Diving Deep
MicroMentor 2.0 launched yesterday. Now I am on to developing two marketing campaigns and actually measuring their impact. This has been on my agenda since day one so I will be glad to have at it. I am planning to dive deep into Google Analytics and work on SEO when I surface for air. I am looking forward to creating a google-friendly site map and refining the MM adword campaigns. I found a free keyword tool I like called Web CEO. Which reminds me I should at that to my toolbox at Matt’s group, Social Source Commons.
I would love advice from anyone RE: representing your organization via social media. I have been “practice tweeting” via my personal twitter account. My husband gives me a very strange look when I say “I forgot to tweet today” he is also a little concerned about the whole concept of "followers".
There is so much to do and learn, especially as MicroMentor puts its toes into the social networking pond. (Excuse all the water metaphors – I am after all in Portland and the eighth month of rain makes for soggy synapses)
Comment from Denise Cheng on March 31, 2009 - 3:33pm
I haven't had a chance to do much for my org in terms of social media besides coming up with strategies. However, I think the best way to approach any social network is to look at it in terms of 'what can I give back to my followers/friends?' So if it's tweeting, maybe it's uploading pics to your Tumblr/Twitpic and allowing it to crosspost to FB & Twitter. Or it's linking to fascinating posters MercyCorps pays attention to. It's also giving props to your followers every once in a while (RT your followers in the case of Twitter or "likes" in FB). I think the biggest mistake I've seen orgs make is just using their Twitter as an RSS feed. With FB, it's leaving their pages stagnant.
Most of all, in this brave new world where "information wants to be free," I think it's ridiculous for anyone (esp nonprofits) to covet such things as company/trade secrets. Since everything's on the Internet for free anyway, people aren't coming to our orgs out of a deficit of info; they're coming to us because we have a reputation for being effective (esp in the case of Mercy Corps). Therefore, I'd like to see orgs start doing things like connecting drop.io to FB/Twitter and uploading resources cobbled together in-house for free download.
Comment from Denise Cheng on March 31, 2009 - 3:46pm
PS: I forgot to add that you should def have a human aspect to it. I read this great post today by Mark Rovner that @ntenhross tweeted: http://bit.ly/15aWdX
In the case of Mercy Corps, I think it would be super effective to use Twitter as a micro-storytelling tool where the protag is not the org itself, but one of the org's employees and link to their Mercy Corps write-up or even their own personal blog post if it pertains to the story.
You might also find these links helpful:
bit.ly
ow.ly
Bitly tracks metrics. I'm not completely sure about Hoot Suite with owly yet, but it seems to be quite popular.
Comment from Mary Chant on March 31, 2009 - 7:57pm
Great, thanks for all the tips Denise.