Kerry Barnes and Frances

Think because your organization caters to seniors, you don’t need social media? Think again! Kerry Barnes explains how her organization used Facebook to create buzz about their community as well as keep family members informed.  Added bonus: computer use has increased among their residents. ~Kivi

Guest Post by Kerry A. Barnes, Director of Development and Community Relations at Longview.

I’m the director of development and community relations for a senior living community in the Finger Lakes region of New York. One of my biggest tasks is increasing awareness of our beautiful community and all it offers, and one of the ways I seek to do this is through using social media.

When I started in my position two years ago, I decided we’d set up a Facebook page, more or less just for a lark. I was pretty familiar with using social media for my own personal purposes, but I wasn’t quite sure what role it could play in marketing a senior community.

We’re fortunate in that we have an extensive daily list of events and programs for our seniors; the day’s agenda makes for an easy status update. Before long, we added photos of special events and happenings, making sure to post those pictures within hours of the event.

Our Facebook page started getting comments such as, “Wow, this reminds me of the daily schedule on the cruise I recently took!” and “Hey- look at Dad! Glad to see you’re getting out and taking part of things!” We had stumbled upon a great way to keep family members informed of what their loved ones were doing, without being invasive or overbearing.

Recently, I’ve become aware of increased computer use amongst our residents, including social media. I’m currently gathering data to back up my claims that the vast majority of our residents are regular and savvy computer users, contrary to the popular image of seniors being befuddled by technology. I think there are several reasons for this:

1. The technology has become easier to use. Software and devices have become more intuitive and easier to use, thus decreasing senior’s anxiety and trepidation about using them. Think of the difference between the touch screen of an iPad and the DOS machines of several years ago.
2. There are more practical purposes for technology. Even convincing my Baby Boomer father to get a computer a few years ago was a lesson in futility. “What would I use it for?” “Well, you could type letters, do spreadsheets, play solitaire.”  “I don’t want to do any of those things!” With more and more of our lives being lived online, the practical day-to-day applications of a computer make more sense, especially to seniors who are hesitant to adopt technology merely for technology’s sake.  Checking a ten-day weather report, reading news, downloading a recipe, monitoring a bank account balance, maintaining a calendar, and sharing photos are all practical applications that make computers more useful and worthwhile to seniors.
3. It’s how we stay in touch now. Particularly for seniors, computer use is vital for staying in touch with family that may be far-flung geographically. Being able to watch real-time video from a grandchild’s birthday party happening across the country or getting photos of a new baby straight from the delivery room are all appealing actions that are just not possible without the use of a computer and internet. Residents at our community who are blatantly anti-computer have no compunction about asking for help downloading photos family members have posted online.

Seniors are growing more comfortable with computers and compiling a greater presence online. This will only increase exponentially as our Baby Boomers retire and become “seniors” whether they want to or not. Smart marketers will keep this in mind both in their messages and how they communicate.

Kerry A. Barnes is Director of Development and Community Relations at Longview, a senior residential community in the Finger Lakes region of New York. She enjoys photography, writing, and her two rescue beagles, Frances and Mr. Minchy Spampobello.

Love the daily blogging? Great! If not so much, switch to Kivi’s weekly email newsletter with blog highlights and then unsubscribe from the blog’s emails.

A dashboard is a visual way to bring lots of data together easily (hopefully automatically) into an at-a-glance overview of a situation. Nonprofits can use dashboards for all sorts of purposes, including fundraising results, program participation, management reports to boards, and much more.

One very popular use of the dashboard concept is to monitor social media conversations about your organizations and issues. Sure, you can spend all day logging into and searching  Twitter and Facebook and Google to see what’s happening, but why not have all of that data sent to you automatically instead?

Christina Johns

Christina Johns, online media manager for the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews uses Netvibes. Here’s Christina’s explanation of how it works for her organization:

“I use the  dashboard ever morning when I get into the office. Each tab is customizable for your organization. I’ve dedicated a tab for important topics to my organization. I pull in RSS feeds from the various websites that contain information relating to our mission.

