Social Networking Sites and Nonprofits
by Kelsey Luffman

Increasing numbers of nonprofits are utilizing social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook to reach a more diverse audience and draw more attention to their cause. The Humane Society of the United States is one organization which has benefited greatly from the use of such sites. HSUS’s internet marketing manager, Carie Lewis, makes several recommendations for nonprofits who want to use social networking sites to inspire new donors.

 

1. Use the knowledge of someone inside your nonprofit who has used the site before for social reasons, such as a young volunteer or intern.

 

2. Build a presence on one site first so that strategies/problems can be figured out there before the next profile is created.

 

3. Activists may sometimes create Facebook causes (pages devoted to an organization’s mission) in the name of a nonprofit, or may use the name of an organization to create to cause that differs from that of the real organization. Use the Facebook flagging tool to warn other users against these pages.

 

4. Use the comment approval tool to screen out profanity and meaningless comments.

 

5. Link MySpace or Facebook pages with the entire campaign by referencing events or news that relate to the nonprofit.

 

6. The primary function of a social networking tool is to actually connect with people – HSUS responds to every message they are sent.  Lewis says that this kind of relation could be the difference between having a networking “friend” and a truly engaged donor.

 

Information taken from www.ejewishphilanthropy.com

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