Microvolunteer from your desk or iPhone through The Extraordinaries

Lots of people want to offer assistance to nonprofits, but may be short on time. That’s where The Extraordinaries comes in. Either from the web browser on your desktop or through an application on your iPhone, you can volunteer for a few minutes at a time for one of many nonprofits.

Once you’re connected, search for projects based on your interest, such as schools or animals. Projects vary and may include tagging images for a museum or cataloging photos from an art show. There’s no long term, or minimum commitments, so take a look when you have some time and see which questions you can answer.

Monitoring keywords with Google Alerts

Do you know what people are saying online about your organization? Or even you? It’s hard to keep up with all the content on the internet. Google alerts make this process easier by monitoring keywords for you.

To get started, simply click here to get to the alerts page. Enter your search terms, which may be a specific name in quotes (“Your Organization”) or several keywords that are of interest to you, such as your geographical location.

Leave the default type of “everything” and “once a day” for frequency. Enter your email and click “Create Alert”. You can create multiple alerts for different topics and every email you receive provides an option to change your alert or unsubscribe. If you find the results aren’t what you are looking for, you can easily modify your search terms until you have what you need.

Social Media 101 Presentation

I've done this presentation for several local groups and had good feedback, so I'm posting it for my readers.

Social Media 101

If you have suggestions for future presentations or feedback on this one, please email me - tina |at| coastalcommunityfoundation.org.

Google AdWords strategy

Google AdWords is a way to advertise to Google users who search key terms relevant to your product or service. As an advertiser, you have control over the advertising budget by paying only when people click on an ad in the search results. Nonprofits have an added advantage because they can apply for a free account through Google.

Once accepted to the program, nonprofits need to think through a strategy for their advertising even though they do not have to worry about the budget (since it's free).

This involves 1) Knowing your goals, 2) Choosing good keywords, 3) Creating targeted ads, and 4) Monitoring your account. Check my article on eHow.com for more detail about each of these steps.

Create an online business card with Dooid.com

Keeping track of your social media links is a challenge. As you add more and more accounts, it can be tricky to remember what they all are and no one wants to see a bunch of URLs in your email signature line.

Dooid is a tool for easily creating your social media profile in an online business card. Currently, Dooid is free with add on features available for purchase. When you set up your account, you can keep the default bio or write a short one of your own. Decide which profiles to add, such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Also include links to other sites, such as your blog.

With Dooid’s privacy setting, choose which information you want to make public, such as your work email address and make other information private, such as your personal email address. You can also add your interests, which are basically keywords about you. One you set up your Dooid account with your name, you can further brand yourself by buying the URL for your name and redirecting that to your Dooid address, which will be Dooid.com/YourName. Once Dooid is set up, provide this link to your contacts so they have an easy way to find out where you are, and what you’re doing, online.

How to Receive Less Junk Mail

Spam. We all receive it. We all hate it. But is there anything we can do about it?

Chances are we can’t completely get rid of junk mail. However, there are way to reduce the amount we receive. Check out my post on eHow.com for some tips.

Conducting Successful Web Conferences

As more people telecommute and work from remote offices, web conferencing is becoming more and more common. How do you conduct an effective web conference? Do you just stick a web camera on your monitor? Well, maybe. But there’s more to it than just that if you want to be part of a successful web conference.

Check out my post on LinkToPro for tips on conducting successful web conferences.