Social Media Roundtable Talks Non-Profit at Blog Talk Radio for Blog Action Day (transcription edition)

In honor of Blog Action Day, Blog Talk Radio held an all day talkathon. Normally anything involving talking is right up my alley, as most of you know, but the whole hearing impairment thing kinda gets in the way of my having much radio fun. My pal Karen (aka Deafmom) and I really wanted to catch the social media roundtable discussion that went down around 4pm today, so I had it transcribed.

Let me warn you in advance, this post is so long it will probably break wordpress. If you’re of the fully-hearing breed, feel free to save your eyesight and catch the audio version archived at Blog Talk Radio. You might also want to stop by and catch up on the rest of the 12 hours worth of talking that went on over there. I’ve heard (no pun intended) good things.

(Disclaimer: This was transcribed by my virtual assistant who is not a professional transcriptionist. We did our best. If we butchered anything, please drop a line and I’ll correct it.)

Many thanks to Vicky who was kind enough to write up some great info about the panelists and keep me from horribly misspelling some of these names.

“Using Social Media For Nonprofits” Roundtable Discussion

Host: Easton Ellsworth
Cohost: Vicky Hennegan
Panelists: Paul Chaney, Liz Strauss, Mark Carter, Beth Kanter

Easton: Welcome to Beth Kanter, Vicky Hennegan, Liz Strauss, Paul Chaney and Mark Carter. Welcome to all of you as we join our social media roundtable. Cohosting with me today will be Vicky. Vicky Hennigan has actually been a godsend to me and to the rest of the Blog Action Day team. Hello Vicky.

Vicky: Hi Easton. How are you?

Easton: Good. How are you doing? How did you sleep? I know you and I were both up pretty late in our respective locations working on Blog Action Day stuff. We’re on the line with Vicky Hennegan. Vicky is the founder of remarkableparents.com. You want to just tell us briefly about that Vicky?

Vicky: Remarkableparents.com is a website I started to help parents learn how to use different software and social media tools that their kids are using, such as text messaging, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Skype, and to help parents become a little more informed on what these tools do and how they’re used, and to be able to have a good discussion with their child of what is appropriate and what is not appropriate.

Easton: So this is a perfect tie-in to Blog Action Day as we have young and old joining in this kind of worldwide push to talk about poverty and pull out all the stops in social media. I’ve actually seen you put this into action as you’ve kind of gone all over Twitter and used other tools, blogs, and really got the word out about this event, and I really appreciate your contributions. We’re going to also welcome to the show Beth Kanter with Beth’s blog. Beth, if you’d like to introduce yourself and your URL to our listeners.

Beth: Sure. My name’s Beth Kanter, and I write a blog called Beth’s Blog, and it’s about how non-profits can use social media for social change. I’ve been blogging now for five or six years. My background, I’ve worked with non-profit organizations my whole career, initially in fundraising and marketing and then sort of got involved in the early days of the internet and in teaching non-profits how they can incorporate all these tools effectively into the way they do their work.

Easton: This is perfect. So if you’re a blogger out there or a non-profit, Beth is going to have some great insights. We also have on the line Liz Strauss, whom I can’t say that I worship but I almost worship. I bow down in reverence to Liz. Liz Strauss is just a pioneer of what I would call community blogging or just turning a blog into a tool for creating a community of friends that actually accomplishes both professional and personal good. Her blog is successful-blog.com. For several years it’s been a hallmark of the right way to run a blog in terms of building a community. One of her famous features there is on Tuesday nights from her location in Chicago she runs an open comment night, which is kind of innovative as it gets people into the comment thread after the post to leave comments almost like an instant messaging chat. That’s been a great vehicle for her to build community there. Welcome to the show as well Liz.

Liz: Hi Easton. Hi Vicky. It’s great to be here and explore more ways social media helps us communicate and mediate our relationships.

Vicky: I have links for both Beth Kanter and Liz Strauss on how people can get started using social media on my website, so after people are done talking people can go there and use it as a resource.

Easton: That’s perfect. Thank you Vicky for tracking those down. After this or as we’re wrapping up this section if people go to remarkableparents.com they’ll find those links there to more information handpicked by these ladies. Paul Chaney is also on the line joining us from the American South, right Paul?

