Social Media and Personal Branding: Link Roundup and Advice for Nonprofiteers

In the past week, a couple members of the Nonprofit Millenial Bloggers Alliance offered some insight on social media and personal branding for folks in the nonprofit sector.

Rosetta (@rosettathurman), 6 Ways to Use Twitter to Enhance Your Nonprofit Career
Colleen (@cdilly),  Personal Branding Makes You Better at Your Job
Me (@ajlovesya),  Misconceptions on Social Media and Personal Branding
Elizabeth (@eclawson),  Being a Brand versus Being Yourself

There are generally three concerns when it comes to social media and personal branding: content creation, usage, and real life application.  Fortunately, these challenges are easy to over come, but they do take some patience and practice.

Content Creation (I don’t have anything to write about!)

• Listen: Spend time reading blogs and following people on twitter to get a sense of what’s out there—trends, styles, and interesting topics.  Alltop.com is a great place to start searching for blogs to read.  WeFollow is good for people and organizations to follow on twitter and check out twitter lists of suggested people to follow.

• Reflect: Add to the conversation by reflecting on what you are learning. Write a response to a compelling article or do research on a topic that people are buzzing about.  Share your personal experiences in a way that offers insight and advice to others that may be in a similar situation.

• Plan: Keep a pen and pad around with you to jot down ideas as they come to you—sometimes your inspiration won’t come from the internet.  Also, plan your blog posts ahead of time and space them out so you have content to pull from.

Usage (I don’t want to seem like robot—I want to connect with people!)

• Focus on Others: Ask yourself how you can provide value to other people based your shared interests.   Link to people, retweet their content, share information you think others will find useful, and ask questions to start new conversations.

• Quality over Quantity: If you don’t have anything to share, don’t.  Don’t flood people’s feeds and inboxes with bland or mediocre content just because.

Real Life Impact (This social media stuff doesn’t matter in the real world!)

• Attend Events: If you are into social change, social media is a great way to find out about events as way of meeting people and learning more about social change.  Take it to the next level by not only attending events, but also speaking at events, helping publicize events, or coordinating your own.

• Meet People in Real Life: I have had the privilege of meeting so many wonderful people (Ami Dar, Rosetta Thurman, Nancy Lublin, to name a few) not to mention making new friends through social media.  While developing relationships online, don’t be afraid to take them off line, by meeting up.

• Connect to Work: Colleen and Rosetta brilliantly demonstrate how the skills you develop working on your social media presence can be applied to your job. What’s key is exposing your colleagues and organization to new ideas and opportunities through social media.  In using social media effectively, you are constantly learning—why not share your learning with others?

• Tell People: Add a link of your social media accounts to your email signature, join blog carnivals to spread the work about your work, and tweet/email your work.  More and more people are looking for talent online so getting the word out can lead to offline professional success.

Misconceptions about Social Media and Personal Branding

Whenever I recommend someone start a blog the first response I get is: “I don’t have anything to write about.” I also get a similar reaction when it comes to using other forms of social media: I have nothing to tweet about/I don’t get twitter; I only use facebook for friends/I don’t use facebook that much; what is LinkedIn?

Learning about the technical aspect of social media tools is easy; each major website features a handy “how-to.”  However, when it comes to using social media strategically to build a reputation for yourself, a big reason for reluctance is that there are many misconceptions about social media and personal branding:

• You have to have an incredibly interesting life or high powered job: No you don’t. Social media isn’t about sharing the ins and outs of your day. It’s about conversations, community, and building a positive reputation for yourself. What you need, more than anything, is to be inquisitive: asking questions, sharing ideas, and collaborating. Sharing personal information is fine as it adds a human touch and makes it easier for people to connect with you.  This goes beyond position.  And the “dear diary” way of communicating is not going to get you anywhere.

