Simultaneous Posting to Multiple Blogs

There are several applications that would make this a necessary thing to do.
I am testing out ScribeFire, a Mozilla Firefox plugin, for this particular attempt.
I am posting this to both TechHermit and to my experimental blog, but just hitting the publish button one time.
It seems like a very intuitive tool, even as I am adding hyperlinks, the tools recognizes what is in the clipboard and is ready to paste it right away.
I'll add a picture to see how it appears in both blogs, it is a slick add in feature that gives four upload options.


And here is how it will handle embed video from youtube.

Pomplamoose - If You Think You Need Some Lovin

OK, hitting publish now.
So it's not a true simultaneous posting, you do have the option of keeping the information and re-posting it to the second (or third) location right away.

For a free tool, pretty slick.  Another reason to switch to Firefox as well.

Texting In Movies

Last year I saw a number on nonprofit messages appear prior to a movie previews being shown at the theater.  This year, not so much.

I saw the inner workings of one campaign two years ago that had a cute message ask the audience to consider giving.  Then it said, "hurry up and turn your phone off"in order to recognize the fact that consumers of the message were in a theater.

The message wasn't effective.  It didn't produce meaningful results in terms of gifts coming in.  The solicitation didn't pay for itself, not even close.

My guess is that this is a behavioral issue that we won't change.  People aren't in the mode of making a gift when they are sitting down for two hours of escape.  In addition, the public perception is largely stuck in the mindset that they are being sneaky with their phone in the theater.  To try to get them to take it out and use it quickly before the previews start runs counter to the dominant message, even though half the theater goers are on their phones during that time.

Great thought, good experiment, looks like it just didn't work for anyone.

Monetization

Going to explore a few alternatives, starting with signing up for Google Adsense.  Will keep you posted.

Rafflecopter Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Simultaneous Posting to Multiple Blogs

There are several applications that would make this a necessary thing to do.
I am testing out ScribeFire, a Mozilla Firefox plugin, for this particular attempt.
I am posting this to both TechHermit and to my experimental blog, but just hitting the publish button one time.
It seems like a very intuitive tool, even as I am adding hyperlinks, the tools recognizes what is in the clipboard and is ready to paste it right away.
I'll add a picture to see how it appears in both blogs, it is a slick add in feature that gives four upload options.


And here is how it will handle embed video from youtube.

Pomplamoose - If You Think You Need Some Lovin

OK, hitting publish now.
So it's not a true simultaneous posting, you do have the option of keeping the information and re-posting it to the second (or third) location right away.

For a free tool, pretty slick.  Another reason to switch to Firefox as well.

Look What Blogger Did!

I probably missed it when it happened, but I love the changes that blogger has made to their design and template layout.


There are a few more options and a much easier drag and drop layout. Blogger just made it a little easier to have a variety of professional looks for your $0 budget blog.

Facebook Changes...Again.

Facebook made some changes yesterday to the way pages work. They introduced "community pages" and changed some terms that you might need to change on your website as well. If your website says, "Become a Fan on Facebook" you might see how things go over the next couple of weeks and be prepared to change it to a term that matches facebook's nomenclature. You can see below that they have changed it to "like" instead.

Here is the faq section from facebook's home page on these two topics.
You can see the entire Help Center on Facebook Pages if the following doesn't provide your answer.

Community Pages
What are Community Pages?
Community Pages are a new type of Page that enable you to see what peo...
Community Pages are a new type of Page that enable you to see what people are saying about the things that matter to you, and discover the friends and people who share these connections with you. They are similar to any other Page to which you can connect, although they won’t generate stories in your News Feed, and won’t be maintained by a single author. Where available, they also show Wikipedia content for the relevant topic, which Facebook has licensed under the creative commons license.