Paul: Joining you from where?

Easton: Where are you joining us from? I can’t remember exactly.

Paul: At the moment I’m joining you from inside a car in Foxboro Massachusetts, where I’ve spent the last two days with Chris Brogan as a matter of fact, at the New Marketing Summit. That just concluded and we’re headed back to our hotel, so I’m en route basically.

Liz: Tell that Brogan I need to talk to him.

Beth: I just met Paul yesterday face to face, right at that same place.

Easton: I’m still looking for that meeting someday. So Paul is in Massachusetts joining us. Paul, if you can just tell everybody a little bit about what you do.

Paul: Well, I do a number of things. First of all, let me mention I’m an internet marketing director for a web content management company called Bizzuka, and in fact I’m in car with the CEO, so I’ve got to plug Bizzuka. I also work with a non-profit trade association dedicated to blogging and new media called the International Blogging and New Media Association, IBNMA.org. And I maintain my own blog called conversationalmediamarketing.com.

Easton: I know it’s kind of hard for some of us to describe in one sentence what we do because that’s kind of the nature of the beast that we’re in, and I put myself in the same group here as a professional who uses blogging to help conversations.

Vicky: Also on my blog I’ve got bios of each of the guests, so people can go and see and read everything about them.

Easton: I was just going to say some of the varied interests of everyone here, it’s interesting to consider because sometimes it’s hard to describe exactly what we do. And then finally joining us on the call last but not least is Mark Carter. How are you doing Mark?

Mark: Good. How are you doing?

Easton: Doing all right. I did not sleep one wink last night, but I’m doing ok.

Liz: You can’t tell from your voice, so that’s a good start.

Easton: So if you can just tell everyone about yourself and your interest in social media?

Mark: The hat I’m wearing today, and it sounds like everyone wears a lot of them, is Director of Social Media for a new website, it’s actually a full community, called savingtheworld.net. It’s a community that was actually created by New York Times best selling author for his new book Saving the World at Work, and it’s a phenomenal resource. We’re really looking forward to growing it. People can get their own blogs, create their own posts, create their own groups, but it’s specifically geared for socially responsible organizations, non-profits and companies. So anyone who signs up for the community and blogs there, if people join they’re joining because it’s a common cause and there’s some social responsibility as opposed to some communities that have everything from music on down. This is just specifically to help them get the word out.

Easton: This is excellent. I’m so excited to have a conversation with all of you guys here. This is a first kind of roundtable that we’ve done today. Vicky, I wanted to get just a sense from you, because I know you’ve been out there not only preparing for this event but also watching the progress of Blog Action Day 2008 as we’ve watched the numbers go up in terms of involvement and everything. What would you like to start in sort of kicking things off?

Vicky: Well, I think that when a lot of people start in social media, whether it’s blogging or Twitter or Facebook or any of those, I think you just kind of walk into it blindly and experiment a little bit. But what I’ve noticed over the last year is that there’s a lot of good resources out there that will get you thinking about the questions of what your organization or your non-profit cause is actually trying to accomplish, and then there’s documents and there’s different people out there who can help you get on a social media strategy. I guess what I wanted to do is talk a little bit about the different forms of social media, and then kind of talk a little bit about how non-profits can develop a social media strategy and their first steps to doing that. Then after the roundtable is over they can go back to the site and look at those. I think there’s about 12 or 14 resources for non-profits out there and social media. So that’s kind of what I had in mind.

Easton: That’s fine. If you would like to, you can just kind of take the lead on this and I can just keep score and help guide things as needed. There’s so much wisdom and insight packed into this group, if you just want to lead off with a question and fire it away at somebody.

Vicky: Ok. Well, I guess my first question would be to Paul Chaney. With a resource like IBNMA if they join they will get to meet a lot of people who are doing the same thing and come up with some sort of strategy, can you give our listeners a sense of what advantages they could get from joining an organization such as IBNMA?

