On June 13, I had the privilege of serving as a panelist on Social Media Strategy: Plugging Into A New World for MPI’s Chapter Leadership Conference 2009. Panelists included Sterling Raphael, Founder and CEO of NFiStudios, Alan Baptista, MPI’s Director of Community Development and Randy Crabtree, MPI’s Manager of Global Marketing. The workshop, offered twice, was organic and audience-driven in structure as we addressed attendees’ questions regarding social media for associations and meeting professionals.

Here is a summary of recommendations I had for nonprofit chapters on how to use social media and a list of resources that Sterling and I shared with the audience.

Social Media Considerations For Nonprofit Chapters

• Social media is about communicating and connecting with people, building and maintaining relationships, and creating a community for your members.
• When using social media, the focus should be on people, not technology or tools.
• Social media is just an extension of what you’re already doing in your chapter and a way to incorporate Web 2.0 into your current chapter strategies.
• Social media augments and enriches the face to face experience. It does not replace meetings or events.
• Start by creating a strategy on how to implement social media. That strategy can be a simple as creating a Facebook Fan page to creating a Twitter Account or as detailed as you want.
• Find champions for the social media tools you decide to use.
• Social media does not rest within one silo or department. It crosses all departments from marketing to education to communications to membership etc. Don’t try to force social media into one category.
• Consider creating a social media task force to see what some of your members are already doing and how you can tap their talents and experience.
• Don’t be afraid of Social Media. It social space is very forgiving of newbies and often people are willing to help. Try it.

How Your Chapter Can Use Social Media

1. Extend your event experience for your attendees before, during and after the event. Integrate blogs, internet radio shows, twitter and Facebook Fan page.
2. When contracting speakers for an event, ask and include in the contract the following items
   a. Two blog posts on their topic- one before and one after the event.
   b. A newsletter article (different from blog posts)
   c. A Webinar before the event
   d. A live radio interview (consider blogtalkradio.com) that is recorded and creates a podcast and MP3 for downloading to a MP3 player
   e. The face to face presentation(s)
   f. Short video interview onsite after the presentation.
   Then share this content on your Website, your Facebook Fan Page, you’re LinkedIn Group, through your Twitter account, etc. The more speakers you have, the more fresh, new content you’ll have to drive traffic to your various Web properties
3. Create a Facebook Fan Page for your chapter and invite your chapter members to join and post their own content.
4. Make your chapter newsletter article easy to share via social media. (If the newsletter or magazine articles are all in one PDF or an electronic book, people will have challenges sharing specific articles they enjoyed. When creating the monthly newletter or magazine, also post them individually on your website. Include the “Share This” button at the bottom of each article which will allow readers to share with others.
5. Use social media tools to listen to your members, potential members and industry trends.
6. Engage virtual attendees with your events
7. Consider setting up a Twitter chat with your members and guests. Set a time, date and topics to discuss. Pick a moderator to lead the discussion. Use Tweetchat.com, Tweetgrid.com, wtHashtag or Monitter to monitor the chat and filter the Twitter noise.
8. Set up a blog for your chapter and populate with member created content, newsletter content, speaker articles, etc. Blog posts do not have to be long and even a provocative paragraph works.
9. Market and promote your events through Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin.
10. Consider using Twitter during your events and project Twitter stream on screen. 5 Ways To Visualize Twitter At Your Events (Actually 6, read comments to see one more.)

SOCIAL MEDIA RESOURCES DISCUSSED

Social Media Books
Creating A World Wide Rave by David Meerman Scott
Groundswell by Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li
Twitter for Dummies by Laura Fitton, Michael Gruen, Leslie Poston
Facebook for Dummies by Carolyn Abram, Leah Pearlman
Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time by Joel Comm
The Twitter Book by Tim O’Reilly and Sarah Milstein
Twitter Revolution: How Social Media and Mobile Marketing is Changing the Way We Do Business & Market Online by Warren Whitlock and Deborah Micek

Free Online eBooks
7 Tips to Write a Great Corporate Blog by Debbie Weil

Beginner’s Guide to Business Blogging by Debbie Weil

The Big Juicy Twitter Guide by Caroline Middlebrook

Getting A Foothold In Social Media by Amber Naslund

How To Use Facebook For Business And Nonprofits by Hubspot commentary by John Haydon

The Social Media Starter Kit: The Tools by Amber Naslund

Twitter For Beginners by Charlene Kingston

Twitter School by Charlene Kingston  [Great resource for beginners, novices and experts]

Facebook Info
Facebook Fan Pages 

Facebook Groups and Pages – Features, Benefits And Killer Tips by John Haydon

Mari Smith – Social media queen of all things related to Facebook and Twitter

Twitter Tools & Tips

Desktop Tools
Tweetdeck.com for PC
Seesmic.com for PC
Tweetie.com for Mac

iPhone Apps
Tweetie
Twitterific
Tweetdeck (new)

Blackberry Apps
Ubertwitter.com

To Follow Twitter Chats
Tweetchat.com
Tweetgrid.com
Monittor.com
wtHashtag
Search.Twitter.com

Eventprofs Twitter Chats information. Tuesdays, 9 pm ET, Thursdays, 12 pm ET

List of other Twitter Chats -

Meryl.Net List  
wtHashtag List
Robert Swanwick’s @speakerinteractive Editable Twitter Chat Schedule

Free Video Production for Creating A Short 30-second or 1-minute marketing video

Animoto.com