Nonprofit finance, accounting, and tax news. Other tidbits of interest to the charity community.
Whether you serve in a church or ministry, having your staff use social ministry to communicate is a very good thing. The social media tools available today are easy, cheap, effective, and far-reaching. It is fascinating to think how easy it is to communicate with your audience.
Just like everything else in life, there is a downside.
Your Church Blog points out a few things we should be careful of:
Update on my post about how Taco Bell is using social media as an integrated part of their response to a lawsuit which raised severe allegations against them.
On April 19 the plaintiff dropped her lawsuit. The law firm claimed that the restaurant chain revised the marketing and product disclosure.
Taco Bell has a quick response saying they changed nothing in their recipe, paid nothing to the plaintiff, and did not make a settlement.
Their use of social media is what’s of most interest to me.
One of the ripple effects when a fraud incident hits the papers is that you become fodder for snide comments in the blogosphere. I suppose the same thing would apply to any incident that hits the newspapers.
Seems that a fellow who was doing some marketing work for Chrysler sent out a tweet criticizing the driving skills of Detroit drivers and threw in an obscenity for spice. He sent the tweet while stuck in traffic.
Unfortunately, he accidentally used the Chrysler brand twitter feed instead of his personal twitter account.
Oops.
The Internet moves fast. When things goes against you on the ‘net, you have to move fast too. If you know how to use social media, you can.
Taco Bell’s situation at the moment is a good example of someone actively using social media in a fast-moving, difficult situation.
I’ve written several posts on using Facebook in a ministry setting and the privacy issues for personal use. Click the ‘social media’ category at the right to see what I’ve said before. For another perspective on the Facebook privacy issues, see a post at ULVOG DOT COM, by my cousin Christian Ulvog.
Looks like I’ve taken both sides of this issue: suggesting you drop your web site and put all your effort into developing a Facebook ‘page’ on this post, and then saying taking that approach is such a significant risk that you should seriously consider not doing so on this post.
Which is it? (more…)
There are new risks to go along with all the great technology we have available today. Previously discussed the risk of not owning your domain name and being trapped by your tech provider. This post goes the opposite direction of discussing the risk of getting shut down by your social media provider.
Illustration 3 – being shut down by your social media platform – don’t put all your eggs in one basket
Along with the incredible opportunities from wonderful technology we get some unusual risks. Previously discussed the risk from not owning your domain name and the chance you could wind up without the ability to use it.
Illustration 2 – being stranded by changes made by your vendor (more…)
There are lots of special risks when using technology. You need to identify and manage them. A new one that I have just started to appreciate is the danger of being trapped by your technology provider. (more…)
It is obvious to me that most ministries and businesses should be in social media because of the tremendous potential to further your mission or revenue stream, so the issue is pretty much resolved on whether to move forward or not. The next issue is to identify the risks in moving forward because there are risks. The action steps are then to manage those risks. (more…)
As you dive into the social media world, what are the limits for doing so and how do you do it without causing more problems than the benefits produced? That is where policies come into play. (more…)
Should you use a Facebook fan page instead of a website? (more…)
Cooks Source continues to draw my interest. That is due to the convergence of three factors: a fascinating story, my having this very small platform from which to opine, and my long-time interest in how wonderful some people are at not apologizing. (more…)
As you ponder how to develop a social media strategy (or just try to figure out what is going on at Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter), reserve your names in those places. (more…)