The world’s becoming more social online and technology changes so rapidly that we often feel we can’t keep up. The Internet let’s us have a dialogue with supporters instead of bombarding them with a one-way monologue.

But remember people inherently stay the same – they have a need to connect and social media fulfils that need and facilitates conversations online around brands ideas and causes.Social media has become much hyped because of the relative ease with which you can set up a profile online and start talking to your audience.

It’s very tempting to dive straight into Facebook or Twitter because everybody else is doing it and because these tools are ‘free’. But as they say in classics … there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

You might already be doing some fantastic stuff (if so I’d like to hear from you!) – but if you don’t know where to start keep these 10 points in mind:

1. Share your content
   As a first step into the social media universe allow site visitors to share your content via Facebook and the other social sites (e.g. Digg StumbleUpon Reddit etc). Once your audience sees that your site is connected to the greater web they’ll use the tools. And ‘social bookmarking’ tools are easy and free to implement.
2. Fish where the fish are
   Are your supporters using these tools? Find out by surveying them using a poll or survey on your site or send your donors an email survey. This will always help you substantiate your time and investment in the channel.
3. Supporters talk back
   Supporters will have things to say about your charity and in my experience mainly good things. But be prepared for the not so good comments too. What’s the tolerance level internally to feedback especially feedback made public? How will you moderate comments if at all? Will you let your audience moderate for you?
   Remember that the old model of controlling information about your organisation can no longer exist. If supporters are not saying things about your brand on your site they’ll definitely be saying it on other sites. Why not keep them close and respond to them on your own site or Facebook page?
4. Always start with a plan
   If you start something online make sure you know where it’s going to end up. Countless organisations start Facebook pages or Twitter feeds only to see by week three they’ve nothing to say or they no longer have the time to interact with their new audience.Ask yourself why you’re doing this? What are the benefits? What are the risks? Do you have the resources? What are you going to say? How often? Why? If you can answer these questions you’ll be well on your way to success in the social media space.
5. The good the bad and the plain ugly…
   Many charities have used social media beautifully to engage with their audiences and supporters – and raise money too. There are countless UK US and SA case studies to choose from. The one thing they have in common is that they approached this new channel with a plan. And knew what they wanted to get out of i SPCA Cape of Good Hope and SPCA Durban and Coast are using Facebook groups to show supporters the work they do the ugly stuff on the front line and allowing supporters to interact with them.
   There are countless casualties in the social media space. There may have been a PR blunder or supporter service hasn’t gone well. Just look at the recent BP oil crisis. Messages on the web spread dangerously fast so have a plan that when things do go bad you can deal with it in an open effective and timely way. Get your supporters on side talk to them be yourself.
6. Nothing’s for free
   Although the online Facebook/Twitter/ Flickr/YouTube profile is free to set up online time and money is needed to create your social media strategy create the content and keep things updated. It’s a reality that charities are cash strapped. But just because it costs money doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. Use your pilot project or create a business case that substantiates the time and investment needed. It’s also a lower cost channel to invest in and I would advise that you don’t ignore it because it’s not going away.
7. Get a personality
   There’s nothing worse than a stuffy corporate response to a conversation online. Your audience needs to feel they’re connecting with a real organisation real people with real things to say. Especially if you’re using the channel as a supporter service tool there’s no need to be formal. Your audience won’t like you for it.
8. For goodness sake do something!
   So you’ve spoken to them online you’ve spread the message about your latest campaign or initiative. What now?
   Your website (remember that?) needs to take over and finish the job. Make your audience work –but not too hard! Do they need to donate sign a pledge download a file? Draw them to your site (not your home page!) and let them do something.
9. Get a little help from friends
   It’s been proven that people are more likely to respond favourably to something if they see their friends or family have responded the same way. Facebook recently introduced ‘like’ buttons for content on websites other than Facebook. They’re revolutionising the way people shop consume information and donate online.
   Install the new Facebook social plugins on your site (again within the context of your bigger digital strategy). Start small and pilot the response. You may be pleasantly surprised.
10. Show me the money!
    Where’s the Return On Investment (ROI)? This is the million-Rand question. How do you measure all this? How do you make money from it? Well your website should start showing you visits from Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn (whatever your tool of choice).

If you’ve set up Google Analytics properly it might even show you who’s converting (i.e. doing something like donating or signing up to your newsletter).

Look at the bigger picture – measuring how people got to hear about your charity as well as how this has affected your retention rate. You might see some surprising results offline.

There are also great free tools to measure how strong your voice is online what people are saying about you how many followers and ‘likes’ you’ve picked up. Start with a benchmark and build from there.

Again within the context of a bigger digital strategy measure the things that make sense to your charity. But make sure you do measure or else all this activity is in vain.

If all of this is overwhelming take a step back and go back to point four. Ask yourself ‘so what?’. So what if you don’t have a Facebook profile so what if you don’t speak to your supporters in the online spaces they occupy? What will happen?

Remember your current donor base will not be around forever so you need to start engaging now with younger audiences in their spaces so that you can start to be taken seriously and become relevant in their lives.

But above all ignore the hype know what you want to achieve get some help and in the words of the famous World War 2 poster ‘keep calm and carry on!’

Lianne is an online marketing/fundraising specialist with more than 10 years experience (offline and online) working client side for large corporates running her own consultancy and working agency side.

Passionate about the Not for Profit/NGO sector and utilising the web to deliver results Lianne’s also keen to see more done on the web accessibility front. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/byrnine .