This blog is for volunteers, webmasters and administrators of associations and nonprofits. We discuss issues and trends in web technologies that help your organization do more with less. The blog is brought to you by Wild Apricot. Our web software helps you manage the 'boring stuff' like membership and contact records, payments, donations, website updates, event registrations, mass emails and more. Wild Apricot starts at just $25 a month (flat monthly fee; tech support and version updates are free). Take 10 seconds to sign up for a free trial and see for yourself.

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• 29 January 2010

  How to Bring Facebook Fans to Your Nonprofit Blog - Part 2 

  "How can our nonprofit move the active conversation from our Facebook fan Page to our organization’s own blog‌?" The nonprofit that asked this question might be a small one, but their challenge certainly isn’t! Here's one way to tackle it. Read More... Posted Friday, January 29, 2010 1:44 PM by Rebecca | 9 Comments Filed under: Non-profit technology, nptech, Marketing, online community, Blogging, Social networking, Facebook, Non-profit Communications, websites, social media

• 21 January 2010

  How to Bring Facebook Fans to Your Nonprofit Blog: Part 1  

  A challenging social media question came in from a very small health-related nonprofit support group, recently: How can we move the active conversation on our Facebook fan Page over to our organization’s blog? Read More... Posted Thursday, January 21, 2010 11:59 AM by Rebecca | 8 Comments Filed under: Non-profit technology, nptech, Marketing, online community, Blogging, Social networking, Facebook, Non-profit Communications, websites, social media

• 08 January 2010

  Facebook Bra Color Meme: So, Did It Work?  

  Many women (and, apparently, some men) flooded Facebook with unusual status updates over the past two days in a meme calling on “girls” to post the colors of the bras they were wearing, ostensibly to raise awareness of breast cancer. Social media responded to the stunt with a certain amount of tee-heeing and innuendo; with calls for a comparable “game for the guys” about underwear choices; with cries of “TMI” (Too Much Information); balanced with expressions of support and noticeable efforts to extend Read More... Posted Friday, January 08, 2010 11:27 PM by Rebecca | 10 Comments Filed under: Non-profit technology, General non-profit interest, nptech, memes, Social networking, Facebook, Non-profit Communications, social media

• 13 December 2009

  Big Changes to Facebook Pages Could Hurt Small Nonprofits 

  Heather Mansfield of NonProfit Tech 2.0 alerts us to some major changes coming to Facebook Fan Pages through the next few weeks and into early 2010. “My first instinct is that the changes below are going to significantly impact nonprofits,” she says, “and in many cases, not in a good way.” Status Updates showing up in the News Feed to all fans is no longer guaranteed. The Boxes Tab will disappear. The Tabs width will shrink from 760 pixels wide to 520 pixels. The ability to extract the e-mail addresses Read More... Posted Sunday, December 13, 2009 4:43 PM by Rebecca | 10 Comments Filed under: Non-profit technology, nptech, Social networking, Facebook

• 12 November 2009

  Facebook Page Not Found in Facebook Search? 

  One of Wild Apricot's blog readers created a Facebook Page for his nonprofit organization, but the new Page doesn’t show up in the results for Facebook’s own Search tool. "Why is this?" he asks. Read More... Posted Thursday, November 12, 2009 2:27 PM by Rebecca | 6 Comments Filed under: Non-profit technology, nptech, Facebook, search, social media

• 10 November 2009

  Join Us on Facebook to "Name the Apricot" 

  What’s a mascot without a name? Wild Apricot’s friendly little apricot mascot needs a name, and since Wild Apricot is dedicated to “crowdsourcing,” we’d like to ask your help. (Yes, there will be cool prizes!) Read More... Posted Tuesday, November 10, 2009 3:54 PM by Rebecca | 1 Comments Filed under: Non-profit technology, Wild Apricot, nptech, Facebook, crowdsourcing, contests

• 20 October 2009

  Facebook Groups Get a Page-style Makeover 

  Facebook has just begun to introduce a new design for its Groups application that looks a lot more like Pages and personal Profiles. "Giving Groups a Stronger Voice" should be good news for the many nonprofit folks frustrated by the limitations of Facebook Groups, compared to what the spiffy new Fan Pages offer. Read More... Posted Tuesday, October 20, 2009 1:48 PM by Rebecca | 9 Comments Filed under: Non-profit technology, nptech, online community, Social networking, Facebook, Non-profit Communications, social media

• 09 October 2009

  America's Giving Challenge for Facebook Causes 

  The Case Foundation, Facebook Causes and PARADE Publications just launched the 2009 America’s Giving Challenge, a competition designed to raise both awareness and funds for charitable causes. From now through November 6, they’ll be giving away a total of $170,00 in prize money to participating U.S.-based 501(c)(3) charities who raise the most donations through the Causes application on Facebook, with daily and overall awards ranging from $500 to $50,000. What I find most interesting is that the Challenge Read More... Posted Friday, October 09, 2009 6:41 PM by Rebecca | 1 Comments Filed under: Fundraising, nptech, Social networking, Facebook

• 05 October 2009

  Can't Register a Facebook Page Username? 

