Amy - thank you for providing such a reasoned approach to managing an online presence. It is so important for non-profits to know that there are effective options for developing an online presence without dedicating resources to a full-blown web site.
I spoke to a state recently that was considering creating a social-networking web site in order to meet some new federal regulations for tracking youth who exit the foster care system. My advice was, “go where the kids are.” Sites like Facebook and MySpace already have the attention of many of the youth they serve. There was no need to spend thousands of dollars on a web site that would have to have the marketing, maintenance, and upkeep necessary to compete for that attention.
Non-profits often don’t realize that web sites are simply Internet properties. They have an address and stuff inside but the only way people will know is if they wander by or if someone else tells them about it. They also take maintenance and upkeep. Many non-profits lack the resources to manage web sites so they quickly become abandoned and useless.
Non-profits would benefit from resisting the creative urge to build a fancy web site and focus more on leveraging what’s out there.
Neil - Thanks for joining the conversation on this! You are very true; why build a new place to gather when everyone is already perfectly happy gathering somewhere else? Don’t expect to jump in and win the attention of lot of people to the degree that they stop going to Facebook and come to your organization’s site. Build something to work within or leverage the tools already existing in those other platforms and you’ll be able to walk right up to the people you want to connect with.
COMMENTS
BY Neil
ON March 31, 2009 03:17 PM
Amy - thank you for providing such a reasoned approach to managing an online presence. It is so important for non-profits to know that there are effective options for developing an online presence without dedicating resources to a full-blown web site.
I spoke to a state recently that was considering creating a social-networking web site in order to meet some new federal regulations for tracking youth who exit the foster care system. My advice was, “go where the kids are.” Sites like Facebook and MySpace already have the attention of many of the youth they serve. There was no need to spend thousands of dollars on a web site that would have to have the marketing, maintenance, and upkeep necessary to compete for that attention.
Non-profits often don’t realize that web sites are simply Internet properties. They have an address and stuff inside but the only way people will know is if they wander by or if someone else tells them about it. They also take maintenance and upkeep. Many non-profits lack the resources to manage web sites so they quickly become abandoned and useless.
Non-profits would benefit from resisting the creative urge to build a fancy web site and focus more on leveraging what’s out there.
BY Amy Sample Ward
ON April 10, 2009 02:08 AM
Neil - Thanks for joining the conversation on this! You are very true; why build a new place to gather when everyone is already perfectly happy gathering somewhere else? Don’t expect to jump in and win the attention of lot of people to the degree that they stop going to Facebook and come to your organization’s site. Build something to work within or leverage the tools already existing in those other platforms and you’ll be able to walk right up to the people you want to connect with.
I’d be interested to hear what you think of the 45 Social by Social Propositions a few other colleagues and I created to help outline the rules of the road for social benefit groups using social media. You can find them here:
http://www.amysampleward.org/2009/04/07/the-45-social-by-social-propositions/