Pinning My Interests Instead of Insects

Posted on February 16, 2012 | Leave a comment

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So because of my science background, when I think pinning– I don’t necessarily imagine the site, Pinterest. I think of entomology class when I was instructed to capture, pin and label insects. But alas, pinning doesn’t have to mean clumsily sticking a pin through the mesothorax. I’m now associating it with a vibrant and visual bookmarking service most often recognized as being populated with women collecting sites about weddings, babies, recipes or baby recipes (just kidding…I do not condone baby eating) .

Let’s just say, it’s much easier A Guide To Mounting Insects on Pinsto “pin” things online than the experience I had in college. Not to mention that nonprofits and businesses alike are finding real reasons to start using Pinterest.

So what are you using Pinterest for?

I’m using it for the National Wildlife Federation because I’ve noticed how the interests of people online are becoming more and more visually inclined. You see how well images and pictures do on Facebook, well that translates nicely into Pinterest’s clean interface. Not to mention, in a very short time we saw a large increase in traffic and interaction surrounding our pinly presence.

Art and science are so intertwined. Pinterest is a fun place to explore visual collections while increasing sharing and interaction. Not to mention, thanks to our kids publications, we have a number of adorable wildlife crafts and recipes to share.

I also find it incredibly fun to search Pinterest for NWF mentions:
http://pinterest.com/source/nwf.org/ (adding source between the link gets you there quickly!)

Great Pinterest Resources:

Pinterest: A Tool To Curate Relevant Visual Content for Your Audience
Nonprofits on Pinterest
12 Ways Your Nonprofit Can Use Pinterest
Steal these 42 Creative Pinterest Ideas for Nonprofits

Are you pinning about wildlife, environment, technology or science?
I want to follow you! Let me know!

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Posted in Technology

5 Questions to Answer Before Blogging About Your Cause

Posted on December 18, 2011 | Leave a comment

Blogging for a cause is challenging and on National Wildlife Federation’s blog, we’re always trying to bring value to the conversation while writing posts people want to read. Anne Cissel, our blog editor, helped put together a great list of questions to ask yourself before you write a post. But even before you answer these questions,   reflect which blogs are your favorite and why. Don’t limit yourself to blogs within your field — look everywhere!

Then answer these questions:

1. What is your goal? Why are you blogging?
(Raise awareness, get petition signatures, etc. The more specific the better.)

2. How will you measure success?
(New visitors, page views, backlinks)

Now … Forget about your goals! Forget what you want readers to do and think only about your target audience.

3. Who is your audience? Activists? Parents? Teachers? Animal lovers? Spend some time researching your audience online. What are their concerns, needs, wants? What do they like to read/share online?

4. What are the concerns, needs, and secret desires of your target audience?

5. What do they like to share online? (Hint: Visit blogs who have already cultivated this audience)

Once you answer these questions, you can then dive into content creation! Here are some tips to get you on your way:

Brainstorm Compelling Content:
Certain formats and topics work best for blogs and make for irresistible content.

  • Lists (5 Ways …)
  • Photo galleries and short compelling videos
  • Curation (Create a useful resource that also creates “friends” in the blogosphere: 6 Best Green Bloggers)
  • Tips (4 Easy Birdhouse Crafts)
  • Surprising personal stories
  • Myth-busters
  • Quizzes, polls

Only after you’ve got an outline for your post  … REVISIT YOUR GOALS FROM QUESTION ONE! How can you weave in your “ask” into the content?

Engage, engage, engage:
A blog should be a two-way conversation. Think about how and where you want your reader to engage. Maybe you just want them to answer a question  in the blog comments or on Facebook. You could even create a blog post from the answers. Let your readers do the work for you!

What other great tips do you have about writing blogs? We want to know!

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Posted in Blogging

Nature and Wildlife Google+ Brand Pages

Posted on November 10, 2011 | 6 Comments

With the addition of Google+ brand pages, I’ve noticed  a number of awesome  environmental, outdoor and wildlife brand pages. I couldn’t resist sharing them.

