Podcast on social media

I've written a couple of posts recently about social media and social networking, and how this can help generate awareness and potentially funding for your social cause.

There is a new podcast from Allison Fine on using social media for social causes, with her latest update including some interesting interviews on this topic.


Mike.

Social networks for social causes

Everyone seems to have a Facebook or MySpace account these days, with those under 30(ish) seeming to use these social media websites as the standard way to interact with their friends and families.

Social networks that are created in Facebook exist because people want to connect with each other. And because of these connections they can become valuable supporters of your cause if you are able to interact successfully with their social networks.

They don't join the social media sites to donate to a charity, they joined to interact with their friends.

Applications on Facebook can raise awareness as well as funds for your social cause.


Mike.

Online communities and CausedWire

Report on Twitter and online communities is available to buy as well as a book from Tom Watson called CausedWired.

I haven't reviewed either yet, but if you are interested in pursuing the ideas in my recent post about donations and online communities then you might find these worthwhile.


Mike.

The power of online communities

I am a strong believer that donations are not a sustainable way to address social issues, but rather through social business.

However, donations, if obtained in a low cost, low effort manner, can still be a valuable supplement to your income stream whilst operating as a social business.

The continuing evolution of the world-wide web is providing ways to do this.

Recently an organisation called Epic Change launched a 48 hour fund raising initiative that raised $10,000. The funds were raised in typically $5 and $10 donations, mostly from people who found out about the cause at the time of donating. They found out through Twitter, the ever growing social media website.

The initiative was called TweetGiving and was a remarkable success.

There are a number of online tools that are available to do this sort of fund raising. Unfortunately most rely on PayPal and Google Checkout for the actual payments, which at the moment do not accept transactions in South African Rands. Hopefully this will change soon, but if anyone is aware of ways to make this work in South Africa, please let me know.

Read more about TweetGiving here: http://tweetsgiving.org


Mike.