M+R has a great checklist for preparing to live tweet an event. As they remind us “Live-tweeting can be a great way to build your audience on Twitter – if you do it right…Setting yourself up for successful live-tweeting before the event is just as important as doing a good job with the tweets themselves. Thinking through a few simple things in advance will not only ensure that you can logistically do your tweeting from the event, but it can also massively increase the number of people who see your tweets.” Here’s the checklist to get you started:

1. Follow the people you think will be interested in the content you will be posting and the people you know are going to the event. They may follow you back, helping you build an audience!
2. Check the event location for Wi-Fi and/or mobile phone service. Some events held at hotel or conference venues have spotty reception or Wi-Fi. If you need a password to access the internet, make sure to find it out in advance!
3. Find out the designated hashtag for the event and promote it to your followers before the event begins. This allows people to search for tweets related to the event — regardless of who posts them.
4. If there is no designated hashtag, search Twitter to see what hashtag(s) other attendees are using and follow suit.
5. If there is no hashtag already in use, choose a short but memorable combination of letters and numbers and start the trend yourself. For example, M+R’s annual Benchmarks event was live-tweeted under the hashtag #2011Bench. Before settling on a hashtag, do a quick search to make sure the hashtag isn’t already in use!
6. Find out the Twitter handles of speakers/presenters at the event ahead of time so you can mention them in your tweets if you quote them. Those people may re-tweet your tweet to their followers, which could help build your audience!
7. Decide whether you’ll be tweeting from a phone or a computer. If you’re tweeting from a non-smart phone, you’ll need to add your phone to your Twitter account ahead of time. Log in to Twitter, go to http://twitter.com/devices and follow the instructions on the screen.
8. If you’re tweeting from an iPhone or another smartphone, download the Hootsuite or Twitter application.
9. Bring a charger for your phone or laptop – tweeting can wear out your battery and it’s best to be prepared.
10. Decide how you will archive all of the tweets from the event. Sign up for a free service such as twapperkeeper.com.

There are people out there that hate – and we mean hate – spam.  As the blogging team writing as “No NonProfit Spam,” says “Your mission is noble, and your intentions are honorable. But if you subscribed us to your organization’s bulk email list without our permission, then you are sending us spam. That is discourteous, unethical, illegal, and ineffective – so please stop.”  Deborah Elizabeth Finn’s Spam Manifesto is well worth a read if your organization is pumping out bulk email:

My standards for bulk email sent by nonprofit organizations are fairly simple:

* Confirmed opt-in policy:  good
* Unconfirmed opt-in policy:  acceptable
* Opt-out policy: evil

In other words, if I did not actively request that you send me regular e-bulletins or e-newsletters or urgent action alerts, then it’s spam.

However, it’s not spam if:
* You’re sending me a one-time-only message that is relevant to something that I posted publicly.
* You’re emailing me to invite me to join your subscription list.
* I went to your web site and subscribed to your e-bulletin.
* We had a conversation about your organization, and I said, “Do you have an e-bulletin? I’d like to subscribe.”
* I’m a dues-paying member of your organization, and voluntarily gave you  my contact information.
* You’re my client.

I would encourage every nonprofit that sends out an e-bulletin to think about it as (at least in part) a relationship-building tool.  Your goal should not just be to inform us, to ask us for money, or to prod us to action.  It should also be to help us feel connected and emotionally invested in your organization.  Perhaps you should be asking yourself whether you want us to perceive you as intrusive and presumptuous, or as friendly and respectful to stakeholders? If you prefer to be seen as friendly and respectful, then please stop sending us unsolicited bulk email.

Folks over at BlueStateDigital have put together a very helpful list of ways to to use your put your blog to good strategic use. They ask “How do you ensure your blog is worth the time it takes your staff to produce it? For a nonprofit, especially one without a team of writers and researchers at the ready, the value question becomes even trickier. But, by investing a little energy into planning and nailing down some strategic goals for your blog, there are ways to transform it into one of your most valuable digital assets.” Here’s an edited version of their top 5 tips:

1. Own Your Issues: Subtly shape public opinion by ensuring that your site has an answer to the public’s questions about key policies. We might have called this one “Write for Google.” A blog can be a good place to take a step back and explain — perhaps in the voice of an expert — what “racial profiling” or “health care reform” really means. This way, when people are actively trying to learn about these issues, there’s a better chance they’ll hear your side of the story.

2. Send the Right Message: Teach new site visitors what you do, and why you do it. If you’re promoting your blog on your homepage, or elsewhere on your site, chances are good that a fair number of your casual site visitors will use it to form their opinion of what you do. A blog can give you the space to put a human face on the value of your work, show off the kinds of people who support you, and demonstrate that you’re a dynamic, open organization that cares about what its supporters are doing. Or it can make you look like an out-of-touch institution that only cares about its million-dollar donors. Tip: Photos tell the story better than words, and they take a lot less time to proofread.