I decided I would create a useful Nature and Wildlife Circle on Google+  that includes many of the environmental groups you can follow. I’d love to aggregate a number of them, so if you’re on Google+ and I haven’t included you– please let me know by commenting with your page link below.

There are some fantastic blog posts out there that are discussing how nonprofits are using Google+ brand pages as well as how Google+ can improve the experience for brand managers. I think this is an exciting time to be a part of the community! So please join us and let’s bring the wildlife to Google+!.

I’ve insisted that the benefits for being early to a new site are to get a chance to talk to other curious, early-adopters. By joining now, it allows you to take the time to get to know the space and the etiquette that’s expected. It’s been interesting to spend time talking and commenting on Google+ while it’s still pretty empty and the conversations are still very meaningful. So join us now and let’s “hang out”!

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Posted in Communities, Technology

Exploring the Social Media Ecosystem

Posted on October 17, 2011 | Leave a comment

When you explore a new place, how do you process the new information? Whether I’m hiking a new trail, observing a stream or exploring a new social media site, I’ve noticed I behave similarly and try to react to my surroundings.  I try to find my “niche” even if it’s as a quiet observer.

I tackle new situations by:

  • Listening
  • Asking/Documenting Questions
  • Experimenting
  • Creating
  • Assessing and Analyzing

I used this chart in a recent presentation to explain how I break down my time on social media.

I want to continue recording my experiences online and improve at capturing data so that others can learn quickly, what has taken me time to figure out.

I recently presented (the presentation below) to National Wildlife Federation’s social media users. It was a ton of information in a short time, but I’m hopeful that we can continue to tweak how we measure our success and map out future outreach and relationship building. I love that online allows us to connect with wildlife enthusiasts far and wide.

When you explore…what questions do you ask? How do you keep track of the information?

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Posted in communication

Great Tools for Creating a Free Petition for Nature

Posted on May 24, 2011 | 4 Comments

I’ve collected a number of free ways to create a petition and hope that anyone (mom) who reads this blog can put them to good use for protecting the environment and wildlife. As always, I welcome feedback and hope you share your tools and techniques with me!

Change.org: Even from the homepage, Change.org encourages members to create petitions around issues they care about. Not only that, but if done well, the community may even promote your petition. In a few easy steps, you can create and promote your desired “change” to your contacts and other nonprofit organizations on the site and on social media.

What’s required: Change.org account
The Impact: Very easy to maneuver, and change.org has fantastic content as well, so sometimes it’s even possible to link your petition to content that’s available. The community is buzzing with social causes and if you can get your action featured in their newsletter you can see the impact.

Care2: There is so much a user can do on Care2, that you can forgetabout how simple it is to go to the petition site and create a place to collect signatures for the cause or campaign of your choosing. It’s very easy to get distracted, but there are many passionate users and good causes. You can even join like-minded groups and promote your petition that way!

What’s required: Care2 login
The Impact: Similar to Change.org, there’s a very active community that if you’re willing, you can get involved with and illicit their help and expertise.

Act.ly:
This site gives you a quick way to create an action campaign on Twitter.Take the person’s username and target your messaging in 140 characters. Then ask your supporters to re-tweet it and that serves as a signature. It takes very little time to set up but can have a huge impact. Especially if the user on the receiving end is an avid Twitter user!

What’s required: Twitter usernames
(both you need one and your target)
The Impact: May not be as impressive as calling your representative, but can be overwhelming to the person managing the Twitter account and can definitely build a movement over an important issue. It also takes no time to set up, which can be a definitely benefit for quick turn around campaigns!

Facebook Causes Petitions:
If you’re an administrator for a nonprofit or advocacy group and you’re looking to increase Facebook engagement as well as ask people to take action, I think experimenting with the petitions on Causes is a good step. In order to get a good idea how to create a petition, check out this helpful video.