We think your experience on Facebook will improve as your profile is turned into a living map of all the connections that matter to you, instead of a static list of your interests.
http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=17110
How are Community Pages different from official Pages or Facebook Groups?
Community Pages are built around topics, causes or experiences. Offici...
Community Pages are built around topics, causes or experiences. Official Pages are maintained by authorized representatives of a business, brand, celebrity, or organization, and they can create and share content about the entities that they represent. Community Pages, on the other hand, won’t generate stories in your News Feed, and won’t be maintained by a single author.

While Groups allow you to communicate directly with other people on Facebook about a specific subject, Community Pages simply enable you to learn more about and see what others are saying about additional topics that interest you.
http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=17111
Can I edit the content on a Community Page?
No. When available, we update the information and profile picture base...
No. When available, we update the information and profile picture based on the article for that topic in Wikipedia. At this time, there is no way for people who choose to connect with a Community Page to add their own pictures or edit the information.
http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=17112
How can I tell the difference between official Pages and Community Pages?
Community Pages have slightly different content than official Pages. W...
Community Pages have slightly different content than official Pages. When available, they display a primary picture straight from the Wikipedia page of that topic, along with an info section also from Wikipedia. Related posts from other people on Facebook will also be displayed in real time.

However, since Community Pages are another type of Page, we don't differentiate between them when listed on your profile or in search results.
http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=17113
What if there isn’t a Wikipedia article for a Community Page topic?
Community Pages are meant to be the best collection of shared knowledg...
Community Pages are meant to be the best collection of shared knowledge on topics that interest you. Where available, they show Wikipedia content for the relevant topic, which Facebook has licensed under the creative commons license.

If we can’t find the right article from Wikipedia, we might be asking for help from the community. You may see messaging on these Community Pages inviting you to make these Pages more useful and interesting by signing up to contribute in the future or by suggesting a Wikipedia article.
http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=17138
"Liking" a Page
Why did "Become a Fan" change to "Like"?
To improve your experience and promote consistency across the site, we...
To improve your experience and promote consistency across the site, we've changed the language for Pages from "Fan" to "Like." We believe this change offers you a more light-weight and standard way to connect with people, things and topics in which you are interested.
http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=17167
What does it mean to "Like" a Page?
When you click "Like" on a Page, you are making a connection to that P...
When you click "Like" on a Page, you are making a connection to that Page. The Page will be displayed in your profile, and in turn, you will be displayed on the Page as a person who likes that Page. The Page will also be able to post content into your News Feed.
http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=17115
Can I still "Like" a News Feed story about my friends Liking Pages?
No. When you see a Feed story about a friend Liking a Page, there will...
No. When you see a Feed story about a friend Liking a Page, there will be no feedback links below that story. However, if you hover over the Page name, you will see a small preview of the Page and the number of other people who have also Liked that Page. You can then Like that Page to add it to your profile, or you can click through to the Page itself.
http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=17116
Is there a difference between "Liking" an item a friend posts and "Liking" a Page?
Yes. Liking a Page means you are connecting to that Page. When you con...
Yes. Liking a Page means you are connecting to that Page. When you connect to a Page, it will appear in your profile and you will appear on the Page as a person who likes that Page. The Page will also be able to post content into your News Feed.

On the other hand, when you click "Like" on a piece of content that a friend posts, you are simply letting your friend know that you like it without leaving a comment.
http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=17168

How Social Engagement is Changing

I love a good visual...

Social Media Strategic Planning

My previous post on Social Media Strategic Planning received a few off and online requests for the use of the tactical matrix.

For your convenience, I uploaded the matrix, in this presentation form, to slideshare. You can download the presentation from there and feel free to re-use and re-purpose it. I'd love to know how you might adapt it and use it in a way that fits your purposes, so please keep me informed.

The Most Practical Social Media Presentation You'll Find For Free!

View more presentations from mikeyames.

I found inspiration in the ongoing work of Beth Kanter, the consistent use of matrix grids by Jeremiah Owyang, and a conversation with my friend, Lance Bauslaugh.