• You have to be a shameless self-promoter: Honestly, I’ve found people on social media to be extremely ANTI-self promoter. People who are constantly going on about their products/services without actually engaging people and NOT talking about themselves get put on blast all the time; they are blocked, de-friended, or simply called out for being annoying. So no, you don’t have to do that and for the sake of your reputation you shouldn’t.

• You have to post all of the time: This is partly true. Social media is about real time conversations so updating your twitter page once a week wont fly; it will get lost and forgotten too easily. However, your goal should be strategic use not just filling people’s feeds so you stay up to date. Therefore your best bet is to come up with rhythm of updating and engaging that makes sense for you.

What do all of these misconceptions have in common? You are thinking too much about yourself. This is understandable given that the issue is personal branding. However, when it comes to social media, the emphasis is social—there are other people to consider. So instead of asking “how can I look better?” ask “how can I help other people?”

• Focus on relationships: Whatever topic or issue you care about, remember there is probably a conversation taking place about it. Join those conversations, get to know people, and use the thoughts and resources of others to inform your own opinions. Sign up for people’s blogs, follow interesting people on twitter without worrying about them following you, and respond to people.

• Be Thoughtful: One thing I have found is that the more you engage with others (i.e. focus on relationships) the more you will have to share and think about. So take your time and create value instead of counting.

• Pay Attention: What kinds of questions or issues seem to be buzzing right now? What kind of information do people seem to be most interested in? If you have unique resources or ideas to share, do so and don’t be afraid to address the same topic but in different ways.

• Have Passion: Personal branding requires effort but should be made after you have figured out your passion. In other words, you have to have something to be branded about.

• Engage honestly and strategically: Share a little about yourself and don’t be afraid to admit when you are frustrated, confused, or struggling. Invite people to the table to share their views and ideas.   Also, it’s ok to focus on two or three social media tools. There are tons out there and you really do not need to use all of them. In addition to my blog, I’m on twitter, facebook, and linkedin. LinkedIn doesn’t require that much updating but the others I am pretty active on.

You want to build a reputation as a thought leader but remember that doing so is not a solo act. When using social media, you’ll be building on ideas and connecting with new people who can challenge and enhance your own thinking.  By focusing on community and harnessing your unique interests, personal branding not only comes naturally but can expose you to different people and opportunities.

Two Events to Celebrate and Connect with Young Social Change Leaders in NYC

Around this time of year the holiday parties start piling up (Next week I am attending FOUR holiday parties). But in the middle of wine, cheese, and cool company I wanted to highlight some events in NYC that are great opportunities to network, connect, and make a difference. These events are being led by young social change leaders so show your support!

TrickleUp’s Young Professionals Council Open House
Monday December 7th 7pm-10pm, The Suffolk, 107 Suffolk Street. No Cover $5 drinks

I know many of you—like myself—are interested in social entreprenurship as a means for social change, especially when it comes to alleviating poverty. You might be interested in Trickle Up which helps very poor people make their way out of poverty by providing training, seed capital grants and savings support to help people launch a microenterprise.

They are having an open house for people to learn more about their work and how to get involved. The event is sponsored by their Young Professional’s Council which raises awareness amongst New York City college students and young professionals about alleviating extreme poverty, while simultaneously providing social and networking opportunities.

If you want to attend please email Fennie Wang, fennie.n.wang [at] jpmchase [dot] com or Anush Ricci, anush.x.riccin [at] jpmchase [dot] com

United Way’s Young Leaders Council Second Annual Red Carpet Soiree
Saturday December 12th 7pm-11pm, The Renaissance Hotel at Two Times Square, tickets $85-$100

This year’s event will be honoring young philanthropist Beverly Bond who started BlackGirlsRock! A nonprofit that supports at risk girls of color and celebrates positive role models. I absolutely LOVE the work of Beverly Bond and the culture of giving she highlights among celebrities. If you are interested in attending please visit their website.

Have a great weekend!

