Naming a Penguin via Social Media

This week's spotlight features the Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, New York. They recently engaged current fans and recruited new constituents via a contest to name a penguin... See the Spotlight on Facebook here.

The Spotlight is to highlight best practice among the many great non-profit social media efforts. Have suggestions? Submit them here.

Other organizations that have been in the Spotlight.

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Rosamond Gifford caught my attention because of their campaign to name a penguin that was born in mid-April at the zoo. Voting on the final six candidates for the name was conducted primarily through RGZ's Facebook page. The stories behind the names were included, as well as the location of the person submitting the entry. Before social media, I think it is doubtful we would have seen a leading candidate from a kindergarten class in Chile naming a penguin in Syracuse!

The contest was highlighted on the top right of the main Zoo site:

As you can see below, RGZ highlighted each of the six finalists via a Facebook note.

...and kept visitors abreast of results via status updates and comments.

The winner is scheduled to be announced tomorrow. Kudos to RGZ for the engagement of new and current constituents via this contest.

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What do you think of these? Any suggestions for others to highlight?

#AmericaWants Ad Runs for To Write Love On Her Arms

Network issues prevented me from posting this earlier, but I do want to share that the To Write Love On Her Arms ad ran last week. Kudos to TWLOHA and USA Today for this:

New Facebook Privacy Information

When logging into Facebook you may have recently seen (or will soon see... the roll-out will take a little while to get to all users) a message titled "Improved Privacy Controls" at the top of your News Feed... It should look something like this:

As has been well-documented, Facebook has faced a great deal of criticism for their privacy and programming changes as well as how they initially failed to respond to users' concerns. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, has finally responded to criticism and is hoping the changes highlighted below will gain some of the lost trust of users back for FB. You can click on the image for a more detailed view.

This image highlights the core privacy controls:

Sharing on Facebook - Suggestion: "Friends Only" across the board. The only thing I have different is that some of my email addresses are only visible to me on the page (which begs the question - why is it still on the account? ...the answer: because it is what I use to log in)

Basic Directory Information - Suggestion: This one is actually more based on your personal preferences. I would suggest that everyone be able to send you messages, in case there is a potential connection you do not realize. I would also advise you to make your friend list private - people (the not-nice-variety) use these to mine for information and deceive users.

Applications and Websites - Suggestion: IMPORTANT - the "Information accessible through your friends" and "Instant personalization" categories are what make many users sketchy about recent FB changes. I would strongly urge you not to share anything with your friends' applications. If one of your friends makes the mistake of adding a bad/malicious application, you will likely avoid being victimized. As mentioned previously, you can/should also disable the instant personalization, as it provides your information to third parties. This privacy setting page (Apps & Sites) also provides a list of all applications you have given permissions to... I found it as a useful way to cleanup and remove those that I no longer need.

Block Lists - Suggestion: Block those people and applications you do not want to hear from... that simple.
"Additional controls" and privacy comments. These sections are worth reading if you have any concerns or lack of understanding on the current FB policies and settings.

If you still have questions after reading these - let me know and I'll do my best to answer your questions.

Memorial Day Follow-of-the-Week

In honor of Memorial Day weekend, this week's #FollowOfTheWeek is @helpingveterans, the Twitter handle for FreedomIsNotFree.com and their efforts to help veterans, honor fallen soldiers, and collect donations for troops and their families. Thank you to all those who currently serve our country's armed forces or previously did so.

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Poll: Who "Owns" Social Media at your Non-Profit?

I am catching up on various postings for the week... but in the meantime, what are your thoughts on this poll question?

Who "owns" social media for your non-profit?

Please stand by...

Regular posts have been delayed a few days due to travel and scheduling conflicts. The More Donors Blog will be back to regular programming this weekend.

Free Museums for Military Personnel & Families

Kudos to the National Endowment for the Arts, Blue Star Families and the participating museums for this new program. They have partnered with 600+ museums to offer free admission from Memorial Day through Labor day for active-duty personnel and their families.

One participant cited the effort as paying off for the museums in "good karma." Is there something you have or could do with your organization?

Really Facebook? This is disappointing...

UPDATE: In what has become a more regular trend, Facebook actually listened to users and backed off this change. Kudos Facebook, kudos. Facebook provided AllFacebook.com with this statement:

We’ve removed the recently-added authentication requirement for setting custom landing tabs on Pages. The requirement was instituted as part of a Pages quality initiative, however we are now re-investigating the situation. We will not make any further changes without first giving notice and lead time.

Very disappointing news from the powers-that-be at Facebook. Landing pages for fan/liking pages are now limited to authenticated pages (wall/info) unless you have over 10,000 fans or work with an advertising rep. The short story? From FB's point-of-view this is surely a convuluded way to get more people engaged with ad reps and that will somehow equal more revenue. In reality, this is a harsh blow to the "mom & pop" organizations and pages that have fewer than 10,000 fans.

Between this and the recent privacy issues and a Napoleanesque urge to take over the world at the office in Palo Alto, Facebook has created an environment where they are prime to be toppled by other social media. Frankly, by doing nothing the next two months, Twitter has gained ground on Facebook in terms of common opinion. Here's FB's statement from this forum:

Hello all,

We apologize for not messaging this earlier. Facebook recently made a change requiring that Pages be authenticated before enabling the ability to set a landing tab beyond Wall or Info. To be eligible for authentication, a Page must have greater than 10k fans or the Page admin must work with their ads account manager. If you are already working with an account representative, please contact that representative to begin the authentication process. If you do not work with an account representative, you can use this contact form to inquire about working with an account representative.

Also, for advertisers who don’t have a representative or 10k fans, and want to run ads and land users on a specific tab, you can still do so with standard Facebook ads by making their Destination URL as the URL incl. your tab. Unfortunately, this currently will not work with "Fan" ads.

Thanks,
Matt Trainer
Facebook Developer Network Team

Another GoodSearch Giveaway

Just as they did about five weeks ago, the folks at GoodSearch are conducting a giveaway for non-profits. If you're not familiar with GoodSearch, they provide a search toolbar/engine which donates 50 percent of its sponsored search revenue to the charities and schools designated by its users. It works like any other search engine and is powered by Yahoo!. The money GoodSearch donates to the causes comes from its advertisers.

GoodSearch has also expanded to include GoodShop, an online shopping mall. Each purchase made via the GoodShop mall results in a donation to the user's designated charity or school – averaging approximately 3% of the sale, but ranging upwards of 20%.

Details from GoodSearch:

1. They will donate $1 for each toolbar that is downloaded from each unique IP address to the user's designate cause, up to a maximum of $5,000.

2. The contest runs from May 19th at 12 noon to May 21st at 12 noon Eastern.

3. Once they've given away a total of $5,000, the contest ends.

Just spread the word and get your supporters to add your toolbar to their browser and for each download, GoodSearch will donate a dollar to your cause! It's that simple! Keep in mind, there's a $5,000 limit, so make sure your supporters are some of the first 5,000 people to get to the site!

Here's a link to messages you might use to spread the word on Facebook, Twitter and email : $5k Toolbar Contest Details and Promotional Messages

Good luck to all participants!