The Matrix - Social Media Planning Tool

I have been presented with a couple of opportunities to use a planning matrix or two in the last several weeks. I was glad to see the way the Jeremiah Owyang has been using them over at his blog the in last dozen posts. We have recently been challenged with our thinking at Pursuant with a fundraising matrix that has been very helpful in our strategic planning with clients. They keep popping up.

So this frame of thinking caused me to construct the following matrix specifically geared to guide the planning of a basic social media work flow. There are plenty of comments and critiques you might make to it. I'd love to hear them.



So, based on this empty shell of a matrix, I have filled it in with sample recommendations we might make to a typical small to mid-size non profit client.
You can see the fictional parameters and constraints I have inserted. You can also see that there is an assumption that this hypothetical organization would have already jumped into facebook, twitter, blogging and youtube, without taking time to think through strategy or audience or resources. (sound familiar?)

So this might be you or your organization...


This leads us to having the freedom of turning this matrix on it's side to discover a daily task list for a single person to accomplish a cross platform engagement strategy in about 30 minutes per day. Here is what that might look like...

There is plenty to comment and critique here.
Please resist a critique of the tactics that are listed in the grid. I would much rather hear your comments on the planning tool itself.

Facebook Horribly Messes with Non Profits Use of Their Site.

This is an excellent post you will find on the NonProfit Tech 2.0 Blog.

I encourage you to keep an eye on the results of this test throughout next week. This could be a real disappointment for nonprofits, even those that have employed an excellent engagement strategy might find themselves severely limited in their ability to engage or communicate.

An Experiment with Facebook Advertising for Nonprofit Organizations
2010 February 9
tags: Facebook, ROI (Return on Investment)
by nonprofitorgs

The Facebook of February 2010 is quite different from the Facebook of 2009 especially when it comes to Facebook Fan Pages. If you haven’t yet noticed, three very important changes have been made that significantly effect your organization’s Facebook community:

1) Status Updates are no longer guaranteed to get exposure in the News Feed.

There is a mysterious Facebook algorithm at play here and I just don’t know what it is, but I do know that with the launch of new Facebook design in early February 2010 the vast majority of Status Updates from Pages that I am a fan of are not showing up in the primary News Feed > Top News. More are seemingly showing up in the News Feed > Most Recent view, but definitely not all. I knew this change was coming and I had read that Status Updates that receive a lot of comments and thumbs up would at the very least show up in the News Feed > Most Recent, but that’s just not happening. I have always believed and voiced that 90% of the power of a Facebook Page is in the Status Updates, so having them not show up in News Feeds is a problem.

2) It is no longer obvious that fans have new Updates.

I can’t remember exactly when this change was made, but it was at least 6 months ago. When fans logged into Facebook in the upper right of their “Home” view they used to see alerts of “New Updates!”. Now the only way fans know if they have new Updates is if they go to their Inbox > Updates or if they click “Messages” on the left of the Home view (the later was just added February 2010). Coincidently, once this change was made, activity on the Nonprofit Organizations Facebook Page declined. I no longer saw surges in traffic (via Insights) on days that I sent Updates.

As of February 2 Updates had been relegated the realm of “Out of Sight, Out of Mind”. On that day I polled fans asking if they read Updates anymore, and the overwhelming response was no. BUT now that Facebook has added the “Messages” function in the upper left of the Home view, perhaps the usefulness of Updates with rise again? I’ll send an Update next week and let you know. :)

3) The Pages Filter on the Home view has been removed and replaced with Ads and Pages.

The new Facebook of February 2010 no longer has a “Pages” filter in the upper left of the Home view. It used to be a feed of Status Updates from Pages you were a fan of. It’s gone. Now if you click “More” just below this space a new “Ads and Pages” hub appears. You do not see Status Updates, but rather the Ads and Pages you are an admin for. Useful for Nonprofit Admins who manage many Pages and people who buy and manage Facebook ads, but there’s no way around it… less exposure of Status Updates on the Home view is just not good for most nonprofits.

Thus, a $50 experiment with Facebook Advertsing for Nonprofit Organizations.