I’ve also dedicated a tab to my organization’s Google Alerts. This pulls all alerts for the various keywords into one place and updates automatically. I’ve also used Google Translate and set up Hebrew keywords to monitor our organization in Israeli media well.

I created Twitter searches and then grabbed the RSS feed for those terms, and made a tab in my dashboard for Twitter mentions and lists of relevant topics to my organization happening within Twitter. I use the same RSS concept to pull in Flickr alerts, Myspace and Facebook. Basically using RSS feeds, I’m pulling anything that relates to my organization or topics related to our mission into one place. It saves me an incredible amount of time when the info comes to me instead of me trying to locate it on each individual site.

Netvibes also allows you to share your dashboard with others (Google Dashboard is very similar; I just prefer Netvibes). This has been an excellent resource for us. I share my dashboard with our editorial director and other members of the communications team. We can easily forward stories or Google Alerts to one another right from the dashboard.

Did I mention it is also free?”

Thanks, Christina, for sharing your dashboard with us!

Here are some resources to help you create your own social media dashboard:

Say What? Build a Social Media Listening Dashboard for Your Nonprofit (from NetWitsThinkTank)

Top 10 Social Media Dashboard Tools (from Socialbrite)

Make Your Own Conference Dashboard (from Chris Brogan)

Love the daily blogging? Great! If not so much, switch to Kivi’s weekly email newsletter with blog highlights and then unsubscribe from the blog’s emails.

A flurry of questions came in at the end of today’s webinar on Writing for Social Media, so I’m going to try to quickly answer a bunch of them here. I didn’t get permission to use people’s names, so I’m sharing these questions anonymously.

We have both the Facebook Page and the Group.  I know you said stick with the page.  Do we somehow fold our group members into the page and close out the group?  Does that sound like the right way to proceed?

Now that Facebook has made Pages more like Profiles, they are the way to go. Unless you have a subgroup of folks who really want to talk with each other about something specific (groups can be private, for example), I’d say ditch the group. Just post to its wall and send a few messages to members to explain that you are shutting it down on a certain date in favor of the Page.

When writing blog posts, I am asked to always link it back to our organization so it is the focus.  Should this be the case?

It sounds like your blog might not be on your website? If it is on a separate domain, than frequent linking back to the main site is important. But be sure that you are linking to others just as much, especially to other blogs. It’s fine to have lots of links in a post, both to your site and to blogs or websites of others.

What kind of frequency do you recommend for Facebook posting? What’s enough and too much?

Of course, it all depends on your strategy and what you are using your page for. But as a default starting point, I’d say once a day is good. You could even get away with every other day. On the other end of the spectrum, I’d say more than two or three times a day might be too much, unless, again, there is a real strategy behind it. The culture of Twitter is quite different, where multiple updates during the day are the norm.

There are often concerns about compliments and retweets being seen as endorsements. How do we get around this?

This sounds to me like there might be bigger issue with someone not really appreciating how social media works and how it is different from other more traditional forms of communication. To address this issue, I would sit down and look at real examples and scenarios and try to get a better sense for what people think is OK and what is not. We have two webinars coming up in February that will help with those conversations: Social Media Fear Factor-Getting Over What’s Holding You Back and Creating a Social Media Policy for Your Nonprofit.

I set up a Page for my nonprofit. When the nonprofit does anything on Facebook, it shows up as me doing it, not the nonprofit. For example, I just “liked” a few pages, and it shows up on my personal profile, not of the nonprofit’s page. However, when I add another page as a favorite of nonprofit’s,  it shows up on nonprofit’s page as a favorite.

(2/10/11 Update: Big changes at Facebook! I recommend this post by John Haydon to understand those changes. The answer below no longer applies.)

Unfortunately, what you have described is exactly how it works! While Facebook has made organizational pages act much more like personal profiles do, Facebook does not recognize the Page as a person who can go around and do things on Facebook. So, while you may think you are “liking” something as the Page, you are really doing it as an individual who just happens to also be the Admin of the Page.  You can, however, have your Page mark other Pages as favorites so they appear in the sidebar on your page. It’s confusing, and annoying, but that’s how it works, at least for right now.