3. Post for Links: Bring new people to your site — either through direct referrals or, later, through search engines. It might seem counterintuitive to write so that other people write about what you just wrote about, but this is exactly what you want.

4. Write for Future Links: Make friends in the online universe. Not every post is going to be a winner. Sometimes, a post can just link to another publication, one that might link back to you in the future. If you need to choose between linking to The New York Times and linking to an opinion piece from a small but influential blogger, link to the blogger. Then let the blogger know that you linked to them — it’ll ensure that your blog is on her radar.

5. Promote Your Actions: Send the right message about your organization, and get the word out about your work again and again. The blog should not become a press-release graveyard. But when you have big news or a new campaign, strive to repackage the concept again and again.

As with any new online tool and social network there is a learning curve to using and joining the conversation on Twitter. Twitter has an odd lingo and culture all its own. Here are a few of the quirky lingo essentials from Mashable:

• DM = Direct Message
• @ = Use to reply and always include proceeding a Twitter ID in a reply
• RT = Retweet
• Tweet = Sending a message on Twitter
• Tw + any other word. A fun practice on Twitter is to develop a new twist on old words. For example, Tworld = Twitter world, and Tweeples = Those who use Twitter.

There is also an evolving Twitter etiqutte. Most important is to learn about when you should “@” versus DM (i.e. Direct Message):

• Sending personal information like a phone number or email address. (It may seem like common sense, but I encourage you to NEVER post personal information like your social security number over ANY public forum.)
• A conversation which will consist of multiple “tweets” or a lengthy discussion with more than three posts. (Many people on Twitter will “unfollow” someone who sends multiple “tweets” in a row)
• Asking multiple questions to the same person or the same question asked to multiple people. (Your content becomes less valuable when people see the same thing repeated too many times…especially right in a row.)
• Correcting a mistake you’ve identified in someone’s blog post or “tweet.” (This isn’t required, but it is considered a common courtesy. The person who made the mistake will thank you.)
• Thanking each of your new followers. (It’s a nice concept to thank each of your new social media connections, but keep in mind how many responses you’re sending out each day or within a 10 minute period.)
• Making a request to someone. (Want to ask someone to write a guest blog post or partner on a project? Don’t put them on the spot in a public forum. Once you agree on a partnership, then by all means, tweet away!)
• Constructive criticism…this is your call. (If you have some pretty serious feedback to give someone, consider the most appropriate venue.)
• Getting someone’s attention! (Want to make a connection with someone, send them a direct message to get things started. A lot of people on Twitter get direct messages sent to their email or mobile phone.)

Blogger and media consultant Chris Brogan has put together a list of “quick and dirty” blogging tips. It’s a helpful quick reference guide for those of us struggling to create “rules of thumb” for our organizational blogs.

• Be brief.
• Tell a story.
• Connect others, if appropriate.
• Share. Often.
• Don’t overthink it. (It’s a blog, not a dissertation.)
• But be thoughtful.
• Don’t be mean.
• Publish often enough to build a relationship.
• But be mindful of your audience’s time.

Voces Móviles / Mobile Voices is a Los Angeles-based citizen media project, which describes itself as “a platform for immigrant workers in Los Angeles to create stories about their lives and communities directly from cell phones. [The project] helps people with limited computer access gain greater participation in the digital public sphere.”  They see one of their core roles as enabling day laborers to tell their own stories. It was born to “provide day laborers and migrant workers a chance to write their own histories at the same time many other people and groups are trying to write it for them.”

According to an interview of Amanda Garces, a Mobile Voices blogger, “Anti-immigrant voices have long used blogs and websites to further their agenda. Sites such as DayLaborers.org features pictures of day laborers showing the camera the middle finger, and also lists day laborers with criminal histories as being “Most Wanted.” At the same time day laborers hardly have a presence on the Internet.  After surveys revealed most day laborers used cell phones, Mobile Voices began brainstorming a platform to use mobile phones to tell the stories of day laborers.

According to Garces their audience is multi-layered. One group is the public and media, who do not have a good perspective on the lives of day laborers. Another audience is the day laborer and immigrant community itself. Finally, some of the bloggers hope to educate city officials and employers about the life of a day laborer.

To date Mobile Voices has created a project where bloggers from the day laborer community have produced an amazing amount of content about their lives. Since November 2008, there have been more than 3,000 posts.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has released their latest report examining social media use among teens and young adults.  One important finding is that teen blogging is on the decline while social media use is on the rise. Here are some key points of the report:

• Just 8 percent of Internet users ages 12 to 17 reported that they use Twitter.
• Blogging is declining as a means of communication for teens.
• Many teens are migrating from MySpace to Facebook.
• Three-quarters of teens and 93 percent of adults ages 18 to 29 have a cell phone.

