Today Changing Our World's Interactive services team is blogging from the 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference (10NTC) in Atlanta, which is pretty much the mother ship of all tech-minded nonprofit gatherings. The first session we attended was titled, "Social Media Veterans," (#smvets) which was moderated by the very energetic Rachel Weidinger, who successfully turned the packed ballroom into an offline Facebook fan page/Twitter feed.
Attendants gathered to share their tips, grievances and brilliant ideas on all things social media, from Ning to FourSquare. I had a chance to interview Estrella Rosenberg, whose campaign, 100x100, is using FourSquare to launch a lobbying campaign around legislation on heart defects.
"It's not exactly fundraising, but it will get supporters engaged and active, and therefore more likely to give at a later stage," she surmised.
Enjoy the video! (This article continues below.)
Estrella Rosenberg on FourSquare from CW Interactive Services on Vimeo.
At one point in the forum, Rachel took a show of hands for how many people had organizational and personal Twitter accounts; Facebook fan pages; a blog that was very active vs. not so active. Hands shot up -- these were social media veterans, after all -- and some embarrassed laughter over the blogging activity question. Rachel picked on one person -- "You with the awesome glasses!" -- who works with the Dr. Pepper Museum -- "Give us an example of how you use Twitter."
She replied that they apply strict practices of following & thanking people who retweet them, and that Twitter also becomes a useful tool for tourists within the museum.
Another person, whose nonprofit addresses a controversial political issue, has put together a crisis plan in the event they fall victim to a political attack. Rachel then asked how many people in the room had a social media crisis plan, and only three people responded.
One of the more interesting topics was volunteer management, particularly when it comes to striking a balance between controlling your messaging and granting autonomy to your volunteers. One attendant explained that her organization maintains a very rigorous application process and engages in frequent followups throughout the life cycle of the volunteer. Another organization member said they enlist autonomous volunteer teams that each have their own Twitter accounts.
The session ended with Rachel throwing business cards around the room, and asking for people to throw theirs back at her. "You, blog about this! You, blog about that!" It was chaos, lightening-paced yet somehow, everything made sense.
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