With tools like WordPress, Joomla and Drupal, a nonprofit  can update their sites with a few clicks. In my experience, I’ve found many nonprofit executives think their website and social media presence has to be expensive and complicated, and they don’t take advantage of the passion of their  fans to populate their YouTube,  Flickr and other channels. I suspect that the reason large size and budget is not necessarily an indicator of  effective use of social media has more to do with internal politics than anything else.  Internal politics is also likely the reason for relatively scant use of Twitter by  the surveyed nonprofits.

After looking through the results, I had additional questions, which Craig and  collaborator  Allyson Kapin of RAD Campaign answered for me.

Q. When you were doing this study, how were you measuring effectiveness?
A. We wanted to know if the top nonprofits, ranked by net income, were the ones actually being the most effective with social media. We looked at how active they were on social networks like Facebook and Twitter, how many followers they had, how often they engaged with “their people” on these social platforms and to some extent, where we could see the data, if their followers/likers were being engaged by “Liking” and commenting on their Facebook posts, and retweeting  them on Twitter.

Q. Give the simplicity of adding SM media, why are so many NPOs NOT using all the buttons? Is it because of the complexity of their website build outs?
A. Nonprofits are strapped for resources. Many don’t have the budget to have web developers and social media staff to manage their website and social media presence. However, in this day and age, it’s very important that nonprofits carve out some time and resources to address this.  This is where their supporters are and spend a chunk of their time.

Q. Did this research provide any insights into what the challenges are for NPOs in using social media?
A. While our data did not look this per say, we do feel that the biggest challenge here is staffing and resources, which I mentioned above.

Q. Did this research help you understand ways that would be cost-effective and easy for NPOs to improve their social media presence? And will you be sharing those understandings?
A. We recommend that nonprofits utilize 5 key strategies to improve their social media presence.
1.      Provide engaging and relevant content about some of the great work you are doing.
2.      Don’t be wonky. Social media is about being “social”.
3.      Foster conversations. Ask your followers/likers for their opinions.
4.      Be responsive. This is about building a community.
5.      Practice dipping in and out of social media in 10- to 15-minute increments.

Q. It seems that those NPOs — like the Red Cross — that have a critical mission seemed better able to develop a critical mass and a conversation in all channels. Did you get any feedback relevant to that?
A. The Red Cross has at least 2 social media staffers who do a great job engaging people on social networks. They understand the space and how to connect with people, particularly in natural disasters — as we all witnessed during the earthquake in Haiti.  They are also incredibly responsive to the community, which is so important.

Q. What about fundraising? Did you look at those tools and their effectiveness?
A. No this study did not look at that.

Q. This survey seemed like the first step in a deeper analysis, ie. it did not really draw any conclusions. Will there be a second round in this research?
A. The biggest take-away from the study was that income doesn’t necessarily increase a nonprofit’s interactions on social media. Some of the most engaged organizations on social media are not the one’s with the highest income on the list, yet they are doing a good job with their social media. Why? Because they are fostering engaging conversations and interactions.

We are releasing another infographic in early November that looks at nonprofit verticals ranging from Veterans to Environmental organizations and how they do social media.

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Among the survey’s findings:

• 92% of the top 50 nonprofits have at least 1 social media presence on their homepage.
• The most followers that an organization has on Twitter is 840,653 (PBS).
• On the other hand, the organization following the most people is following 200,522 (The American Cancer Society)!
• The American Red Cross was the first organization on the list to create a Twitter account.
• Food for the Poor is the most talkative organization on Facebook, and has posted 220 posts over the course of 2 months.
• The organization with the highest net income, the YMCA, only posted 19 times to Facebook in 2 months, but has over 24,000 Fans.

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In the year 2000 – when I first came across it — Craigslist was an earnest site providing a deceptively simple service — free classified ads online—  that was extremely useful to most everyone. Today, Craigslist is the 9th most popular website in the United States. As much as it is loved, it is also vilified. Some blame Craigslist for newspapers’ lost profits and decimation of  the revenue model for news. If only it were that simple.  If Craigslist hadn’t brought free classifieds online,  some other web service  would have. Personally, I credit Craig Newmark and Craigslist for setting a kind and gentle tone for the  Internet. For him the Internet has always been about social change.

Today Craig can be found on Twitter with nearly 39,000 followers, Facebook with more than 120,000 and on his CraigConnects site. He converses constantly with his followers, chatting about the birds and other wildlife he sees on his deck in San Francisco’s beautiful Cole Valley.  Craig’s current focus focus is on craigconnects, which he says is his “initiative to link up everyone on the planet using the Internet to bear witness to good efforts and encourage the same behavior in others.”

He will be speaking at 11 a.m. today at Chicago’s TechWeek at Merchandise Mart.

Q. Do you see the pressure from social media to change the culture of businesses as leading to lasting change or a new type of organization? What would that organization look like?

A. I do see that in large organizations, those with 150 or more people or more, that’s the Dunbar number. Currently, to get ahead in a large hierarchy, you tell your boss what he or she wants to hear, and then she or he tells her or his boss what they want to hear. That means that real company knowledge and possible improvements never make it to the top. However, social media tech can be used by line workers to combine knowledge and improve business businesses. In such situations, the boss has to back this up, and that often proves difficult.

I’m currently seeing the Department of Veterans Affairs using such methods to better serve vets and also provide better return for the taxpayer dollar.

Q. 435 Digital is all about increasing the capacity of smaller and local businesses to operate efficiently online to reach their customers and grow their businesses. What kind of tools do you see developing as an alternative to traditional advertising for local business? What other services do you see emerging?

A. I like the use of social media, where friends can help friends make better product choices, and that includes Twitter, Foursquare, Google+, Facebook, etc. Also, importantly, there are user review systems, like Amazon or Consumer Reports, which help.

The big problem is that sometimes such systems can be gamed, that’s already a problem. I feel that that might only be fixed with lots of reviewers, constant vigilance, and networks of fact-checking.

Q. You like to say trust is the new black, what are your thoughts for how local businesses can best translate the trust they have built on the ground into trust online? Services like Yelp might be part of the answer, but what else do you see?

A. I’d say that organizations just need to be straight with people in all presences, offline and online. Maximum transparency is good, within obvious limits.  (There’s always stuff you can’t talk about, like customer private info.)

It helps to speak in plain language, and to get to the point, and then stop.

Q. You recently successfully launched a veteran’s initiative through craigconnects, and community building is another area that you plan to encourage under craigconnects.  How do you plan to use the tools of the social web to encourage us to take more responsibility for our communities and neighborhoods.  What new tools are you excited about?

A. We’re still planning that, but probably soon two areas:

• networks of factchecking so that we can get trustworthy, reliable info.
• use of nonprofit rating services to help us select good nonprofits to help and how to find bogus ones to avoid.  We’re working with GuideStar, charity Navigator, and GreatNonprofits.org.

The post Social Media Icon: Craig Newmark on using social media for social change appeared first on 435 Digital.