Articles: Social Media

Idealware articles, like those in our Few Good Tools series, give nonprofits concise, critical information on the software choices available for specific organizational functions and goals. We compare software options, offer real life examples and case studies, and give you the tools to make the right decision based on your specific needs.

Articles: Social Media

  • Building Your Social Media Fan Base
    By Laura S. Quinn,
    October 2011

    (This article originally appeared on Third Sector New England's site.) If you post a message on Twitter and no one’s there to hear it, does it make a noise? The fact is, there isn’t much reason to tweet if you don’t have an audience—a fundamental truth of all social media channels.

  • Measuring Your Social Media Success

    By Andrea Berry,
    September 2011

    (First published in the September issue of the NTEN: Change journal.) Social media has provided nonprofits with a whole new toolbox for marketing themselves and engaging constituents. Though each tool is a little different, they all create opportunities for your organization to start conversations and to show the personal side of, and the personalities behind, your work.

  • Measuring your Social Media Success: Case Studies
    September 2011

    (First published in the September issue of the NTEN: Change journal.) Social media has provided nonprofits with a whole new toolbox for marketing themselves and engaging constituents.

  • Tools for Measuring Your Social Media Efforts
    By Andrea Berry and Chris Bernard,
    September 2011
    Social media can be useful for any nonprofit, but posting blindly without monitoring results can be a waste of time. Knowing whether your efforts are paying off can help you adapt your posting strategy to better meet your goals and improve the return on your investment.
     
    But what are the best ways to measure your efforts? What data should you be collecting? And how do you define success in an area that’s still relatively uncharted territory?

  • How to Make a Guerilla Video
    By Colin Pizarek and Ryan Dunlavey,
    August 2011

     What is a guerilla video? What does it take to make a video? This diagram will give you a crash course in film school, walking you through the steps to make your own video without breaking the bank.

     

    Click here to view the diagram.

  • A Few Good Tools for Measuring and Monitoring Social Media
    By Andrea Berry and Chris Bernard,
    August 2011

    Sure, you’re on Facebook. Twitter, too. Maybe you have a blog. You put a lot a lot of work into keeping them fresh and updated with pertinent, interesting posts. But aside from the few comments you get now and again, how do you know if anyone is listening to what you have to say?

  • A Few Good Tools for Friend-to-Friend Fundraising
    By Andrea Berry and Stella Hernandez,
    July 2011
    Enlist your supporters to fundraise for you! A number of online tools make it easy for staff or anyone eager to help your organization to set up individual donation pages to engage friends and family in a fundraiser. We asked six nonprofit technology experts for advice on the tools and best practices they recommend to make this fundraising technique work.
     
    Friend-to-friend fundraising isn’t new.

  • Facebook for Volunteers
    By Chris Bernard, Senior Editor,
    June 2011

    This article appears in the current issue of the NTEN: Change Journal, available for free with registration.

    It's easy to get the impression that everyone is on Facebook these days, and maintaining a presence on the site is increasingly expected of organizations interested in engaging constituents. It seems like a logical assumption that Facebook should also be a good way to attract volunteers--but is that true?

  • Is Mobile Giving for You?
    By Colin Pizarek and Molly Ahern,
    April 2011

    How does mobile giving work?  Is it likely to be useful for your organization?

  • Facebook Privacy for Nonprofit Organizations
    By Chris Bernard,
    December 2010

    There's a lot of talk these days about privacy issues on Facebook.  What does that mean for you as an organization?  The issues for an organization are different than those facing an individual—but still absolutely something you should be thinking about.  This article was funded through the Idealware Research Fund, with the support of people like you.  Thank you!

  • Measuring the Effectiveness of Your Online Communications
    By Laura S. Quinn ,
    June 2010

    Are your online communications working?  How can you tell?  In this article, we talk through four types of measures-- Views, Followers, Engagement, and Conversion-- that help you track your efforts to see if they're worthwhile.  