Paul: I’d be happy to respond to that, and I want to do so by reflecting back on a segment you said just a moment ago, and that was people sort of entering and crossing the chasm into this social media sphere or this universe and not really knowing what to do or how to approach it but just sort of experimenting with things somewhat blindly. I think part of the mission of the IBNMA, the International Blogging and New Media Association, is to help people who are doing that do it more intelligently. One of the ways they do that is by having the ability to connect with people who are professional practitioners, people who are I guess you could say veterans or ,I hate to use the word but ,experts in the field. And because IBNMA is a level ground, we only have one level of membership and that’s the individual level, so everyone comes in sort of at the same price point as it were, if you are a professional practitioner or a veteran, blogger or business blogger, and we cover a lot of turf so certainly it may be the political end of the sphere or the non-profit end of the sphere, you can find people to connect with who can help you learn and grow. Because one of my own personal philosophies is this, I’ve learned from others who’ve taught me and I have a responsibility to give back to a community of people who might not know quite as much as I know. So we just kind of keep this continuum going, and then it’s almost like a paying it forward kind of thing. They in turn help others. And I think the IBNMA is a great place to do that.

Vicky: Yeah, I agree. There are so many people who are at different levels too in those organizations. It’s where you can find people at your same level if you’re new.

Paul: One of the ways we’re going to help folks do this, we’re not there yet I’m going to have to tell you, but one of the ways we’re going to do it is to help create, for lack of a better term, counsels, or almost like colonies. So if you have an interest in, well maybe you’re a non-profit or have an interest in a certain non-profit arena, maybe it’s a healthcare related non-profit or something of that nature, or poverty or whatever it might be, you can find others of your ilk, and you can collect with them, and you guys can share inside the overall banner of this organization, and we are a fairly large umbrella of an organization, you can find people of like kind with which to build relationships and learn from and grow with.

Vicky: I think that’s a really important piece, because I got my big start after attending Liz Strauss’ SOBconference, and I met so many wonderful people that I had a lot of people there to help me. It was fantastic, and it helped me learn so much more. I just feel like I’ve been mentored by so many people that it’s unbelievable. Liz, what do you think? Have you found the same type of thing at your conferences?

Liz: I just find social media is that way in general, that we’re all about mentoring each other, and we’re all about bringing each other up. Whatever I have, Paul has some, Beth has something else. Mark is like a phenomenal resource for people on the ground, and I’m a resource for people online. Beth is a resource for people in the non-profit world. Mr. PC Haney, as I call him, has so many resources I can’t wait to explore them. We all have something different to bring ,a different voice we bring to the table in such a way, like you and Easton even. Not even, even moreso is what I mean. We all bring so many different unique values, and we’re all learning from each other, and it’s not something we find in the hiarical structure in the concrete world so much. We’re much more collaborative right now online. It’s a value I hope we hold onto and one I hope we can bring back into the society that’s become a little too structured in the world of brick and mortar. Beth, what do you think about that?

Beth: I do agree with you about the mentoring and the peer support that goes on around social media, and I’ve seen it happen in the comments of blog posts. I’ve seen it happen in different social networking sites and in the face-to-face conferences non-profits are attending and their sessions on social media. People are really open and willing to share what they know, which I think is great. I think that is sort of the culture of social media is being open, being open and welcome to sharing. Kind of open sourcing your knowledge.

Vicky: Yeah, I think so. I think it’s because, I don’t know if social media people are kind of out in front blazing new trails or whatever you want to call it, but they’re just the best group of people I’ve ever met in my entire life.

Liz: I think it might have something to do with the people who are willing to engage in something that starts with the word social.

Beth: I was just thinking about I wrote a post on Blog Action Day on social media challenging poverty, and I kind of did a summary of what some of my colleagues are doing, and I came across this great post on how social media technology non-profit people in the UK are hosting a meetup. They were calling it Social Media Surgery, where they were just offering advice. It was sort of like doctors’ hours to people who were new to social media and also to talk about the poverty issue. I know I have learned myself attending different tweetups, there’s a wonderful group in Boston called the Boston Mediamakers. They’re all videobloggers, and that’s where I’ve learned everything I know about videoblogging. But it makes learning a lot more fun to be doing it on a shoulder to shoulder basis with a peer, people you know, rather than alone in your room feeling stupid.

Vicky: You probably have Chris Brogan in your group, don’t you? Because he’s from the Boston area.

