Highlights from the 2015 Social Media for Nonprofits Conference

By in Events, Nonprofit Communications, social media on Jul 31, 2015

Last week was the NYC leg of the 2015 Social Media for Nonprofits (#SM4NP) conference, organized and run by the dynamic Ritu Sharmu. If you weren’t in attendance for the social media whirlwind out at New York University, the conference has put out a detailed Storify that decompresses the day’s presentations and activities.

I also wanted to highlight a few of my own favorite moments from the day:

Henry Timms, @92Y | 92Y

The Executive Director of 92Y and Founder of Giving Tuesday gave a profound, TED-worthy talk on “New Power” versus “Old Power.” As he describes, Old Power is based in principles of managerialism, institutionalism, central authority, exclusivity, and thereby, competition. In contrast, New Power has embraced networked governance, open-source collaboration, sharing, and self-organization. It’s a fantastic tour of the reasoning and thought process behind Giving Tuesday – a day of giving now recognized worldwide.

Julie Leary, @juweeweewee | Whole Whale

Julie, Whole Whale’s Digital Strategist, discussed the fundamentals of reading, analyzing, and acting on your social media data. She also highlighted some very useful metrics to complement your analytics data, like “assisted conversions” – which measures the traffic your social media has influenced to your site. For example, if someone finds your site through Twitter, does not purchase anything, but returns a day later, it would register as an assisted conversion. Very cool.

I loved her “Beyond Native Analytics” (slide 32), which lists several tools for gathering engagement data. Which tools does your organization use?

Jereme Bivins, @jcbivins; Jay Geneske, @jGeneske | The Rockefeller Foundation

Jereme and Jay from the Rockefeller Foundation focused on a key point from the day: data and marketing matter, but telling a powerful and meaningful story effectively can make all the difference. Jay also introduced the 40/60 rule: spend 40% of your time creating, and 60% of your time marketing. To help you manage your creative time, they also shared hatchforgood.org – a great resource out of the Rockefeller Foundation that nurtures a community of social good storytellers. Here you’ll find tools, resources, how-tos, and like-minded industry professionals to complement your efforts.