  One of Wild Apricot's readers got in touch recently about a problem with getting a custom username for her organization’s Facebook Page. Just in case other nonprofits have run into a similar situation, Jenifer has kindly given permission to share her question and respond to it here on the blog. Question: As someone new to Facebook trying to set up a nonprofit page, I’ve spent hours trying to find the right apps and tweaking the settings. I’m stumbling over how to make: http://www.facebook.com/pages/ Read More... Posted Monday, October 05, 2009 3:09 PM by Rebecca | 5 Comments Filed under: Non-profit technology, nptech, Facebook, social media

• 25 September 2009

  Multiple RSS Feeds on Multiple Facebook Pages 

  We’ve talked recently about how to publish your Twitter updates to Facebook Page or personal Profile page. Now here’s a new Facebook application that can take your RSS-to-Facebook to a whole new level. Do you want to post the content from several different blogs and social networks to your organization's Facebook Page, and add a news alert feed for your cause's keywords, too? No problem. And let's say you want to “mix and match” — to post RSS feeds ‘A’, B’, and ‘C’ to your personal Profile; and post Read More... Posted Friday, September 25, 2009 4:53 PM by Rebecca | 2 Comments Filed under: Non-profit technology, nptech, Web 2.0, Social networking, Facebook, RSS, application, social media

• 11 September 2009

  Facebook Lite saves Bandwidth, cuts Learning Curve 

  Overnight, last night, Facebook rolled out its long-awaited Facebook Lite — a new, faster, stripped-down version of the social networking site. Open at first only to users in the US and India, Facebook Lite is now available to all English-language users. First reactions to Facebook Lite seem to be mostly positive, albeit with the inevitable comparisons to Twitter’s lean message stream. You may find some features that you use regularly are missing from the Lite version of Facebook, but the company Read More... Posted Friday, September 11, 2009 3:24 PM by Rebecca | 5 Comments Filed under: Non-profit technology, nptech, Social networking, Facebook

• 31 August 2009

  How to Post Twitter Updates on Your Facebook Page 

  A Wild Apricot reader left a comment on our post about how to publish your Facebook Page to Twitter, asking: “Is there an application out there to update a Facebook Fan Page’s status from Twitter?” The short answer is, yes, there are several ways you can do this. Here are three different tools that will do the job. Read More... Posted Monday, August 31, 2009 4:15 PM by Rebecca | 3 Comments Filed under: Non-profit technology, nptech, Social networking, Facebook, Non-profit Communications, Twitter, application, social media

• 21 August 2009

  Publish Your Facebook Page to Twitter 

  For some time, Twitter users have been able to publish their Twitter updates automatically to Facebook . Now, Facebook is returning the favor. On August 20, Facebook announced a new feature allowing Facebook Pages to automatically feed status updates, photos, links, notes and events to Twitter. If you manage a Facebook Page, you now will be able to decide whether to share updates with their Twitter followers, and you also will be able to control what type of updates to share: status updates, links, Read More... Posted Friday, August 21, 2009 4:10 AM by Rebecca | 12 Comments Filed under: Non-profit technology, nptech, Social networking, Facebook, Twitter, social media

• 10 June 2009

  New on Facebook: Usernames for Custom URLs 

  Facebook has just announced that it will be offering custom usernames (“vanity URLs”) for Facebook Profiles and Pages, starting at 12:01 a.m. EDT on Saturday, June 13, 2009. Custom usernames are a big deal for many Facebook members, who have long been frustrated by hard-to-remember Page and Profile addresses made up of random strings of numbers. Directing people to your Facebook page can be as easy as telling them your username. For organizations who want to publicize their Facebook presence in a Read More... Posted Wednesday, June 10, 2009 4:05 PM by Rebecca | 7 Comments Filed under: Non-profit technology, nptech, Marketing, Facebook, publicity, social media

• 23 May 2009

  SociafyQ - Free Social Media Tracking and Analytics 

  By now, even your grandmother knows social media is hot, but what’s the ROI on that social networking? Even for nonprofits on a tight budget, there are plenty of good monitoring tools. But what if you could track stats for all your major networks - free - from your desktop or home page, without giving out your passwords? SociafyQ is designed to do just that. Read More... Posted Saturday, May 23, 2009 2:21 AM by Rebecca | 4 Comments Filed under: Non-profit technology, nptech, Web 2.0, Widgets, Social networking, Facebook, Twitter, analytics, social media, YouTube, LinkedIn

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