Archive for the ‘Social Networking’ tag
Fundraising with Social Media: Facebook ‘Causes’ and Others
The Facebook application ‘Causes’ has just been slammed by a Washington Post article that labels the app as ‘inneffective.’ This is an opinion of course, and many organizations have attained a positive Return on Investment from Causes…
yes, it is effective -> case study: SIDS Research
Sids Education Services’ cause page for ‘Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Research” has over 258,000 members.
- There are 996 comments on its Wall dating from June 2007 (probably around the time the Cause started);
- There are 129 media items posted – photos/videos/web links
- 258,000 members potentially = huge list of qualified email recipients
- $1,746 has been donated by the Cause’s membership
If you’re looking at these stats and thinking, ‘what in the world, they only raised $1,746 in two years!’ then you’re doing it wrong.
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Facebook Spreads Virus, Corporate Management: ‘Told You So!’
With over 175 million users Facebook has become an ideal place to proliferate and spread ridiculously potent viruses. The only solution is to completely block social networking websites from the workplace. The newest of the viruses is the ‘Koobface‘ worm – it phishes its way onto user computers by getting users to open messages that appear to be sent from their Facebook friends.
Facebook in the Workplace
Facebook users and internet marketers have been pushing, often staunchly, for the privilege to use the social network while at work. Management didn’t really care about the harm to their IT infrastructure, for the most part they worried about the potential (and later observed) decline in productivity associated with allowing access to the website.
Cause-Specific Websites: The Flood Gates are Open
A couple weeks back I introduced the new nonprofit social startup Causecast.org. I have since learned of two great websites that put Causecast back in the ‘contender’ category – because they have been around a lot longer and both enjoy a substantial amount of members.
In fact, SocialVibe.com and Ammado.com share many of the same ’causes’ . Both websites provide visitors with a wide selection of nonprofits to follow. SocialVibe wins my vote as the most efficient, usable, and well-designed website. The website allows you to ‘join’ as many causes as you wish – once you join a cause you can contribute to the nonprofit’s SocialVibe community by submitting donations, uploading multimedia (photos, videos), writing in a cause-specific forum, and finally, you can share the nonprofit’s SocialVibe page on other social networks (MySpace, Facebook, etc.). The ‘One Laptop Per Child’ cause has a well-utilized page on SocialVibe.
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Youtube launches ‘In My Name’ video project for poverty elimination
Today, Youtube launches a new philanthopic effort aimed at addressing the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MGDs) to end global poverty. Starting today, through November 1st, site visitors throughout the world will be able to submit videos of themselves addressing a local and/or global poverty-related issue.
If executed effectively the ‘In My Name’ project will prove to be one of the most effective povert-related campaigns ever executed, both online and offline. Youtube’s massive reach (estimated 73.5 million per month) is the main reason for the campaign’s inevitable success. Today’s teens and young adults are spending more of their free time online than watching tv and reading magazines – if any youth-focused marketing campaign is to prove effective it must have a substantial online component. The youthful and tech-saavy demographic that accounts for the majority of Youtube’s daily audience is a huge plus on its own.
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