Social Media Pictures

Social media tools that allow you to post pictures and videos are very helpful tools to let folks get a glimpse of life from your point of view.

Recently, one of the most repressive governments, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea to you and me, allowed two reporters to begin to use Instagram to share photos of their country. Since so few people travel to North Korea or are allowed to share images that aren’t heavily censored, it is a very interesting view of a place you and I have never seen before.

Looking at it from the point of view of a person with disability, how would you want to share your life in pictures with someone who may not have seen how someone with a disability lives? How would you want to do a video using Vine or YouTube? As an Arc staffer, you know that just like the photos from North Korea, there will be nothing different than what we all experience everyday. But not everyone knows that yet. You and I are the ones who will need to show others via viral social media tools.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Don’t just use 999. Use all of them!

Vine Video App

Last week Twitter made public the newest must-have “Killer App” – Vine. It is a tool that allows you to record 6 second video clips on your smartphone. You can post them to Twitter in addition to Vine. Facebook blocked it right after it came out (the two won’t play nice with each other so Facebook took it’s ball and went home), therefore you have to manually post a link to your Vine video to Facebook. Think of Vine as more social version of an animated gif.

As my friend Nathan Hand already pointed out in his blog post 21 nonprofit uses of Vine, it can be a very useful tool for nonprofits. I’m already contemplating how we can thank donors, demonstrate how their gift was put to use, share our capital campaign progress, and possibly demonstrating our various programs. Also, there are companies already creating Vine-based tools, such as live-streaming Vine videos as they are uploaded. It’s a hot topic so it shouldn’t be long before others will quickly build and release Vine-based applications that will benefit us.

If you use Vine, share your username in the comments section. The Vine account I created to test can be found at http://vine.co/v/bJvDBE6V0zg Feel free to visit it. Let us know how you are or will use it for your organization.

Google Plus Video

Google Plus, or Google+, can be a great tool. But how do you use it to help drive website hits to your organizations webpage? If you odn’t use it, did you know than more than 100,000,000 do?

Here’s a video from Movie Mondays, a free weekly video on fundraising, that addresses this issue. Specifically, Marc Pittman, noted author and speaker on nonprofits and technology, shares how Google Plus can benefit your organization. Marc wrote the book, Google Plus for Nonprofits.

Please watch the short video and tell us what you think – link to the video: Google Plus for Nonprofits

How do you use Google Plus? Please share in the comments.

Social Media at the 2012 Olympics

With the world focused on London for the Olympics, it’s a chance for social media to shine.

We’ve seen athletes kicked out of the games because of tweets including a track athlete and a soccer player. A journalist was kicked off of Twitter, then reinstated, for including the email address of an NBC executive while complaining vociferously about NBC’s coverage of the games.

The Olympics actually has a set of social media guidelines for athletes and delegates to follow.

Social media companies have forged partnerships with broadcasters bringing TV and the internet even closer. For example Facebook is partnering with NBC. Facebook is crunching analyzing people post to Facebook about the games and they are broadcasting NBC’s video feeds. NBC gets stories out of the data that Facebook is analyzing. NBC, and other broadcasters, are posting live news to various social media sites. So if you follow NBC on Twitter or Facebook you’ll see the results of the games before the tape-delayed events are broadcast. While tape-delayed Olympic events are not new, the viewer’s ability to voice their complaints about it is…thanks to social media.

Here’s a video of some athletes and how they plan to use social media during the Olympics

How are you using social media during these Olympics? Are you doing anything different? Are you staying the same? Feel free to share in the comments section.

Pinterest Tutorial

Since I wrote about Pinterest earlier, I wanted to share a video about how to set up and use Pinterest. Pinterest is a social media pinboard now used by more than 10 million people per month. If you’re interested in the demographics, more women than men have started use it.

Now how can your organization use it? Well, Pinterest has a pinboard with lots of examples including using it with blogging, education, YouTube, and many more. Here’s a story on fundraising ideas for Pinterest.

Do you use Pinterest for your organization? If so, share your boards in the comments section.

2012 Nonprofit Social Networking Benchmark Report

Here’s a video of Jeff Patrick, president of Common Knowledge, being interviewed by Melanie Mathos at the 2012 NTC conference explaining the 2012 Nonprofit Social Networking Benchmark Report.

Jeff goes over topics in the report such as ROI, value of a new fan/follower, commercial social networks, and resources for strategies. If you don’t have a copy of the report, you can get it here. It’s free.

YouTube, Livestreaming and You

YouTube recently announced that they opened livestreaming capabilities for nonprofit organizations who have a channel on YouTube.

If you are not already registered with Youtube as a charity, here are steps to do so.

Let us know once you do so we can share your experiences.

Have a Coke and a Smile…or Why Content Matters

Coca-Cola is the most consumed beverage after water. People collect Coke memorabilia. It’s an iconic brand and the company takes it seriously. So what does a company with such global implications focus on to engage their customers via social media? Content.

Here’s a video explaining Coca-Cola’s social media strategy for content.

Does this mirror things you’re doing already or want to do in the future?

Social Media Revolution 2011

Two years ago I posted a video on the use of social media. There is now an updated video for this called the Social Media Revolution 2011. Based on #1 International Best Selling Book Socialnomics by Erik Qualman, this video includes statistics on the world’s population, technology adoption, and the continued rise of social media.

Here’s the video. Enjoy.

Create your own Daily Newspaper

Paper.li is a web-based tool, that is free, that you can use to create a daily paper of your Facebook and or Twitter feeds. The paper could also have a morning and evening edition or be weekly. You may also even set up a paper for a specific hashtag or keyword that is of interest to you such as this one. You may also have multiple papers.

I like Paper.li because it organizes the posts made by people you follow into categories. When people post links to photos or videos, it adds those too. Paper.li allows you to embed your daily paper on your website. It also pushes a daily notification letting your followers on Facebook and or Twitter know it has been updated. Here is a link to a copy of my Paper.li daily paper.

Here’s a video on how it works.

If you sign up for it, let us know. I’m happy to share your Paper.li daily news links with others.