Facebook is entering an era of profitability. They have built the largest online community the world has ever known over the last 5 years and now they are positioned to make some serious cash. You can’t blame them for it. It couldn’t be free forever. That’s business. But nonprofits have sent out millions of e-mails and Tweets over the last few years asking supporters to “Become a fan!” thus helping Facebook become the powerhouse that it is today. So, there is a reciprocal relationship here, or at least there should be (I think).

I have read rumors that purchasing advertising will help your nonprofit get more action in the News Feeds. That seems fair. I am willing to pay $50 or $100 in advertising to get increased exposure in the feeds, but not necessarily to secure more fans. If those new fans can’t see my Status Updates, well then quite honestly, what’s the point?
So, I have just purchased a Facebook Ad to promote the Nonprofit Organizations Facebook Page that is to run Monday, February 15th through Friday, February 19th. Together, we will watch to see if it increases my fan base and/or Status Update activity in the News Feeds. Below you can see the steps I took to create and pay for an ad:

1) Step 1 :: Design Your Ad

Step 2 :: Target Your Ad


My ad will target people:

* who live in the United States
* between the ages of 30 and 40 inclusive
* who graduated from college
* who are single, in a relationship, engaged or married
* who speak English (US)

Facebook let me know there are 6,892,600 people that fit that description.

Step 3 :: Campaigns and Pricing

I chose to max my ad at $10 a day. For that price I could get up 17 clicks a day, or 36,000 impressions a day. The later sounded much more impressive so I went with Pay for Impressions. The ad will run for 5 days maxing at $50 starting next Monday, February 15.

Step 4 :: Review and Pay for Ad

Step 5 :: Ads and Pages Admin

As mentioned above, there is a new “Ads and Pages” option on the left side of your Home view under “More.” When the ad goes live next Monday I’ll start seeing some activity and be sure to share screenshots with you the following week. But again, this experiment is not about how many new fans an ad can generate for the Nonprofit Organizations Facebook Page, but rather if it helps the Status Updates of the NPO Page get more News Feed action. I hope so!

I love a good presentation...

Great looking visual aid, Great information on charitable giving in the US.


budget planner – Mint.com

Twitter says "Don't Tweet About It"

I think twitter is using reverse Jedi on me. I have been reading about the new "lists" feature that twitter been working on. Presumably it is the functionality that many have been already using in web applications like tweetdeck and seesmic.
So I was surprised to see this splash banner come up on an account I help facilitate.
I will run to try out the feature now. I just thought it was funny how twitter announced this private rollout.



If you can't read it in the picture, the text says, "Lists are timelines you build yourself, consisting of friends, family, co-workers, sports teams, you name it. You're part of a small group receiving this feature, so don't tweet about it yet!"

They so want me to tweet about it, right?

Community Hunger Day - Tell Us How it is Going!

So many of our friends have chosen to participate with us on Community Hunger Day. I will give a tally of the total impact, number of participants and amount of donations in the coming days.
For now, I wanted to give us a public space to share some thoughts on how things went for you throughout the day. Please leave a comment and share some thoughts on the day.

I have several hours left before the day is over. I am sure I will notice my own hunger as the day turns into evening and I don't have work to distract me from my stomach. What are your thoughts?

Community Hunger Day is Oct 22

Our family story was featured in this video, check it out!

Video in Your Print Magazine

This is a bit awkward, at this stage, but I am sure this is the first of many integrated media campaigns that make unexpected combinations. Eventually it won't be unexpected.



I predict that this ad will be talked about as the first...then you won't see any copycats for more than a year. Then print media will continue to decline and suffer. Then, a few years from now, you will see versions of this everywhere. Not quite the promise of video paper that Popular Science has been showing us for years, but the technology is getting cheaper and better.

University President's Online Persona

I had a representative of a university president's office ask me about getting their president up on twitter. I thought I would share part of our exchange. The short research that I did might help you in a similar decision.

My initial response...

I would be remiss if I didn’t ask a couple of questions.