    Chances are, your organization has a website. Perhaps you also send out broadcast emails, or maintain a blog, Twitter or Facebook account. Is the effort you’re putting into online communications working? How can you tell?

  • Adventures in Email Fundraising
    By Andrea Berry,
    April 2010

    If you are already using email communication tools and are equipped to receive online donations through your website, email fundraising is an easy step forward. For a better sense of what's involved, we bring you a look at two smaller organizations and their email fundraising campaigns.

  • Reaching Out To a Wide Audience: A Twitter Case Study
    By Kaitlin LaCasse and Laura Quinn,
    March 2010

    Is Twitter useful for nonprofits?  It’s certainly been useful for Idealware. In this detailed case study, we talk through how we use Twitter, the results we’ve seen, and how it might be helpful for your organization.

  • Is Email Old News? Social Networks as the New Communications Channel
    By Stella Hernandez,
    January 2010

    When it comes to online communications, social networking has huge communities of people sharing information with each other. And its rise comes as people question email’s effectiveness—are social networks replacing email as a communications channel?

  • Enlisting Your Supporters to Fundraise For You: A Case Study
    By Andrea Berry,
    October 2009

    How can online friend-to-friend fundraising help you to raise money and engage your staff and volunteers? This detailed case study looks at how one small school raised $3000 from mostly new donors with a minimal investment.

  • The Role of Email in Your Communications Mix
    By Heather Gardner-Madras,
    July 2009

    Nonprofits have a lot of choices when it comes to communications - from direct mail, to websites, to social networking sites and more. With Spam on the rise and open rates down, what role should email play in a successful communications strategy - and when should nonprofits choose to use it?

  • Using RSS Tools to Feed Your Information Needs
    By Peter Campbell,
    March 2009

    The Internet gives you access to a virtual smorgasbord of information. From the consequential to the trivial, the astonishing to the mundane, it's all within your reach. This means you can keep up with the headlines, policies, trends, and tools that interest your nonprofit, and keep informed about what people are saying about your organization online. But the sheer volume of information can pose challenges, too: namely, how do you separate the useful data from all the rest? One way is to use RSS, which brings the information you want to you.

  • Characteristics of Successful Online Communities
    By Andrew Cohen,
    February 2008

    Successful online communities require more than a software package. In this article, we outline the strategies and features that can help you build online message boards, social networks, or other conversation based sites that become vibrant, useful communities.

  • Should Your Organization Use Social Networking Sites?
    January 2008

    This article is now out of date... but we have a whole report on this topic!  Check out our Nonprofit Social Media Decision Making Guide for an overview, research results, and a workbook on how to decide if you should use social networking sites or other social media tools.

     

  • Using Social Networking to Stop Genocide
    By Ivan Boothe ,
    February 2007

    In less than two years, The Genocide Intervention Network transformed itself from a small student group to a national non-profit. How did they do it? Among other methods, they used social media sites like MySpace, FaceBook, Flickr, and YouTube to reach the young people who are their core supporters.

  • Affordable New Tools and Strategies for Online Activism
    By Alan Rosenblatt,
    January 2007

    Limited budgets don’t have to substantially limit your online advocacy possibilities. Alan Rosenblatt describes the new generation of online tools that help organizations of any size cope with the increasingly complicated internet world.

  • Retooling the eNonprofit: Expanding the Options for Integrated Online Software

    By Michael Stein,
    January 2007

    New integrated online software tools lead to more possibilities for nonprofits. How do you choose?   Internet strategist Michael Stein describes what's available and offers some considerations when choosing tools that can help with emailing, online donations, advocacy online, and more.

  • Power from the People: Assessing the New Online Participatory Tools for Your Organization
    By Colin Delany,
    December 2006

    New online participatory tools like blogs, YouTube, and MySpace can be powerful and valuable – if they mesh with your goals. Colin Delany walks through the benefits and costs of common participatory tools and suggests which are likely to be useful for you.

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