social media

Five mistakes international organizations make when using Twitter

By Alanna Shaikh | | 3 Comments |


1. Using it just for press releases. People don’t follow you on Twitter for generic organizational announcements. They follow because they want to feel a personal connection with what you do. They want to become friends and allies. Write your Twitter updates in less formal language, and tweet little things, too. Not just press releases. Welcome new employees, for example, or tell them a little bit about one specific project.

2. Only asking for money. Constant calls for funds will bore people and cause them to unsubscribe from your Twitter feed. Ask for money no more than once a week, and when you do, tie it to something you mentioned that week.

3. Not following back or replying to others. As an organization, you should automatically follow back anyone who follows you on Twitter. People don’t want to be broadcast to; they want to be part of a conversation. Following people is the first step; the second step is paying attention. Use Twitter search to monitor mentions of your organization. Reply to those mentions. Periodically read the postings of people you follow. You don’t have to read every post, but check in from time to time, and reply if you have something interesting to say.

4. Forgetting the global audience. Twitter has a worldwide user base. This includes people in the countries where you work. It may include potential donors and beneficiaries in other countries. It will definitely include your own staff. When you write about events in, say, Rwanda, assume Rwandans will be reading. Are you still comfortable with your post?

5. Not having a Twitter strategy. There are things to think about before you post your first tweet. Do you want to encourage all your staff to have organization-linked Twitter accounts, or just a single account to represent the whole organization? What aspects of your organization do you want to highlight? What kind of expertise do you possess and can showcase? Who will update the Twitter account, and will all postings need to be approved first? These are issues that can be resolved with some planning, and can go very wrong on you without some advance thought.

Innovation Part II

By Alanna Shaikh | | 5 Comments |

We need to get over our obsession with innovation. It’s hurting our ability to do good development work. We get caught up in trendy new ideas – we fondle the hammer – and we exhaust out energies looking for the next big thing instead of supporting interventions which have been proven to work.

Innovation is not a quick fix. It is not a magic bullet that will solve all our problems. Social media is a genuine innovation (as Our Man in Cameroon points out), but it has rules and best practices. It takes time and skill to learn to use it well. Antibiotics were an innovation in their time, but they too had to be perfected and properly used before they could save lives.

When I lived in Cairo, people on the street used to talk about Japanese engineers. Everyone was sure that the Japanese government was about to build a new sewer system, repave the roads, or extend the subway. I lived in Egypt ten years ago. Cairenes are still waiting for their Japanese metro.

Chasing innovation too often leads us astray, when we could be plugging along at the things that have been proven to work. Those things do exist. Girls’ education. Microfinance. Contraception. We need innovation; it’s true. But it’s not all we need.

Great link on CARE’s social network

By Alanna Shaikh | | 0 Comments |

APP+FRICA has a great post up about CARE’s new social network. This is exactly the kind of constructive criticism and innovative thinking that NGOs need.

Social media presents an amazing opportunity for international NGOs to tell their stories in a detailed, authentic way. But to use this opportunity well, they need to take social media seriously, and use it like the new form it us. They have to be brave.

Well played, International Water and Sanitation Centre

By Alanna Shaikh | | 0 Comments |

I was recently led to the WASH news Africa site via a Google Alert. It turns out to be an aggregator of news articles on water and sanitation in Africa topics. It’s a nice resource for people interested in the topic.

What’s even more interesting is that the site, and a host of sister sites, was set up by the International Water and Sanitation Centre. It serves to collect articles for their use as well as inform others. It looks to me like they were already distributing a weekly digest of water and sanitation news, and set up these blogs as a way of sharing all the articles that don’t make it into the digest. Based on my browsing of their site, I think the idea must have come from Cor Dietvorst, their information specialist.

I love it. It’s such a beautiful example of sharing work they are already doing in a way that benefits others. I bet it was also quick to set up, and they are using free blog hosting. They include links back to their main site, since people at the WASH news Africa site are pretty much guaranteed to be interested in water issues, but they don’t make a big showy deal about it. They just position them selves as a generous and knowledgeable partner.

I wish I had an award to give to sites like these.

Telling better stories

By Alanna Shaikh | | 4 Comments |


Once, at a restaurant, I ordered “Crispy potato wedges with sweet and sour dipping sauce” as an appetizer. What I got was French fries and ketchup. The description on the menu was true, but not honest. I didn’t feel like I could complain to the manager, but it left me feeling disappointed and vaguely deceived.