Is the president wanting to partially participate in a profile that is also being updated by others?
Is [president] already the kind of person who creates content on a regular basis?
Aside from simply being an active participant on twitter, does [president] have any specific objectives he’d like to see met as a result of his participation? (I can suggest a few)

Based on the answers to these questions, I would suggest a specific approach to managing his profile.

After another exchange that clarified the questions I asked, I provided the following overview of other university presidents that are using the tool and how they are using it.

http://twitter.com/asupresoffice -Arizona State is clear that this is the “Office of the President” President Michael Crow has a personal profile here http://twitter.com/michaelcrow. The office of president profile has largely turned into a newsfeed. This could be a way we would choose to approach, and then push [president] to do his own tweeting while at high profile events through the same channel. The disadvantage of this approach is that it is a bit contrived, stiff, and the opposite of what regular twitter users would expect from someone seriously interested in using the tool.
This is something we could do for you with a little training and consult. We could set it up and turn it over. Someone in the president’s office is best suited to manage the feed on an ongoing basis. It would be difficult for us to manage this type of feed for you on an ongoing basis, but it is (remotely) possible.

https://twitter.com/presidentgee - Ohio State University, obviously more personal than ASU, but guarded and not engaging. You’ll see he never @replies or Retweets or asks questions or engages in the conversation that is available. It could easily be Gordon Gee’s personal assistant transcribing an event off of his calendar. It is Less newsy, more personal, not interactive (which is the point of twitter [but not if the user isn’t willing to embrace the tool and be transparent])
Other similar examples… http://twitter.com/kstate_pres
We could assist in setup, launch, and a bit more extensive training and consult to both [president] and an assistant of his. It would be very difficult for us to manage this kind of feed on your behalf and we would not recommend ghost writing.

http://twitter.com/johnmaeda - Rhode Island School of Design, President Maeda is extremely engaging, uses the tool well. Intentionally follows others and has a huge following because of his obvious transparency and willing to use twitter as it was intended. Notice all the Retweets and questions and @replies. This user has actual clout and influence in the tool. He likely never has anyone else share his feed. He has completely embraced it as part of his daily rhythm.
Other similar examples… http://twitter.com/AJUpresident
… http://twitter.com/DavidSDockery - President of Union University in Jackson, TN
We could assist in setup and launch and provide exhaustive training and consult in explaining philosophy and practices behind becoming this kind of user. We could NOT operate this kind of feed on an ongoing basis.


Let me know what you think?
Do you know of any other school presidents who are doing a good job tweeting?

Alumni Association Twitter Use - Baseline Comparisons

What kind of influence score should the typical alumni association reach for? At this point, in this data that we have collected, we have only established a baseline of comparison that allows the different association feeds to look at each other. But as an overall average, should we compare ourselves to something else?



Here is a quick comparison of scores taken and averaged from a dozen random real people (not internet marketers or spammers or profession social media types). The commonality between this average person and the alumni associations we have looked at is that they have the same number of average followers.



You'll notice that the average user who has 560 followers has more than three times the influence and eight times the clout as the average alumni association feed. So my question to you, because I don't think this is the best comparison, is who should alumni associations compare themselves with? If we are going to establish a baseline of comparison to determine that our logistic performance in the tool is better than average or desperately in need of improvement - who should we compare ourselves to?

Brand names?
Membership associations?
Central communication feeds for the schools?
Small Companies with a similar sized customer base?

Sound off in the comments...what do you think should be the comparison that makes the best sense?

Little Funny

Found by way of my friend, Jeremy Gregg, over at FundVisor.

Alumni Associations Twitter Usage Report

Don't let the fact that I am not able to offer you a fully functioning version of this data with an attached, preloaded pivot table stop you. I would love to put a call out there for someone to do their magic with this data and give it back to us. I ventured into this project with a few basic questions I wanted to answer. I collected the data and set about to answer those questions. There is, without a doubt, a hundred other questions and answers that one could derive from this data, so have at it.

