Everyone wants to increase their followers to spread their message or to connect with their customers. We’ve talked about posting a photo in your blog or on Facebook or Twitter and how it increases engagement, the result being you are more likely to have your content shared with others.  Be careful when you post a photo, even if you give credit to the source, you still might find yourself infringing on a copyright.  We recommend that you follow the guidelines posted here.

Recently I attended a free webinar from Idealware and Techsoup entitled: “Create Dynamic Online Training.”  Here are my top three takeaways from the webinar:

In the past, I’ve blogged about using Twitter during your next event. Now I’m going to recommend Twitter tools and applications that will help you incorporate an interactive Twitter screen into your next conference that a learned about during a free NTEN Webinar presented by Avi Kaplan form Rad Campaign .  Before your event begins, setup a twitter hashtag for your next conference.  For example, #ntc12 is one that NTEN uses for their annual conference.   Don’t forget to use it prior to the event and publish it in your confirmation and reminder emails. 

I recently attended a panel discussion, Mobile Trends and Innovation, that was presented at a cool nonprofit art event called Artomatic in Arlington, Virginia. (Full disclosure, I am an amateur artist and have an exhibit space at Artomatic, so come on over!)The three panelists were Brian Briggman of Bitty Games, Joshua Konowe of Uppidy, and Brian Polangin of Mobile2Social. The discussion was geared toward entrepreneurs and small business owners.My main takeaway was the importance of having a mobile website. Accessing the Web via mobile devices is on the increase. In January 2012, 8.5 percent of web access was via a mobile device (compared to 4.3 percent in 2011 and 1.7 percent in 2010). Note that this statistic does not include tablets – just mobile phones. In 2011 in the U.S., 47 percent of mobile phone owners used their devices to access the Web, which is also a rising trend.Given the growth in access the Web via mobile devices, the panelists (especially Polangin) emphasized the need...

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Measuring your data may seem like daunting task.  There are stages of measurement acceptance, and we move form denial, fear, confusion, to the ultimate goal of being data informed.  We eventually want to get to the point where we discuss and have weekly updates about what are data is telling us.

SXSW is currently underway, and techies are wondering what startup or app will breakout as the hit of the event.  While I’m not a conference attendee in Austin, and I don’t have a crystal ball,  I’ve found two items that I’ve put on my watch list that have the potential to benefit both conference organizers and attendees. 

Tomorrow we will be supporting Discovering Technology (DiscoTech). We are looking forward to working in the Media Lab with people of all abilities. The following is a list of some free and open source media and programming tools that we will refer to: bit.ly/xAIwbQ

If you have never used Experts Exchange to get your technology questions answered, we highly recommend it. Technology gurus from around the world volunteer their time to answer user questions. Hardware, software, servers, programming, Excel, databases -- anything you can think of is covered.  Experts Exchange is about to lauch Version 10 of its service and we look forward to the enhanced platform that should make finding answers to technology questions even easier.

Nonprofit Webinars recently offered a free webinar entitled “Bootstrapping Your Social Media Engagement, “ which was hosted by Debra Askanse.  I’ve attended NTEN conference seminars that she has presented, so I immediately signed up for this webinar when I saw that she was the host.  She’s has a wealth of social media knowledge, and she’s always willing to answer everyone’s questions.

 Kiss your paper sign-up lists and your endless email strings goodbye!  I’m sure your nonprofit has a sign up list of some kind, and I’ve found a tool to help you organize and follow through with those lovely lists!