Beth: Yeah, he’s shown up at that and at Podcamps. We’re lucky. We’re rich with people who are in this industry and are passionate about it and are so willing to be open and sharing and helpful.

Vicky: Mark? Is Mark Carter still on the line?

Liz: Sounds like Carter is having one of his ADD moments.

Vicky: Ok. I know another great non-profit blog is Wild Apricot, which is run by J.R. Leaman, and that is just a plethora. I’m going to have to add that to my resources now that I think about it, because they have excellent resources on there too. So when do you guys feel is kind of the off point for most businesses and/or non-profits when they’re kind of done looking at social media and they know what each piece does, that time when they go from their knowledge to actually having a social media strategy for their organization?

Liz: I don’t know that there is one.

Paul: I’m going to suggest ladies first. So, I’ll respond later.

Liz: Do you think there is one, Paul?

Paul: What’s that?

Liz: A certain point? I think you just reach that point where you get so overwhelmed you just go “Oh my gosh. I think I better start something or I’m just going to be drowning.

Vicky: Do you mean just the constraints of having so much to do? If it causes you more to have to come up with a strategy to streamline? Is that what you mean, Liz?

Liz: Well, the world of the internet is so so big, and there’s so much stuff and so many people. One of the dangers of the internet is so much and so many ideas and so many people coming up with so many ideas that you can spend a long long time talking and never doing anything. It’s a real temptation. And if you don’t do something, sooner or later you’ll never do something.

Beth: What I like to do with some non-profits, and I got this advice from someone in the non-profit sector, Wendy Harman who is the social media person at the Red Cross. Now that’s a large organization and I usually use her advice on talking to smaller organizations is come up with a really small project that’s somehow related to your strategic goal. Comb through your strategic plan if you have one and pick out one small thing that’s not going to take too much time, that’s not going to cost too much money, and that will teach you one skill that you need to learn. Maybe it’s blogging or maybe it’s starting with a listening project or whatever, and set up what it is you want to accomplish and who you want to reach with the small project. Do the project. Keep an informal diary. It doesn’t have to take that much time. Just jot down what you think your successes are. Jot down what you think you could do better on. I won’t say the word failure. Then maybe after the project is finished connect with some of the people you connected with and ask how it was for them. Then keep that in your repetoir. And keep on watching what other organizations are doing and come to your next project. I think over the course of several months, maybe six months or eight months or ten months you’ll have a collection of different projects where you’ve learned a particular skill, and you’ve learned what works and what doesn’t work, and that’ll get you started. It’s like taking incremental scaffolding steps that’s really important. And also, I think what’s hard is that this requires a certain kind of culture. It’s a culture of learning or being within a learning organization, and sometimes some organizations don’t have that culture, so it’s hard to get something started.

Paul: I would have to say anything you do, and of course I come from it in terms of marketing so you’ll forgive me for that, but everything has to be tied to your overall strategic objectives and your business goals. All of these tools of social media are merely that, they’re tools that enable certain things and certain outcome, and hopefully you can find some tools that match the overall goals you’re trying to achieve. I do want to tack onto something Beth said a moment ago. She said a listening project, and I think one of the things these tools certainly do enable very well now is the ability to listen, and I think that’s really where it all starts. I think the new marketing is listening, and certainly that is applicable in the for-profit sector as well as the non-profit sector. And I think whether it’s something as simple as using Google Alerts or something like that, or watching Twitter for mentions of your name or your organization’s name or reference to an issue whatever it might be. Or hiring a third party to monitor all of this for you, I think it’s very important in this day and age that we first be listening to the conversation and how much people are talking about us and what they’re saying. Then at that point we can hopefully have enough information to be able to join the conversation intelligently to really it’s a point where people are talking. Then begin engaging them and finding different ways to do that, and again these tools are simply enablers of that. Whether it’s somewhat of a content production tool like a blog or maybe something very informal and quirky, if I may use that term, like Twitter. Listen first, then begin to engage. And I think to some extent your strategy will become a little bit self-evident as you hear what people have to say and as you begin those conversations.