If you plan to do your own analysis and discover some answers to your own questions, you should know a few basics about the tool I used to collect this data. Twitalyzer is a website that runs the numbers you see represented in the data. Twitalyzer takes a snapshot of the past seven days of your use of twitter and runs the algorithm to arrive at a score in 5 different categories, influence, signal, generosity, velocity and clout.

A couple other things you should know...If you haven’t used twitter in the past seven days, it doesn’t matter how much influence or clout you had, Twitalyzer will give a zero return on data. This does NOT mean that your influence scores will reset, start over from zero, and need to build up again. Part of the Twitalyzer algorithm accounts for the number of followers you have, and previous profile scores that have been analyzed in the past. It is important to understand how some profiles might go from an influence score of 2.4 to zero and back to 2.2. The “no data” score is not technically a score of zero, even though it might seem that way in how you choose to present data. Twitalyzer basically answers the question, “what is your influence in twitter in the last seven days.” Where one can easily make the case that a profile that hasn’t been updated for the past week still retains some influence (based upon user accessibility to previous updates), Twitalyzer only shows trends limited to the previous tabulations that have been run on a given user name. In the basic report page, an ongoing tabulation of the scores is only presented in terms of averages… and not trends. If you would like to see the information presented in a line graph, over time, Twitalyzer will give you a look at that information in a couple of fun ways here.

Based upon this information, it seems inappropriate to present these numbers in a line graph, over time.

This raw Twitalyzer data should be seen as a snapshot average, tabulated five times, between the dates of May 27th and June 22nd , 2009.

If any one data collection time returned “no data” that time was not counted as a zero in the average, instead it was not included in the average.

So, lets get into the questions and answers about Alumni Associations.

I took time to select the top 40 twitter profiles (based on number of followers) by searching for user bios or user names that contained the words "alumni association." the remaining group of alumni association feeds came from a sampling of feeds that were interesting to me for one reason or another. For instance, the two profiles at the bottom of the list were selected because they were started within a couple of days of when my data collection began.

What does the average alumni association feed look like?
After collecting data over the course of a month, what was the aggregate growth seen in each time period?
The typical twitter profile for alumni associations started off with 454 followers and following 303 twitter users. Those numbers grew. By the end of the month, the typical alumni association profile was following 356 users while being followed by 559.

Lets average all the scores together for all 49 profiles that were traced over the course of the month.

The fact that alumni associations have an average influence score 0.4 give us plenty of comparisons to make among the ones that were analyzed. Should alumni associations be happy to be above average? Do their twitter feeds rank low in comparison to other similar industries? More on that later.
For now, here is several quick looks at how individual profiles compare.




















If you have been reading these posts from the beginning, you have heard me make the case that judging a profile based on the number of followers is a horrible way to measure success. It is still a statistic that most would be interested in. Here are a couple of ways to look at that statistic. There are a couple of ways to determine how engaging an alumni association is being with this social web tool. One quick way I did this was to look back through three pages of updates for each feed and see if they had a tendency to @reply any of their followers with conversation. If there were none, it is easy to conclude that a feed was dedicated to one-way communication. Those profiles that choose to engage with @replies saw slightly higher growth in followers than those who did not. While I personally hold to the insight that it is better to have 50 responsive followers than 1000 that ignore you, this data comparison can help one make several observations.

There also seems to be a relationship between high clout/influence scores with those profiles who make a practice of following a high percentage of users that are following them. This is seen, in twitter, as a more generous and engaging way to act as a user.

The question becomes, to the alumni association, if the simple act of following back the real people who are following your feed is worth the little bit of extra time it takes to do this. The influence scores say yes.

You can see that the majority of alumni associations fail to take time to enact a follow strategy that leads out and initiates a relationship with another user by following first. Those that do, and follow at least 90% of their following, have more than three times the influence and clout of those that follow fewer than 50%.

While I have several other observations to make about this data. This might be enough to get our conversation started for now. What do you think? Feel free to pull down the spreadsheet and run your own numbers? What does it tell us? What recommendations can we make?
More to come...