Using a blog and social media to help a non-profit, in this case the Kentucky Coaltion to Abolish the Death Penalty

Recently I overhauled the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty’s (KCADP) online presence. This describes our approach and how I can help you or your organization make better use of the Internet.

Early on, KCADP’s staff and I determined that there were three objectives for its online presence (all of which should apply to similar non-profits):

• increase its membership
• keep its existing supporters engaged
• convert its opponents or disinterested people into supporters

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WordPress updates to version 2.7, and it’s not a release to be skipped

Like many of you, I don’t like it when change comes to a blog platform or social networking site (talking ’bout you Facebook). It takes time to become acclimated with the new layout, and it can be frustrating relearning where to find information.

For once, however, I am fine with such a change (and it had nothing to do with Who Moved My Cheese):

WordPress 2.7 (aka Coltrane) is fantastic.

Released on Dec. 10, the upgrade’s interface is much cleaner and intuitive than version 2.6.5, which I was running previously.

QuickPress, an area in the Dashboard that allows users to quickly add a post, is handy—and was where I wrote this post.

Many bloggers are reluctant to update their software, having to backup, deactivate plugins, upgrade, and reactivate plugins, hoping the process doesn’t destroy their hours of effort.

WordPress 2.7., however, is worth the upgrade.

Is Facebook heading for a Black Tuesday-like crash?

When Joseph Kennedy, John F. Kennedy’s father, overheard shoeshine boys discussing their stock porfolios, he sold many of his holdings, figuring the market was overextended. Shortly thereafter, the market crashed on 1929’s Black Tuesday. (Disclaimer: this story might be an urban legend.)

Might Facebook be heading for a similar catastrophe? My father just signed up for an account.

While my father is no shoeshine boy (he’s a physicist), Facebook’s appeal has been to the younger folk. Might the influx of, um, people of an advanced age cause the site to lose its cool? (I’ve noticed that some of my friends’ parents also have been popping up on Facebook.)

Of course, there is an opposite interpretation: Facebook’s reach has become so vast that no other social networking site stands a chance of usurping its dominance.

I’m not sure which theory I subscribe to. But in the meantime, I need to scrub my Facebook profile and make it Dad-safe.

Connect with me on these social networking sites

You can connect with me at these social networking sites:

• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• MySpace
  
• Twitter

Ping.fm solves the (admittedly self-inflicted) problem of updating your status on multiple social networking sites

With so many social networking and microblogging sites, updating your status on all of them can be a pain. In many people’s cases—including mine—it leads to either neglect or cutting and pasting.

Ping.fm solves the problem though. From Wikipedia:

Ping.fm is a free social networking and micro-blogging web service that enables users to post to multiple social networks simultaneously.

Making an update on Ping.fm pushes the update to a number of different social websites at once. This allows individuals using multiple social networks to update their status only once, without having to update it in all their social mediums individually. Ping.fm groups services into three categories – status updates, blogs, and micro-blogs – and updates can be sent to each group separately.

From Ping.fm I simultaneously post to Twitter and update my status on Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace. Ping.fm supports more than 30 social networking sites, including the behemoths that I just mentioned, new sites, and even dying networks (remember Friendster?).

I bookmarked Ping.fm and added it to the home screen of my iPhone for easy access when I’m away from my computer.