We are a research based intermediary so we don’t have pictures of kittens. How do we make facts interesting on Twitter w/out stories? Trivia?

Trivia could be a good approach. Even though you are an intermediary, I would encourage you to work with your organizational partners to identify some stories you can tell that highlight the importance of your work. Even stories about how you help the staff people at your partner organizations is better than nothing.

How much overlap is OK between Facebook and Twitter? Can you post the same stuff in both places?

You’ll find people who will argue with me on this, but I say, yes, you can post the same stuff in both places as a baseline, as long as you aren’t overdoing it on Facebook (The Twitter community is more accepting of frequent updates than the Facebook community.) Then you might supplement with additional material that is really best on Twitter, and do the same with Facebook. But I think some repetition is fine, and actually a good thing.

How do you set up a custom shortened URL?

I use a service called ShortSwitch, which turns links at kivilm.com into my custom short links. You have to have a dedicated URL of your own to use the service.  There are a few others services like that, as well as several programs that you can host yourself on your own server. Search on “custom short URL” and you’ll see a bunch of options.

Thanks for all the great questions!

P.S. Here’s what’s coming up next in our weekly webinar series . . .

January 27: Writing to Raise More Money

February 3: Writing Thank-You Notes That Inspire Future Gifts

February 8: The New & Improved Nonprofit Annual Report

February 16: Social Media Fear Factor: Getting Over What’s Holding You Back

See the Full Webinar Schedule through Mid-March

Love the daily blogging? Great! If not so much, switch to Kivi’s weekly email newsletter with blog highlights and then unsubscribe from the blog’s emails.

“Conversation in the Clouds” by Swamibu on Flickr

The Chronicle of Philanthropy hosted a live chat earlier this week with Beth Kanter (Beth’s Blog) and Jonathon Coleman (The Nature Conservancy) called “Building Your Online Presence on a Tight Budget.”

Beth and Jonathon are two of my favorite social media experts, so I took a few minutes to read the transcript today.

I recommend that you look over the whole transcript yourself, but here are a few points that stood out for me:

- Beth has an insane amount of material online and available to you! I knew this already, and it’s one of the reasons she is a favorite, but all of the links she shared during the chat definitely reinforce the value of the treasure trove that is her blog, wiki, etc.

- Lots of people are questioning the amount of time they need to invest in social networking sites like Facebook and what you get out of them for all that time. The metrics are still evolving, but focusing on what you learn from the conversation versus more standard fundraising or marketing metrics is the way to go right now.

- Search engine optimization and linking strategies are still incredibly important to the success of your website, as is great content. David Westbrook and I will be spending much of the hour during our July 30 webinar, “Attracting More Website Visitors: Traffic Building Tips for Nonprofits” on these topics.

- You don’t need much money to be a rock star in the nonprofit world online (although it certainly helps). What you do need is big buckets full of time. Time to read all the great how-to and what-for material out there. Time to sort through your options. Time to experiment. Time to participate in the conversation. Time to contribute in meaningful ways. So I take that back. You do need money to pay your staff for all this time they are spending working on your social media strategy!

- There’s some tension between the idea of using social media for publicity or promotion and using it more strictly as a conversation tool. I don’t think these two ideas are mutually exclusive — having good conversations with people can be a type of promotion — but I do agree that the conversation should come first.

- Nonprofits are overwhelmed by the options and the long list of to-dos associated with doing social media and online marketing right. I hope this blog and my nonprofit marketing webinar series are helping you feel less overwhelmed and more like you can tackle these tasks with confidence!

Love the daily blogging? Great! If not so much, switch to Kivi’s weekly email newsletter with blog highlights and then unsubscribe from the blog’s emails.

And Other “Stupid” Questions You Were Too Afraid to Ask!

