Get Involved Online Today about Human Trafficking

As part of Human Trafficking Awareness Day, Zach Hunter and Compassion International are hosting a Twitter chat about human trafficking. If you have questions about human trafficking, use #HumanTrafficking from 9-10 EST (New York City time) on January 11, 2012.

I learned about today’s efforts from one of our staff family’s teens.  To support awareness, she’ll be wearing  the same dress every day for a year, starting today, Human Trafficking Awareness Day.

Bethany explains:

One reason is because it’ll give me a chance to experience waking up to the same reality day after day. But this is one I’m choosing. For countless others, it’s a choice that someone else made for them.

NOTES:

• For National Human Trafficking Awareness Day:
  • Not for Sale website
  • Facebook Page
  • Twitter
• Follow Bethany’s  year journey on her blog: One Dress.  One Year.  (Fund-raising information here.)
• A report from the International Justice Mission on some of their successes for 2011 and planned campaigns for 2012.

Using Social Media with Your Donor Team

This is the second in a series of three posts about the great day at Lake Hart we had with our guest, Steve Raquel, on Tuesday (see the intro in the first post with important information about obtaining the PowerPoints and videos).

Using Social Media with Your Donor Team

Steve touched on the concept of integrating several elements: a website, a blog, Facebook, Twitter, prayer letters, and/or an eMail service.  He had a unique perspective both as a social networking professional and as a donor to several of our staff families.

I asked Elaine of Priority Associates what she thought of the meeting:

First I have to say it was a little overwhelming but that is because I am so illiterate regarding all of the social media.  But I’m very glad that I went.  It helped in the learning process for me.

I became more acquainted with social media that I haven’t used.  It also helped to learn how they can work together.  It was nice to hear an expert say that he didn’t use all of them regularly.  It was good to get a broad picture of what is happening in the world of social media…

It gave me a lot of food for thought to think how to use it with my donors, letting them know more quickly of prayer needs and how their prayers have been answered in the lives of people.  I know about setting boundaries on who comes to my Facebook profile, but I learned much more about using groups.

So, I loved getting a bigger picture and have figured out some baby steps I can take to use social media more effectively.  Thanks.

See the second point in the notes to learn how to view the video on social media for websites, which includes the following:

• Using Tumblr for micro-blogging from your phone
• The importance of using photos and videos in Facebook
• A suggestion to check the chat window in the right sidebar of Facebook to see which of your donors are online
• And more

Please comment if you attended this session and would like to share your take-aways from Steve.  (Because of Steve’s talk, I’m hoping to find ways to encourage staff to learn and use manageable portions of this strategy.  It doesn’t have to be overwhelming!) 

Come back tomorrow for notes from the next session on managing your social networks.  (Steve will mention using a social media communications dashboard and other topics.)

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NOTES:

• See photos from our sessions at Lake Hart.
• In a week or so, we’ll have the PowerPoints and videos from the sessions available.  I’ll let you know at that time how you can view them.  These will only be available on a secure site for CCC staff.  If you’re interested in these videos, simply subscribe to e4e and request to receive eMails about training.  You’ll also learn of other future training opportunities , such as helping staff build these different elements for using social media effectively.
• Steve’s blog is a good resource for understanding and using social media.
• Steve’s Tweets
• You might be interested in sharing MPD ideas with other staff on this Facebook group (ask me for an invitation).

How to Market Your Blog

Once you’ve started your blog, you want to find readers. If you are anything like I was a few months ago, you have no idea how to let others know about your blog. Here are the best 5 ways I found to advertise your blog so others can read your material.

1. Send out alerts on Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, or any other social networking site. Simply let others know you have a new blog entry.

2. Find blogs that discuss similar subjects, and comment on these blogs. You can leave a link to your blog so if readers are interested, they can come visit your blog.

3. Make it easy for readers to “subscribe” to your blog. I use feedburner.com. From here, you can set up email registration and RSS feed sign ups for people to easily click to receive automatic updates whenever you post something new.

4. Try posting your blog in the local newspaper on the community blogs page. You can email the editor of your town’s newspaper and see if they want to include your blog.

5. Word of mouth.

What would you add? What ways have you marketed your blogs?
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Related Post on the importance of building relationships through commenting.

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Twittering Your Blog on Facebook

Last summer I started a blog because I not only love to write, but I also find purpose in writing Father-filtered, divinely inspired blog entries to a culture that is starving for more than what this world feeds it. So a friend and fellow staff member pointed me in the right direction and suddenly, the blog was born (Leaha’s Pen)!

But then what? Like anything new, I wanted to show her off to my friends. So I logged into Facebook and noticed that some of my Facebook pals were displaying their blogs on their profile pages through Twitter. Ah-hah, I thought, free advertisement for my blog! So I set up an account with Twitter and before I knew it, I could post clips from my blog entries on Facebook via Twitter for all my friends to see. I loved being able to write with purpose and transparency. But little did I know, there was a glitch. All was not well in the twitter-blogosphere.

One day I received an email from a kind stranger informing me that he had difficulty accessing my blog through Twitter because I had not been posting my tweets with a link. I simply had been typing in my tweets and tacking on “leahaspen.blogspot.com.” This, the helpful stranger informed me, is not very user friendly. So he suggested I look into Twitter Feed. I soon discovered that Twitter Feed is wonderful because it not only allows the blogger to feed the blog to Twitter and Facebook, but it also provides the reader with a link to the blog and a fairly lengthy snapshot of the most recent blog entry, which I have found to be very user friendly and effective!

Simply go to Twitter Feed to create your account, and you are then all set to add your feeds between your blog, your Twitter and your Facebook accounts. Basically, Twitter Feed does the work for you, and it does it better than what this less than tech-savvy blogger could do! Now my readers not only get fed through my thoughts on God’s Word, but they also get fed thanks to Twitter Feed.

Meet e4e author Leaha Shaikh

NOTE from Sus: You can use Networked Blogs or Twitter Feed to connect your blog, Twitter, and/or Facebook accounts. If you don’t have a blog, you can just feed your Tweets to Facebook.

If your blog is on NetworkedBlogs on Facebook, go to Networked Blogs and click on your blog. Click on the “Syndication” option under the photo of your blog.  After the syndication page opens, you can add your Twitter account.  I don’t remember if you have to have your Twitter account open, too, when you do this.

Follow this link if you have any problems with Twitter / Facebook aps.