Is Liking Something on Social Media Hurting Your Org?

A recent study done by researchers from the Sauder School of Business found that people who like a post Facebook or retweet something are less likely to give you a donation. Once people like, share or repost something they are done with the action and are less motivated to give.

Here’s a video describing the study’s findings and what it means to us who work at charities who use social media to drive people to donate and to action.

This study’s findings contradict other studies done like this one done by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and this one from the Nonprofit Social Benchmarking Report that found when social media is incorporated into fundraising, donations increase.

What are your thoughts on this new study?

How People Use Social Media

The nice folks at Wolfram Blog have created a set of charts identifying how people talk on Facebook as they age. Wolfram Alpha allows people to donate access to their Facebook feed so that they can study how we use technology. More than one million people have done so to date.

The newsflash is that the younger you are the more you talk about Facebook on Facebook.

source: Wolfram Blog

That’s not too surprising but some of the other charts might be of interest to you and your organization. Information like amount people talk about health on Facebook goes up as the user ages and women talk about family and friends much more than men.

Other facts that result from the analysis of this information is the media number of friends for a person on Facebook is 342 and looking at a broader group of Facebook users (these people in the student and their friends) there are many more people with almost no friends on Facebook, and the number of friends a user has peaks when the user is aged 20 and goes down from there.

If you knew more about the way your constituents, volunteers, trustees, donors, etc., used social media would you interact with them differently? Let me know in our comments section.

PS The man behind the research has a fascinating background and it’s worth reading.

Anti-Social Network

Well, it’s come to this. There is now an anti-social media network that uses social media to allow you to avoid people you know. Hell is Other People is an interesting project that uses Foursquare to locate your friends and then gives you paths to avoid running into them if you have to go near their locations.

Here’s a video about the project:

What are your thoughts? Somedays you just want to avoid people. I get it. But is it so bad that you use social media to do it? Would you use this? Let us know in the comments section.

The 140 Best Twitter Feeds

Time.com just came out with their “Best 140 twitter Feeds for 2013.” However, none are disability-related. Since they won’t do it, I think I will come up with a list of the “Best 140 Twitter Disability-Related Feeds for 2013” but I first want your input.

If you have a favorite Twitter disability-related feed and think others should be following it, too, please share it in the comments section. Please do so by the end of the day 4/15/13. I will compile and categorize the nominations and will share the list in a future NCE Social Media blog post.

Please note, that I reserve the right to exclude some or all of the Twitter feeds nominated due to appropriateness or space limitations.

Social Media and Gender

Do you know who uses social media? Do you know that women are driving social media usage? It’s true. Today I sahre with you to sources detailing it.

First, here’s a news story and infographic. It demonstrates who uses the biggest social media tools – the gender, age, education and income of the people who engage with your Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Digg and LinkedIn pages.

Second, here is a video from the TED series that discusses demographics and the importance of women in business and how they drive social media.

So are you targeting women with your social media sites?

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.

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.

Friday Run Down – 3 for the Road

1) A new free calender widget allows you to set up a calendar page, and has a social component. When people sign up to attend it also will post the attendance to Facebook. People can upload photos and comment on the event.

2) Google now allows you to manage your online reputation. Called “Me on the Web” it allows you to set up alerts when someone has posted information about you online. Google also provides tools on how to manage your online identity and how to remove unwanted content. This will be interesting to see how it may be tweaked to manage your organization’s reputation.

3) Here is an infographic on the real cost of social media from Column Five Media. It compares things such as sales to Facebook fans vs sales to people not signed up as a fan. How are you measuring your sales, donations, referrals, etc. from your constituents who are connected to you via social media?

5 Things for Wednesday

1) Twitter has started to email account users when someone retweets your tweets. Assuming you check your email often or get prompted when you get a new email, it makes it a little easier to know when someone has retweeted your work.

2) Twitter is buying Tweetdeck. If you use Tweetdeck already, you shouldn’t notice much change.

3) Who has rights to photos you post on social media? A woman posted a photo of the latest shuttle launch on a social media site. News agencies picked it up and used it but few asked permission. This has opened up the debate of who owns the photos, videos, and anything else you post to social media. You should read the privacy and permissions policies for each social media tool/platform/product you use to know.

4) Hashtags continue to be important in social media. I’ve discussed them in the past. Here’s a list of 30 hashtags you may want to follow that are specific to nonprofits.

5) People often ask me what is the future of social media? Is it a semantic web? Is it mashing up current tools? Is it a new and easy way to measure social media? Yes, Yes and Yes. What are your thoughts on the future of social media in the near and distant future?

Captive Audience

A new study by Experian found that Americans spend 2 hours and 12 minutes on Twitter each month. The average time per session was 13 minutes and 12 seconds. This is 26 times the 30 traditional second elevator pitch. How are you using this time? Are you engaging your constituency during this 13 minutes and 12 seconds? If so what are you saying via social media?

The study also projects that the amount of time people spend on Twitter per session will drop so your time to potentially engage others online will also decrease.

What are some tips you have on getting your constituency to interact with you online?