Happy Thanksgiving! I Am Thankful for You

When I first started writing (almost two years ago!) I honestly had no clue of who would read this.  I assumed that I would dwell on a virtual island, throwing my thoughts out into cyber space and hoping that someone other than my mother found what I was sharing useful.  What has happened is far beyond what I could have ever anticipated.

So many of you have reached out to me for advice while sharing your own insights.  It is a blessing to be part of such a wonderful community that challenges and encourages its members.  I have met amazing people and as I flip through my old blog posts I see that I have grown so much because of all of you.

Blogging is a labor of love.  Not only love for writing and researching but also love for connecting and sharing.  It is also a risk as the moment I push “submit” I am making myself vulnerable; I take full ownership of my words yet I know that are interpreted by many different eyes.  But there is power in that vulnerability as it enables me to form relationships that would otherwise be inaccessible. And the fact that these relationships are being formed over the importance of service and inclusion make the risk worthwhile.

So whether you read, comment, share, or email your thoughts on this blog, Thank You!  Your encouragement pushes me to keep reflecting, keep blogging, and keep serving.  You’ve become a big part of my life and I am looking forward to more conversations and connections.

I hope you are all having a fabulous Thanksgiving!

Five Problems with How We Measure Social Change

For this month’s Nonprofit Millenial Bloggers Alliance post, we are tackling defining and measuring social impact.

I think we talk about social change so much that we underestimate what it takes to bring it to fruition.  Social change is inherently a societal concern with multiple layers and intersections, which makes defining it and measuring it difficult.  Can you really address health care without examining income, race, and gender?  Can you attribute a safer neighborhood to the efforts of a nonprofit or to changes in city legislature or both?

Given the complications in simply defining and examining social change, we need to stop assuming that the tools used to measure other objects—like profits—are adequate and effective.  In fact, many of the efforts I see for measuring our progress are short sighted, essentially boiling down to “Are we using donors money well?” Implied in this approach is that since donors are supporting our mission, if we please the donors, then we are fulfilling our mission.

While this approach is important for evaluating performance, it doesn’t tell us much about our progress towards social change.

• For one, it doesn’t put people in need at the center of the measurement: I understand the push to be objective by ignoring the voices of the people we serve and to focus on things we can easily count (How many get counseling?  How many complete applications?)  Yet how people are experiencing change, problems in our approach, and potential new challenges cannot be easily documented quantitatively.

• It assumes there cant be multiple interpretation of numbers: When I read data on how many inner city youth go off to college, I see that data as incomplete.  Why?  Because acceptance isn’t the issue– graduation is.  What’s the point of getting accepted if you don’t finish?  Yet for some acceptance is great, while others want to know the quality of schools, and others, like myself, want more long term data.  In other words, numbers are interpreted differently so no set of numbers is complete.

• It leaves little room for collaboration: If one sector had the answer to our most pressing problems, then guess what?  Only one sector would exist.  And if social change merely required someone with good intentions and loads of time, our problems would’ve been solved decades ago.  Essentially, how are we including and examining the various other forces that impact the well being of people we serve?

• It doesn’t include a long-term approach: Social change takes a while.  Providing immediate services to people is important but tracking changes in situations and circumstances won’t be captured in a yearly report.

• It doesn’t allow for critical thinking: Without focusing on processes how do we know if our definition of social change is appropriate?  How do we know if what we are measuring adequately captures progress?  Once we focus on gathering numbers without engaging critically with our own processes, we lock ourselves into methods that may be outdated or problematic.

This is not to say that change should not be measured.  It should and absolutely needs to.  The concern is that the current models don’t capture the entire picture and we need to develop a more holistic approach.  

Check out how some of the other nonprofit millenial bloggers view this issue:
Colleen, Does Writing a Check Equal Social Change?
Elizabeth, What is Social Impact?
Elisa, Measuring Social Impact
Tracey, The Meaning of Social Impact
James, Measuring Social Impact