BETH'S BLOG — As frequent readers of this blog know, many pitfalls of online contests have been discussed here. It’s an honor to have Beth ask me to guest post so I will do my best to live up to the quality readers are used to. With the launch of public voting on the Pepsi Refresh Project, now is a good time to discuss the efforts we’re taking to set the new standard for transparency in online contests. For those who don’t know, the Pepsi Refresh Project is a new effort to empower individuals to make a positive impact on the world. We’ve pledged to award more than $20 million to support innovative ideas that move communities forward...

This is a draft for a listening curriculum that I will be doing for the first time as part of WeAreMedia Workshop later this week. I will also be teaching this workshop for nonprofits in a number of other locations in the coming months...

Last year at this time, I was in Austin, TX doing a keynote workshop for Legal Services Corporation on the ROI of Nonprofit Technology. I interviewed technology practitioners from the poverty law community about how they approach ROI and significant technology systems investments like client databases, document assembly systems, or video conference systems. I also contributed a chapter on the topic to NTEN's Managing Your Technology To Meet Your Mission due out by Wiley. I covered the building blocks of a classic ROI process, but translated to a nonprofit context. The basics include: benefits, value, metrics, and financial calculations. I shared case studies and tips for nonprofits on measuring efficiency and effectiveness and looking at tangible/intangible benefits. I still think these are components are essential and should be applied to looking at the ROI (Results on Insight) for nonprofits and social media...

In February, I'll be co-teaching the "WeAreMedia Live" intensive two-day workshop in San Francisco from NTEN. The goal is to help participants create a social media strategy AND take a deep dive into the tactics and tools of social media.  One of the challenges, of course, is integrating social media strategy with overall communications planning as well as Internet strategy without having the time in the workshop to drill down into those other topics. I've also been looking at examples from the corporate sector like the POST method from Forrester and thinking about adaptions for nonprofit.   I've come up with synthesis - a worksheet, how-to points, and resources that would guide an organization to think strategically about social media. Here's a roadmap and worksheet to do just that...

You need to pick the right hard data points (fancy way of saying metrics) that will help you harvest insights to improve your social media strategy. For blogging, you have to use a couple of different tools to get the different metrics you need. The tools include Google Analytics, PostRank, Feedburner, and others. On a listserv the other day, Laura Quinn at Idealware asked if "Visit" or "Click" data on Feedburner were useful metrics to track to assess reader interest in your blog content. Jay Dedman pointed to an analysis Feedburner by Chris Baskind...