Easton: Paul, I just want to jump in. Sorry I just want to grab a caller who has been waiting here to ask a question of you guys, and maybe it’s something that’s going to double up on something you’re already going to talk about but line 7 is Trish joining us from Twitter. Trish, are you there?

Trish: I am. I was listening in to some of the folks I know and some folks I haven’t met yet and loving what’s going on.

Easton: I appreciate you coming in. I guess you can in from that kind of tongue in cheek post from Blog Talk Radio with me with the spillage going on with the computer. Thank you for being here to support me as I try to stay awake. Which isn’t really a problem but that’s the joke we’re sharing around here. I’m just fine. But would you like to maybe pass a question to the group here?

Trish: I would love to know, we have found using social media to be extremely positive and beneficial for what we do, and I was just wondering how some of the folks on the panel today feel social media has impacted the work they’re doing. Has it been measurable? Have you seen positive change?

Mark: I was one of the late ones in the social media and the one looking at twitter going “Oh my god. How am I going to use this?” And as soon as you get into it as far as change and results, I found it to be the most amazing community where you just ask and they help you. Then through conversations I’ve collaborated on projects with phenomenal mentors, friends. Friend results, business results, and it’s just been more amazing than any community on the ground. I got used to networking on the ground. Then there’s defenses up, and there’s “what can I sell you?” And with social media it was kind of like once you get a little bit in it’s so easy, and you find like-minded people, and you actually do get results because of it.

Beth: I could tell you a story. I’m not really in this to a specific non-profit, but me with my own blog. I started blogging five or six years ago. I had just adopted a child from Cambodia, and I was taking some time off. I wasn’t working that much, and I wanted to keep my hands in my field. So I started a blog, two blogs actually. One about Cambodian culture so I could learn about it, and the other was about how I was interested in social media and how that applies to non-profit sector. So it was just for myself, to keep blogging, and my biggest surprise was when I started to get comments from people in Cambodia who actually taught me about culture. And then that led me to writing for Global Voices covering the Cambodian blogosphere. Then ultimately I was able to go over to Cambodia and teach blogging and meet a lot of these bloggers face to face, which I never thought I’d have that opportunity. I’ve also been able to raise significant amounts of money to support Cambodian orphans. Over $200,000 on my blog. So I never thought that would happen, to help disadvantaged children in Cambodia. And personally in terms of my professional blog, which started as a strategy for improving my expertise. You know, how do you measure that? Do I go get an MRI and it shows that I’m smarter? Should I take the SATs again and see if they’ve gone up? What it actually turned into was that it started to become this great marketing vehicle, and I’ve started to get lots and lots of work from my blog. And because I’m blogging, I’m also pretty much in the top results when you google the word “Beth” or also “social media for non-profits” and it’s generated lots of good word of mouth and work. So there’s both been tangible and intangible benefits to social media. In terms of non-profits, I hear stories of organizations like the Humane Society. One of their great results from using social networks is they have been adding lots of people to their mailing lists, so they’ve been able to reach out more to get prospects, to get people to sign petitions. I think in raising money, we’re just starting to see that that has an impact as well. And it all goes back to those organizations that are seeing results, how they haven’t gone into it blindly but they’ve really figured out what they want to do, they know their audience, and they’ve been experimenting in this learning way over time. Because it does take time.

Easton: Beth, I just want to jump in real quick. We’ve got one more caller who does want to offer a question or insight. Joining us from Twitter is @uncultured. Is it Shawn on line 6?

Beth: Oh! Shawn!

Shawn: Hey!

Easton: “Shawn to help me stay awake,” is what the description says on the thing.

Shawn: Yeah, I heard you were pulling an all-nighter basically on this one.

Easton: And I know I’m not the first to do this, at least to pull an all-nighter, but you know. So what would you like to share with everyone?

Shawn: I was just really engrossed in the conversation. I heard you had someone from Global Voices on here.

Beth: I used to write for Global Voices, but you know what’s really funny is you were the subject of my Blog Action Day post.

Shawn: Oh!

Beth: Isn’t that hilarious?

Shawn: Small world. Isn’t that great?

Beth: I just discovered your project today, as a matter of fact, and I was so inspired, like you rock! And I had to write about it, because what you’ve done is so amazing.

