The language around social media and social networking is new if not foreign for most in the non profit world. We are used to terminology such as capital campaign, fundraising, planned giving, and leave a legacy.
We are not as familiar with terms like tweet, blog, RSS, and Digg. Tweet reminds us of Sylvestor, ‘I tat I taw a puddy tat’; while blog and RSS look like something you get from not washing your hands in public places. It’s not good…
I am proud to say I am turning a young 39 this Monday so I am on the cusp of Generation X and Generation Y, following the infamous Baby Boomers. I grew up in a generation that discovered the internet and have been following it from the day I received my first computer using floppy disks and DOS, taking up my entire desk space between the glunky monitor and CPU. It has always fascinated me and been a tool I have been drawn to from the beginning.
The last decade has seen a huge evolution and organizations that are already resource tapped are having a hard time catching up, and convincing their boards to approve dollars for social media and social networking solutions. I believe that terminology is a key factor in that discord between the youth driving many nonprofit organization’s marketing and IT departments, and the ‘experienced’ board members.
This week I was going through our own marketing plan and came across a word that is not used much anymore but I think a word that could help convince board members and organizations alike to invest in social media and social networking resources.
Syndication…
We are all familiar with broadcast and print syndication. Seinfeld can be found in countries around the world; why, because it is syndicated. Ann Landers column, beyond her success as a columnist, is successful because her column was syndicated in hundreds and hundreds of newspapers.
Web Syndication is social networking / social media, whereby ‘website material is made available to multiple other sites. Web syndication refers to making web feeds available from a site in order to provide other people with a summary of the website’s recently added content (for example, the latest news or forum posts)’
Let’s relate this to the nonprofit community; we use direct mail to communicate to new and existing donors. It has been a successful tool. Now imagine, sending a direct mail piece that the recipient then sent to their neighbors? They have, in essence, syndicated that direct mail piece.
Using online solutions; be it newsletters, blogs, online video, updates on the successes and needs of your nonprofit and then syndicating them to donors and sponsors will ensure that your message will be passed on.
An even stronger web syndication method is to have your nonprofit’s updates on other news site or sites within your industry. Contact organizations like Charity Village and have post your event or volunteer information for free. Charity Village had over 720,000 hits in April with 5,777,00 page views.
Syndication benefits both the nonprofit and the website that is displaying the content. Corporations more and more are looking for ways to grow their corporate citizenship. Syndication is a low touch way for them and the nonprofit to do that.
So next time you see the acronym RSS on a website you will understand that an RSS feed is a value to your organization to ensure your message is syndicated beyond the mailbox that it ends up in.