According to a new study by the Pew Research Center, the great majority of actual reporting still comes from newspapers, but even those outlets are driven largely by reporting on government statements, not journalists own investigative reporting.  Here’s a quick summary of a few of the report’s findings:

• Looking at six major story lines that developed over one week last July, 83 percent of the reports in local news media “were essentially repetitive, conveying no new information.”

• Despite shrinking resources of established news outlets, “of the stories that did contain new information, nearly all, 95 percent, came from old media — most of them newspapers…These stories then tended to set the narrative agenda for most other media outlets.”

• Even the reporting done by traditional media was driven mostly by government statements rather than journalists’ own digging, the study found.

• There are some markets, like San Diego and Minneapolis, where the online news start-ups have become significant sources of original reporting.

Bloggers matter to our work because they’re often more sympathetic to our issues than the mainstream media.  Bloggers also need a constant stream of content, which we can provide — including news of local protests, poltical intrigue, framing up news stories, etc.  Blogs are also often the place to begin to get the word out about an issue, especially when political and media elites are keeping a close eye on what’s bubbling up through the blogsphere. This is why Crib Notes obsessivly tracks analysis of the evolving blogsphere — we see bloggers as yet another audience grassroots groups need to parse and understand.

So here’s another recent study by Technorati entitled “State of the Blogosphere 2009”, which reviews the use of Twitter by bloggers in 2009.  They found that:

• Bloggers use Twitter much more than does the general population. In a poll conducted by Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates in May 2009, just 14% of the general population used Twitter – but 73% of respondents in this survey do. Those who use Twitter say they do so to promote their blogs, bring interesting links to light, and to understand what people are buzzing about. 50% of Part Timers say they use Twitter to market their businesses. Other uses of Twitter, like interacting with companies (24%), politicians (11%), and celebrities (9%), are much less popular.
• 52% syndicate their blog posts to their Twitter Account, and 41% do so while also posting tweets that are not associated with their blogs. Twitter usage appears to be most pronounced among 18-24 (52%) and 25-34 (47%) year olds.
• 26% of bloggers who also use Twitter say that the service has eaten into the time they spend updating their traditional blogs – though 65% say it has had no effect. Even among the technologically sophisticated audience of bloggers, 35% of those who do not use Twitter say it’s because they do not understand the point . And 54% report that they don’t feel the need to broadcast their life, despite the popularity of “personal musings” as a blog topic.

Technorati has released it’s “State of the Blogosphere 2009” report, which will be released in five consecutive daily segments, following the growth and trends in the blogosphere. In their first segment, they identify “who” bloggers really are. Here are their category breakdowns:

• Hobbyists. Representing 72% of the respondents to this survey, hobbyists say that they blog for fun. They don’t make any money from their blogging – and only some would like to do so. More than any other group, though, hobbyists say they blog to express their “personal musings” (53%). 71% update at least weekly, while 22% update daily. Because 76% blog to speak their minds, their main success metric is personal satisfaction (76%).
• Part-Timers. The next largest cohort, at 15%, part-timers say they “blog to supplement their income, but don’t consider it a full time job.” 75% of them blog to share their expertise, while 72% blog to attract new clients for their business. Their business and personal motives for blogging are deeply entwined – while 61% say that they measure the success of their blog by the unique pageviews they attract, 60% say they also value personal satisfaction.
• Self-Employeds. At 9% of respondents, self-employeds are in many ways the most professional of the cohorts. They say they “blog full time for their own company or organization,” and 10% do report blogging 40 hours per week or more. 22% say that their blog is their company, while 70% say they own a company and blog about their business. Self-employeds also privilege page views (63%) over personal satisfaction (53%) as a success metric, and 53% are blogging more than when they started. Finally, in a demographic (bloggers) awash with Twitter users, self-employeds are the Tweetiest of them all — 88% say they use the service. 
• Pros. The smallest cohort, representing just 4% of respondents, pros say they “blog full-time for a company or organization” — though actually very few of them actually report spending a full 40 hours per week blogging. 46% are blogging more than they did when they started. 70% blog to share expertise; 53% blog to attract new clients for the business they work for. Accordingly, pageviews are the most important success metric for pros, valued by 69%, compared to 53% for personal satisfaction.

Trying to figure out the interests, bias and motivation of your local blogosphere before you pitch a story is yet another aspect of the “know your audience” rule for strategic communications.  Next post we’ll review the “What and Why of the Blogosphere”.