Shawn: Thank you. I was really excited when I heard Global Voices getting mentioned because I’ve actually seen the benefit of that right on the ground. There’s actually an NGO in Bangladesh called Nari Jibon, and one of the goals of Global Voices – I’m sorry, I’m not trying to plug my own work, I actually want to talk about Global Voices for a second – is they try to get people who might not afford internet access in Bangladesh, like Bangladesh 80% of the country earns less than $2 per day. That’s not even enough to buy a couple of minutes on the internet most of the time. But this NGO is trying to get women, working class women, online and blogging so that you’re not just hearing from activists but you’re hearing from people in that situation on the ground in Bangladesh. So I really really have a high respect for the work that Global Voices is doing. So that’s why I kind of got excited on the phone.

Easton: Shawn, we’re going to give you one of Liz Strauss’ ebooks for calling in. How does that sound?

Shawn: That sounds great.

Easton: If you can let us know, everybody who’s listening in, your URL and kind of the theme of what your project is.

Shawn: Sure. It’s not a non-profit. It’s not a charity or a fundraiser or anything like that. The website is called uncultured.com, and basically I am just a guy. I used to be a grad student at Notre Dame. I was inspired by Dr. Jeffrey Sachs. He made a speech, and he started off the speech saying “We can end poverty, but I have to tell the students the bad news. It’s your homework.” And I kind of took that to heart. I was always wanting to do something in the realm of poverty alleviation. I was kind of getting my masters degree to work with an NGO. But instead of going that route I tried to do something different. I basically liquidated whatever savings I had, grabbed my computer, bought a camcorder and I flew to the developing world to see what I could do first-hand. I chose Bangladesh because I have a family heritage there, so I could ask relatives for room and board every now and then, so that kept costs down. And I’ve just been doing that for over a year, and right now on youtube my videos have been seen over a million times.

Easton: Over a million times. That’s excellent. I just want to remind everybody there’s about five minutes left in the show. What we’re going to do in five minutes is there will be a 15 minute pause. We can all stay in the text chat and continue visiting. Then at 6pm Eastern we can always call back in. It’ll be the same call in number, which is 347-308-8594. We can just wrap this up with a couple more minutes of back and forth. We’re live with the social media roundtable on Blog Talk Radio. Vicky, is there any final question or things to throw out to the group?

Paul: I wanted to throw in one quick comment, and I’ll try to make this as brief as possible, regarding Twitter itself and beyond Twitter. A few months ago there was something that came about called a Frozen Pea Fund. I think everybody’s familiar with that. And Twitter really became a catalyst for building awareness. Not only building awareness but also generating funds. And I don’t really know how much was raised for it, but I know that Twitter was very instrumental in helping that thing go extremely viral, but that still goes on today. That still lives to a certain extent today. So that’s just another great example of how social media can help service non-profits.

Vicky: Nate Ritter, who I actually interviewed on my blog, wrote the code for the missing children ID for twitter, so it actually sends out missing childrens alerts and if they’ve been found and updates, and it links to like the posters. So there’s a lot of people who are doing really good stuff out there. You’ve just kind of got to find people that are doing cool thing. I know in the chatroom we have Dayngr who is emom on emailourmilitary. She’s in the chatroom talking right now.

Easton: This is just an amazing phenomenon we’re witnessing here and being a part of, just all the interactions of the social media accounts, and the blog search engines which have matured, everything allowing us to track these events. I do want to kind of cut it short just so that we don’t have problems hanging up. But what we’re going to do here is in 90 seconds we’ll hang up. I think what I want to do is just thank everybody from this segment. If we can just review really quick your name and URL. We’ll start with Beth.

Beth: Bath Kanter. My URL is beth.typepad.com, or just google “Beth”.

Easton: Thank you so much Beth, for being on the line. Cohosting with me today was Vicky Hennegan. You know, I might just have to do this myself for speed, but Vicky Hennegan is co-founder of remarkableparents.com. We’ve really appreciated having her on the air here. Liz Strauss with successful-blog.com. Also Paul Chaney with IBNMA.org. And Mark Carter with savingtheworld.net. Well, thank you so much for joining us everybody.