I read a lot of books, some to help me understand the businesses I work with, some to give me ideas of ways to teach new technologies, some to learn more about business, and some for fun. When I think a book will be interesting to my clients, I will post my review here. The following review first appeared at both Goodreads and PenguinGirl.
# Socialmedia Nonprofit Tweet Book01: 140 Bite-Sized Ideas for Nonprofit Social Media Engagement
by Janet Fouts
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
At only 112 pages, is there room for substance? Yes.
Does it remind me of a powerpoint deck? Yes, but not necessarily in a bad way.
Is it full of buzz words or does it only include ideas for the specific social media technology of Twitter? No.
Is it a book I would recommend to those looking to quickly gain a firmer grasp of what social media can do for their organization regardless of tax status? Yes.
In #Socialmedia Nonprofit Tweet Book01: 140 Bite-Sized Ideas for Nonprofit Social Media Engagement, Fouts has curated a simple book of ideas (the point of the publisher) to help nonprofits leverage social media and be able to do things that previously they only dreamed of due to organization staff size and budget. Each page is crisp and clear and doesn’t overburden the reader with irrelevant text, graphs, or case studies. The ideas were crowd sourced by 28 twitterati and the book went from start to finish in 3 weeks!
Fouts has edited and organized the ideas into ten groups ranging from "what can it do for my organization" to "managing volunteers" to "efficiency". I found that most ideas in each group are connected with and build upon those around it. I didn’t find any extraneous, or overly jargon & buzz-word filled. For example, ideas 1-7 (the benefit of connecting and fostering community) combine and result in idea 8, to create a centralized resource for volunteers and all donor types to locate information.
Further ideas remind the reader that the president of the organization does not have to be the one utilizing the social media on a day-to-day basis. But that it’s useful for growth for the board/head to understand that social media is a tool and not just a toy for bored texting teens.
What I appreciated the most was the reminder that to do social media effectively it is a time commitment and that you don’t need to be in every channel just because it is there (ahem, a lesson I need to learn, even if I claim it is for client research).
This is a useful and well edited selection of ideas on social media for nonprofits and I think many organizations could find it helpful. it is available for e-readers and in print form.
disclaimer/note: I advise several small non-profits for various technology matters. I am not specifically a social media consultant though I offer what guidance I can. Social media has been background chatter for them over the past few years but we have not yet found a way to effectively leverage it for them. This book will definitely help me to communicate the whys and hows and hopefully develop a roadmap we will use. I look forward to seeing where they go.