Have you been afraid to dive head first into the social media waters? Don't worry, there are some really easy ways to start. Here's a couple:

• Open a free account at Twitter, and begin to follow a few people. You don't even have to tweet yourself; you can just listen. You may want to type #nonprofits or your city into the search box (the # sign is called a 'hashtag' and acts like a category marker, pulling up all tweets in that category). If you search for, and follow, a few new people every couple of days, you'll soon be hooked on getting great information. You might want to start by following Beth Kanter (@kanter) who is a pioneer in the area of nonprofits and social media, or by checking in on her blog.
• Once you've gotten that far, you may be ready to build an online community at a site like Facebook or MySpace, and there are lots of great resources to help you through that, too. The Case Foundation has an awesome list of tutorials to get you fully emerged when you're ready!

Have you been using social media for awhile? If so, what can you add to this list to help others? Just comment below!

Are you looking for a great way to boost your website traffic and at the same time build relationships within your community? Consider adding a blog to your website. Here's a few ways it will benefit you:

• You can have two-way conversations with your supporters that help you understand them better and continuously refine your communication strategies. Blogs are also a great testing ground for new messages to see how they resonate.
• You can share information in real-time with your donors, funders, members, and volunteers. Did something great happen in your program today? Just snap a quick picture and post it on your blog alongside a quick paragraph or two, and you've started sharing your successes.
• You can engage your whole staff team AND enlist volunteers and supporters in guest blogging. This distributes the work and adds depth to your entire organization's interactions.
• You can increase your website traffic. By writing on a regular basis, and optimizing your blog for search engines, you can drive both existing supporters to your website on an ongoing basis and simultaneously bring new people to the site. More website traffic = more awareness.

We've gathered some links to resources that discuss the pros and cons, and also give some great suggestions. View those resources, here!

Your organization is using Facebook and other social media to reach out to donors, volunteers, and board members, right? Good! That’s an important part of incorporating the Internet into your overall communication strategy. Here’s a way to make your Facebook fan page even better – add your own navigation bar. By adding a customized navigation bar to your Facebook fan page, you can provide permanent direct links to important information that helps keep your key constituents engaged and informed. You don’t have to be a programmer to make it work, but you will need someone who is comfortable cutting and pasting from any HTML editor.

John Haydon shows exactly how to do it on his web site.

Do you have other tips for leveraging Facebook or other social media? Let us hear from you!

Using social media can be an important way to reach out to donors, board members, and potential fundraisers, and knowing how to use LinkedIn can be an especially effective way to broaden your organization’s network. Here’s one of Marc Halpert’s 10 tips on how to get the most from LinkedIn.

Ask people to join your LinkedIn network like you mean it, by using a personalized note that leverages a recent meeting, phone conversation, or other connection. Instead of the impersonal default message “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn,” try something like this: "Bob, thank you for the great conversation after today’s AFP luncheon about ways we could work with each other. I would really like you to be a part of my LinkedIn network so that we can both increase each other’s fundraising connections. Best regards and speak to you soon about those items I promised, Marc."

See the rest of Marc’s tips here.

Are you swimming with the social media current? Cool video on social media ROI from Socialnomics author Erik Qualman. If you can't see the video in your browser, click on this link.

Online media: It isn't just for fundraising.

You can use these tools to advocate for your cause, mobilize your supporters, and directly influence public policy.

Cause Communications has developed a quick-reference guide for anyone considering how to most effectively use the Internet to achieve their advocacy communications objectives.

It takes a high-level look at the strengths and limitations of the Web tools heard about daily – wikis, blogs, social networking sites and Twitter and provides examples.

Download the guide here.

I've been doing some research lately on very general, beginner resources for nonprofits and NGOs that are just dipping their toes into social media waters. Here's a quick list, with links:

At A Glance

• From Jayne Cravens: Evaluating Online Activities: Online Action Should Create & Support Offline Action
• From Joanne Fritz on About.com: 12 Tips for Nonprofits on Getting Started with Social Media
• Socialbrite website

In Depth Blogs

• Beth Kanter’s Blog
• John Haydon’ Blog
• Heather Mansfield's Blog

Best Practices and Policy Guidelines

Society for New Communications Research

What would you add to this list?

I'm always on the prowl for good social media resources, and here are several recent slide decks from SlideShare that are specific to social media and nonprofits.

Introduction to Developing a Social Media Strategy for Cambridge Nonprofit Organizations by Vanessa and Colin Rhinesmith. An incredibly detailed and easy to follow slide deck that is really focused on creating a strong strategy. "Must-view".

Social Media for Nonprofits by Manny Hernandez (a little edgy but easy-to-understand tips and solid links to other resources)

Introduction to Social Media for Nonprofits by Resource Media (good channel demographics in addition to basic info).

Effective Social Communications Strategies by AARP Communications College. Outstanding look at how a large organization is rolling out a strategic social media platform and involving all of its volunteers and staff.

Social Media and Social Networking for Nonprofits by TheMarketingSavantGroup Good Tips and some interesting examples.

NTEN, Common Knowledge and The Port just released their second annual Nonprofit Social Network Survey Results capturing data from almost 1,200 nonprofit organizations for 2010. Here's a quick summary of our key take-aways:

On Usage

• Facebook is still used by more nonprofits than any other commercial social network with 86% of nonprofits indicating that they have a presence on this network. This finding is a 16% increase from 2009, when 74% of respondents had a Facebook presence.
• Twitter grew as a commercial social networking outlet of choice for nonprofits with a year-over-year increase of 38%, moving from 43% in 2009 to 60% in 2010, as measured by nonprofits who affirmed that their organization had a presence on this rapidly growing micro-messaging platform. Twitter saw its average community size (i.e. number of followers) grow an astounding 627% from 286 in 2009 to 1,792 followers this year.
• YouTube usage remained steady over the last year as it already captures the market for video. YouTube moved up only very slightly from 46.5% in 2009 to 48.1% in 2010.
• For nonprofits who were not engaging in social media, the primary reasons were financial (no budget=32%) and lack of in-house expertise (47%). Only 12% said that they didn’t see any value in a social media presence, a number that decreased from 13% in 2009.

On Staff Time

• 67% of participating nonprofits committed ¼ to ½ of a full-time staff person to social media. 15.8% (19.0% in 2009)committed three-quarters to one full-time resources, and 5.4% (6.1% in 2009)allocated two or more full-time resources.

On ROI and Metrics

• Number of members and site visitors are the two chief metrics used to evaluate success.
• Half of respondents (51.3%) are only measuring soft benefits, such as increased awareness, improved supporter education, greater advocacy, better volunteer/member recruitment, event participation and improved supporter affinity.
• Four in ten respondents (42.2%) are not measuring ROI at all.
• Only 6.5% of respondents are evaluating social networking effectiveness by measuring revenue or by linking effectiveness to behaviors that will increase revenue over the long term.

Read or download the full report here.