I find Facebook to be a great tool to keep in touch with people I meet at conferences and other events because they only need to know my name to find me. It's such a clean site, which is the main reason why I like it so much.
Joined on 03-21-2001
Los Angeles
My exploration of Facebook -- my first trial of "social networking" -- made me uncomfortable with it, but I'm an old guy, so most of you can probably discount my views.
That kind of exposure does not seem useful to me, and it could be harmful. Although it may be very useful for most people, it seems unprofessional for me to put a lot of personal information on a site like that.
I can imagine doing Facebook pseudonymously, and having either no "friends" or "friends" who don't really know who I am, but now I have deleted all the data that I could delete from my real Facebook profile and disconnected from Facebook.
Joined on 03-21-2001
Los Angeles
Here's an interesting article in
TIME. It reminds me that Facebook doesn't allow pseudonyms.
Joined on 08-20-2001
San Francisco, CA and the web
Interesting article, Jesse, thanks. I just saw this recent
blog post from
Read/WriteWeb on the top 10 Facebook applications that are useful as work productivity tools.
I must say, I have some quibbles with their list. Facebook may have more privacy concerns than most social networking sites, but I'm not ready to import my calendar and to-do list to Facebook. I think a lot of these applications (particularly WalkieTalkie and Zoho) are potentially very useful. However, I do wish privacy was discussed more when the latest & greatest social networking aps are discussed. Still, I think this list is a nice way to start looking at how Facebook can be a viable professional tool.
--Megan
Joined on 08-20-2001
San Francisco, CA and the web
Does anyone else have trouble with the search engine in Facebook? So often I feel like the search function doesn't really pull up what I'm looking for and there's not a very good way to drill down my search without wading through tons of irrelevant search results. I'm finding this to be pretty prohibitive for me to invest time in using Facebook.
--Megan
TechSoup just reprinted two articles from Web site Wild Apricot for nonprofits just getting started on Facebook:
- A Beginner's Guide to Facebook
- Promote Your Cause on Facebook in Six Easy Steps
Share your feedback here.
Joined on 08-20-2001
San Francisco, CA and the web
Facebook has been all over the news lately. There's an
article on the cover of this week's Newsweek. We've had many discussions about Facebook here, including
this discussion on useful Facebook applications for nonprofits.
I've been experimenting with Facebook for a few months now and have been keeping an eye on some of the ways nonprofits are using this tool, both for professional networking and advancing their cause.
Does anyone have any Facebook success stories to share?
Best,
Megan
Joined on 05-07-2003
TechSoup Member
While these are great primers for nonprofits to use FB, I also think they don't highlight some of the liabilities and problems of the platform - primarily interoperability with other systems. Soha highlights using FB's photos and Events, but why should I have to use a whole new event and photo management system. I want to be able to plug in Flicker or Picasa for photos, and use Gcal or Upcoming for Events.
Also, at this point, you can't add applications to groups, so most the advocacy work is done on the individual to individual level. While great for viral networking and decentralized organizing, there's really no way to track and measure your outcomes.
Orgs just need to understand that they are creating another data silo with hard to measure impacts.
Somewhat shameless self promotion, I highlight some of these issues in a very silly article on NTEN:
http://nten.org/blog/2007/08/20/dear-facebook
Joined on 08-22-2007
TechSoup Member
Regarding Sonny_Cloward's comment, "Orgs just need to understand that they are creating another data silo with hard to measure impacts.”
I agree, however I think if you look at Facebook as a potential awareness tool rather than the be-all-social-networking-solution for your group it can work to your advantage. For instance, nonprofits rarely have the resources to promote and drive the public-at-large to their own websites that may have blog/social networking components. Facebook allows an organization to be where the people are right now – previously that might have been MySpace or another technology tool of the day.
From a marketer stand point, you can reach a new audience beyond your core groups that may already interact with you frequently through more traditional means (such as your own website for instance). Then you can begin to educate your new audience about you in the world they are familiar with (Facebook) and ‘gently’ lead them to your resources that are external from the Facebook realm.
It is also about shifting your organization to become more customer-oriented. Utilize the tools your audience/potential audiences are using and interact with them on their terms instead of your own. It may not work with what your organization has already set forth to do technology-wise but at the end of the day you may have more dedicated supporters because of it.
I agree with Sonny's points.
I use it for personal/professional networking -- a place to collect and connect with people - to me it is sort of multimedia LinkedIn.
There is an active Cambodian Network on Facebook with young people from Cambodia too.
I don't think it is a good collaboration platform - more a gathering spot to go elsewhere to do work.
Joined on 11-05-2001
TechSoup Member
This article is a great start, but someone really needs to update the fundraising examples. I'm not sure how to see which cause has the most members and funds raised, but a quick glance shows:
Save Dafur at 396,180 members - $31,910 donated
and
Support Cancer Research
1,009,707 members - $25,895 donated
Those are great results!
Joined on 05-07-2003
TechSoup Member
Really...not trying to be a nay-sayer here. However, the orgs that are raising that much money are 1) First adopters, and have been on FB since it opened up 2) are larger organizations. If you look at most of the smaller causes/change.org orgs, they are not raising that much money from FB. So with limited capacity, limited resources and a platform that is so restrictive, does it makes sense for smaller orgs to invest in using FB right now?
Not a rhetorical question...really curious.
~S
Joined on 03-21-2001
Los Angeles
The Wall Street Journal is reporting
today:
"Social-networking Web site Facebook Inc. is quietly working on a new advertising system that would let marketers target users with ads based on the massive amounts of information people reveal on the site about themselves...."
Joined on 06-22-2007
TechSoup Member
Also from Wild Apricot's blog, I talk about some of our strategies and successes using Facebook..
http://www.wildapricot.com/blogs/newsblog/archive/2007/08/16/interview-with-carie-lewis.aspx]Using Facebook and MySpace for Fundraising and Advocacy[/URL]
Also, if you're on the progressive exchange listserv, we've currently got a pretty in-depth discussion going on about Facebook and nonprofits.
Joined on 08-20-2001
San Francisco, CA and the web
Hi Carie--
Really enjoyed the interview--correct link is
here for folks who'd like to see it.
You mentioned in your interview that outreach was definitely the most time-consuming part of keeping up a presence on Facebook and other social media networking. In your opinion, is it worth the time investment for smaller nonprofits with limited resources to build up a network in Facebook, in terms of return (i.e. donors, fundraising dollars, etc.) from Facebook?
--Megan