Too much of our communication about international development is true but not honest. We boil complicated situations down into simple ideas. We pretend there are easy answers to problems so difficult there may be no answers at all. We use emotional impact and compelling photographs to avoid detailed discussion of the challenges of doing good development work.

And we need our stories, because our stories are what bring us funding. Whether it’s a government agency, a foundation, a corporate partner, or a little old lady putting a five dollar bill in an envelope, the people who give us money respond to stories. The government calls it reporting, corporations ask for success stories, and regular people just want reasons to give their cash, but they are all asking for stories to explain what we do and why we deserve their money to do it.

For a long time, were stuck with our oversimplified, easily digested stories. Our true-but-not-real stories were all we could get out to the world. Three minute spots on the evening news and press releases don’t leave much room for nuance. Even reporters from respected media outlets rarely have the time or expertise to research and relay a complicated article about the realities of international development.

The world has changed. We have now have a huge selection of social media tools we can use to shape our own messages and communicate directly. And – we can do more than just put a message out there in an electronic bottle and hope someone finds it. We can have conversations about what we do, how we do it, and how people can be part of that. We don’t have to spoon feed people easy ideas because we’ve got the time and space to talk about the hard stuff.

This is my challenge to you:

Think seriously about what social media can do for you. Don’t just use your Twitter account for mini-press releases; use it for genuinely new information as it happens. Imagine a country director in Darfur tweeting as he travels to a refugee camp. Imagine a collaborative blog by your HQ staff, talking about what backstopping actually entails. (People would be a lot more likely to pay overhead if they knew what overhead was.) Imagine your Sri Lanka country team posting their photos to Flickr and their videos to YouTube. Imagine your website as a portal to all of that, a place people go to get deep knowledge about what your organization does. Imagine turning all your donors into passionate advocates who encourage others to give too.

Better stories can do that for us, and we finally have a way to tell them.

Photo Credit: Miranda July at Modern Times, taken by Steve Rhodes.

Why I am not giving to Myanmar yet (and some thoughts on social media)

By Alanna Shaikh | | 9 Comments |

Beth Kanter is one of my heroes and she’s one of the reasons I am on Twitter. Today she asked me to blog or tweet about the BlogHer Myanmar giving effort. And I didn’t. And I felt like a total jerk because, dude, it’s BETH KANTER. And she’s amazing.

But it’s too soon for me to give any money, or ask others to do so. Global Giving has not chosen a recipient yet for Myanmar funds. If you look at their Myanmar page, there is no recipient listed. I confirmed by calling them. Eventually they’ll pick out a recipient organization who’ll provide aid to Myanmar, but there is no chosen organization yet. If I give now, my money will just sit with Global Giving. I might as well have it sit with me while I review NGOs and not pay the 10% fee to Global Giving.

There is another reason not to give money too soon. Some disaster relief NGOs will collect money for an emergency in a location where they have no established presence and if they receive enough, they will start an operation there. If they don’t receive enough money, they’ll just donate the money to another NGO. (Usually after taking their own overhead). It’s a pretty standard practice. If you go to the list of NGOs accepting donations for Myanmar, you’ll see that many of them have no current presence on the ground.

So, by donating now I am at risk for moving it through two pass-throughs – Global Giving and a second NGO before it goes to a group which is operational in Myanmar. (To be fair, I don’t know what Global Giving’s rules are – they may not allow a non-operational organization to receive money. Their website doesn’t make it clear.) [Edited to add: The COO of Global Giving commented on this post, and linked to their due diligence policy, which explains their criteria for selecting organizational partners.]

The best way to give, in my opinion, is to check out NGO websites until you find one that already has a presence in Myanmar, and give to them. I suggest World Vision. Yes, they are faith-based to a somewhat creepy degree, but they have been in Burma since 1958. I’ve worked with them in several locations, and they are very professional and run excellent programs.

(Oh, and here’s my social media thought: turning down a request like Beth’s from someone you respect is nearly impossible. I have work to do tonight, but I had to put this blog post up first, just to live with myself.)

What is social media, anyway?

By Alanna Shaikh | | 0 Comments |

A nice white paper on social media. From smashLAB, this paper starts with the very basics, like defining content communities, blogs, and virtual worlds. It then goes all the way into some basic case studies and a discussion of how companies can use social media. It’s a good introduction for anyone new to the concept of social media, and the ideas apply equally well to nonprofits.