What’s Required: Nonprofit Causes partner login.
The Impact: As a nonprofit you can leverage your communities on Causes to help petition on your behalf. The names are displayed in a way so that you can export them and hand them to the person you’re trying to target and can be very effective in spreading the word.

There’s also a FANTASTIC post by SocialBrite that lists a bunch of tools like iPetitions and Petitionspot I didn’t mention here. I highly recommend people check it out. If you’re someone who’s passionate about an issue and you don’t work for a nonprofit, I definitely recommend you use these petitions to get on the radar of people who do (me!).

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Posted in communication, Technology

Tagged , , ,

Surveying Soil and Social Media?

Posted on May 2, 2011 | Leave a comment

I knew I would find soil fascinating, so I decided to take a night class titled “The Living Soil“.  I was also interested in learning about soil so that when the inevitable zombie apocalypse strikes I may be able to plant some food for my dear family and the few remaining survivors. Currently I’m just a serial killer of plants and fail to keep the sturdiest of them alive.

A few weeks ago we had our first soil field trip and I was able to get more hands-on with a stream bed and some soil-y colleagues. We were each instructed to attempt to identify different horizons as well as the texture, color and structure of a small area of soil in Maryland.  It was mucky, interesting, and I felt like I was guessing a lot of the time. But in learning how to survey soil, I was reminded how similar it is to surveying social media and how each site offers different aspects with a unique function.

In soil, you determine physical properties by examining the:

  • Structure: (type, size and grade)
  • Texture: (percentage of sand, silt and clay)
  • Porosity: (air and water space)
  • Color: (hue, value and chroma of the soil)

It’s very easy, because soil scientists and people surveying  soil can reference any number of information sites and decide how to address the next step. But what if someone is curious about using social media? There’s no obvious key. People have to swim around in the social space and copy their competitors.

If we had to decide on how to determine the attributes of social media sites that we would need to survey I would say:

  • Structure: Profiles, Groups, Pages
  • Texture: Friendly, Intellectual or Marketing Heavy
  • Intensity: How often must you check it? How much does it take to update it?
  • Design: How user friendly is it?

Keeping in mind that I’ve only had a few moments to think about this,  I think sites like Twitter would be the topsoil and sites as built out as Ning would be the bedrock. But maybe I should just get back to studying…

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Posted in Communities, Ramblings

Tagged ,

Emerging Wildlife Conservation Leaders and the Future of Bat Guano

Posted on April 25, 2011 | Leave a comment

Back in early April I participated in a training as part of the  Emerging Wildlife Conservation Leaders. Not only was the group spectacular, but I came away with a fantastic team and a very interesting project! We are going to develop the international standards for harvesting bat guano. In many countries there are no standards or best practices that protect both the bats and the cave ecosystem and so it goes from a renewable resource to a devastating event. We’re hoping that through our research and collaboration we can work together and help Bat Conservation International develop these important standards.

As for the training session, we learned so much! I’m happy to share with anyone who is interested. Here is just a broad overview of what the training covered:

•    Professional mission statements and goal setting
•    Leadership skills and work-life balance
•    Successful campaigning skills
•    Communications and messaging strategies
•    Planning tools for advocacy campaigns
•    Adaptive management techniques
•    International biodiversity funding opportunities
•    Coordinated organizational response models
•    On-camera media training
•    Tools for dealing with conflict in the workplace
•    Fundraising Advice

While I think the environmental movement keeps getting stronger, it’s important we stick together and help one another. We can do that online, in person, and through special events and trainings. We must do this, I think it is imperative to our future.

On the tech side of this whole project, I’ve been playing more with Google Sites and figuring out how to make it a friendly, collaborative place to share documents and information.  It was very simple to select a template and then manipulate it to make it functional and relevant (bat photo).

Great collaboration tools so far:
1) Google Docs (both spreadsheet & docs)
2) Google Calendar
3) Skype
4) Google Sites

What tools have you used for group collaboration? I need recommendations!

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Posted in communication