Tweeting

Keely, Heather, and I had a GREAT meeting yesterday with Mandy Cooper from The Image Group in downtown Holland. Mandy helped us to understand what Twitter is and how we can use it to spread the word about our ministry.

Some of the highlights of our Tweeting:

1. Seeing Keely create a Twitter account and discover all sorts of people and organizations that are using Twitter.
2. Beginning to understand the importance of "retweets". If your "tweet" (Twitter Status) catches the attention of someone with many Twitter followers and they "retweet" your status, your message reaches many people who may never have heard of you or your organization.
3. Learning about some applications that help you to keep track of other peoples' tweets without having to keep going to the Twitter website. (TweetDeck (PC or Mac) and Twitteriffic (Mac or iphone) Visit http://tweeterland.com/twitter-applications/ for more Twitter options than I could ever imagine existed!

In my own mind, here is how I have "categorized" Twitter: our current donors may not be using it a lot, but spreading our message through Twitter will allow us to reach all sorts of people who have never heard of us before. Twitter users tend to be business-people who have some great connections and are very willing to pass along information that they find interesting or important.

If you haven't tried Twitter - give it a try. Find me on Twitter by searching for sarahlundberg. Better yet, find I.N. Network USA on Twitter by searching for innetworkusa.

Sarah Lundberg
Marketing Manager
I.N. Network USA

Outside the Box

A few months back, I played a few games of Hi Ho Cherry O with my four year-old nephew, Jonathan. The concept of the game is simple: spin the dial and the number it lands on is the number of cherries you get to put in your basket. It's a great game for a four year-old.

At the end of the second game, Jonathan gave the dial a spin and the arrow pointed to 0 cherries. I wondered if there would be a meltdown. Instead, he gave me a dazzling grin and spun the dial again. This time the arrow landed on 4 cherries. I protested and explained that the rules did not include a clause for spinning again if you didn't like what you got the first time. I might have saved my breath. The concept of rules is not yet firm in a four year-old's mind. The point is to get a lot of cherries in your basket. Point achieved.

Flashback to my childhood: when playing Chinese checkers, I used to fly my marbles to the other side when the "chips" were down. I would declare in a delighted way that it was my "airplane move." My family protested. My older brother got mad. I kept flying marbles across the board.

In many ways, using social media for a non-profit is changing the rules of the game. We all need to keep a bit of the four year-old inside us in order to have the courage to smile delightedly and try things differently. I ran across a great blog by Chris Perry (see Digital Next link to the right ) that explores the idea that social media is changing the game altogether. "...what if social media and its inherent benefits are so revolutionary, so potentially game-changing, that it takes time for people to figure out how to best use them? More fundamentally, what if organizational silos and constraints limit its potential to address a new brand-building equation?"

The idea is intriguing. I'm going to go fly some marbles.

Social Media: What in the World IS it?

Before this quest began, I was extremely ignorant about social media. I thought it was Facebook and Myspace. My social media world was very small.

Now I'm only partially ignorant because I now know how little I know.

Thanks to Wikipedia, I now know that there are many different categories of social media and even more programs/applications that fit into those categories. Interestingly enough, Wikipedia itself is considered social media.

Social Media Categories from Wikipedia:
Blogs: Blogger, LiveJournal, Open Diary, TypePad, WordPress, Vox, ExpressionEngine, Xanga
Micro-Blogging/Presence Applications: Twitter, Plurk, Jaiku, fmylife
Social Networking: Bebo, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Orkut, Skyrock, Hi5, Ning, Elgg
Social Networking Aggregation: NutshellMail, FriendFeed
Event Applications: Upcoming, Eventful, Meetup.com
Wikis: Wikipedia, PBwiki, wetpaint
Social Bookmarking/Tagging: Delicious, StumbleUpon, Google Reader, CiteULike
Social News: Digg, Mixx, Reddit, NowPublic
Opinion Sites: epinions, Yelp
Photo Sharing: Flickr, Zooomr, Photobucket, Smugmug
Video Sharing: YouTube, Vimeo, Sevenload, Qik
Livecasting: Ustream.tv, Justin.tv, Stickam
Audio and Music Sharing: imeem, The Hype Machine, Last.fm, ccMixter
Product Reviews: epinions.com, Mouthshut.com
Q&A: Yahoo! Answers, WikiAnswers

I have no idea what most of these do, but I intend to find out!

The Quest Begins

Any quest requires you to leave home. You have to leave where you are comfortable and go somewhere that may be better, or it may be worse. A quest involves a gamble.

I am the marketing manager of a non-profit ministry called I.N. Network USA in Zeeland, Michigan. We are a small office doing big things around the world. We want to reach a lot of people with our message and we don't have much money to do that because we are purposeful about sending as much money as possible to our overseas ministries.

Lately, we have decided to explore the endlessly changing world of social media to see how we can reach a new generation of tech savy people who are unlikely to find us through traditional print media. So, what did we do? We formed a committee and began our quest.

As I started exploring more about social media and networking, I have run across other folks who are equally baffled. This blog will detail our ministry's journey. Maybe it will help your non-profit. Maybe not. I guess it's a quest for you too.