Efficiently Use Our Time On Social Networks?
A definition of irony: using social media to encourage you to find ways to trim your time on social media. But the real goal is efficiency, and it comes with great financial and emotional rewards. According to a survey done by the enterprise platform Harmon.ie last summer, “45% of employees work only 15 minutes or […]
#SOCIALNETWORKS: 4th-Annual Social Media Week Will Educate & Inspire Worldwide
The first Social Media Week went live in 2008, as Twitter was just hitting the mainstream and Lehman Brothers announced it was going bankrupt and would take down the economy with it. For better and worse, much has change. And Social Media Week continues to expand. It started to stress connectivity across continents last year, […]