Photo by B Tal on Flickr

The “Be the Media” project led by the Nonprofit Technology Network and Beth Kanter starts today. The project will ultimately be the “go-to” spot for people who are both learning and teaching about the use of social media in the nonprofit sector.

Beth invited me to participate and I’m looking forward not only to sharing what I know through the project, but also highlighting its growth here for you on this blog and asking for your input on various questions and ideas as Beth leads us through the creation of the various modules.

This week begins with “Why Your Nonprofit Organization Should Be the Media.” Beth kicked off the conversation here.

But before we can get into why social media is so great for nonprofits, let’s back up a step and answer some basic questions that people have asked me quietly under their breath when they were fairly certain no one else was listening, usually after I’d given a talk on online marketing . . .

1) So “Web 2.0″ isn’t software you buy from Microsoft? (Usually said with a slight deer-in-headlights look).

No. Web 2.0 is not a single piece of software, but a whole new way of looking at how we use the Internet. Now anyone, not just the fat cats or tech geeks, can put just about anything online and we can all discuss it, build upon it, and share it with each other. The power of the back-and-forth conversation and the collaboration that comes from that is what’s new and exciting about Web 2.0 over old Web 1.0, which was more about just putting information online. That’s still valuable, but it’s not the same as being able to talk about the information and debate its meaning with others across the street or around the world, all at the same time.

2) Do we really have to have a website? (Usually said by a face sagging from the sheer exhaustion of an already way-too-long to-do list).

You have to have some kind of online home base to work from. It can be a traditional website or a blog, but yes, you do need some kind of page that you can edit at will and where people can find you, without any special membership requirements. In other words, social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace are great, but I think every nonprofit should start with a site that anyone can visit without a username and password. If you are completely clueless, start with WordPress.com or Blogger.

3) Do we have to get on MySpace/Facebook? (Usually said with a profound look of worry about having to venture where all the younguns’ are).

Definitely not right away, and maybe never. It totally depends on who you are trying to reach. If the people you are trying to reach — your target demographic — are on a particular social networking site, then at some point, yes, you should work on being there too. But if the people you need to talk to the most don’t use those sites, then there is no need to make them a high priority. And it’s much more important to have your home-base website or blog in good shape than to start creating additional outlying pages that will be hard for you to keep updated.

4) Why should I be excited about letting some random person we’ve never heard of before raise money for our group? This is a nightmare! (Usually said with a look of great alarm after hearing me talk about online fundraising widgets like those individuals can create on Six Degrees).

This question is usually coming from one of two fears: (1) the person will go way off-message in raising the money and (2) the money will not actually be turned over to the charity.

Think about the best in-person conversation you’ve had in the last year with friends or family. Did you both have a script and did you both follow it exactly? Of course not! To realize the greatest benefits of social media, you have to let the conversation happen naturally, off script. Yes, you have to give up control of the message (which, honestly, you don’t have anyway). But why not embrace these fans and give them a little help, gently correctly any mistakes as you give them loads of praise for helping you? And people who use widgets from the established organizations like Six Degrees don’t actually see the money themselves — it goes through a processing company that cuts the check to the nonprofit directly.

5) I love the idea of using photos on our website or sharing through Flickr, but how do I get the photos off of my digital camera? (Usually said by someone laughing at herself for not being able to figure it out).

Your camera has some kind of memory card in it. That card is like a little hard drive where your pictures are stored and you need to let your main computer see that little hard drive. You can usually do this in one of two ways. First, your camera may have come with a cord that allows you to plug the camera into your computer through a USB or firewire slot. Or you can take the card out and plug it into a card reader that’s already built into your computer or that’s plugged into a USB slot. Your computer will give your memory card a drive letter. Find that, and then you simply copy and paste (or move) your picture files from that drive to your hard drive, just like you move any other file from one folder to another.

OK, with all of that out of the way, let’s have some fun talking about nonprofits and social media!

Love the daily blogging? Great! If not so much, switch to Kivi’s weekly email newsletter with blog highlights and then unsubscribe from the blog’s emails.