Nonprofits looking to start using social media as a marketing tool will find a wealth of sound advice online, but putting the pieces together into a solid strategy? That's the real challenge. No one simple strategy will work for every nonprofit group. (In fact, trying to give step-by-step ''one size fits all'' directions for using social media is ...

Did you catch the buzz? Today is Blog Action Day, when bloggers around the world are asked to bring attention to one social issue. Last year it was the environment; this year, it's poverty. It's the kind of easy feel-good meme that the Internet loves -- and that can reward participating blogs with a boost in web traffic -- but what are the ...

Few of us can accurately guess the number of words in a block of text, just by looking at it, even with years of practice. Fortunately, a 'ballpark estimate' is usually good enough for most purposes. There are times, however, when your word count does matter. Directory listings with specific length restrictions, for example. Or press releases, ...

Most of the search engines and web-based feed reading services will check for updates to your blog from time to time, but what if you have breaking news that you want to get out fast? You can notify (''ping'') each feed reading service separately whenever you update with new content, but there's a much faster and easier way. Publish your ...

In the first part of this article, we talked about various ways to show data in tables on your website or blog -- their strengths and their limitations.  Here, we'll take a closer look at how to use Zoho Sheet, Google  Spreadsheets, or DabbleDB to create a searchable, interactive table that you can easily embed in your web page, ...

Sometimes it just isn’t possible for your website's visitors to read what you have to say.  Perhaps a visitor has limited vision, or other physical challenges that make onscreen reading difficult. Perhaps reading itself may be a challenge for him. But accessibility can be about more than physical, mental, educational, and similar ...

The ''Web 2.0 Nonprofit Success Stories'' submitted to the NPC Carnival this week led to a selection of nonprofit organizations that are widely varied in terms of size, budget, and reach. Each group is using the Internet and Web 2.0 tools in a different way to meet its goals, but some common themes emerge; most notably, perhaps, the power of ...

Wild Apricot is pleased to be hosting the Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants on Monday, 5 May 2008, and the theme will be ''Web 2.0 Nonprofit Success Stories''  Tell us how you're using the Internet -- and specifically Web 2.0 tools and technologies -- to overcome challenges and meet your organization's goals. Share your excitement, your ...

Social media and social networking are hot buzzwords in the world of online marketing, but what do they mean in practical terms? Is social media marketing just a passing fad, or could it be a worthwhile strategy for your organization? In a survey done by Collactive of close to 200 organizations, those with a successful social media strategy ...

If your nonprofit website includes an RSS feed, are you making the most of that technology? A free online service called FeedBurner turns your blog's RSS feed into a browser-friendly page that makes it easy for readers to subscribe to your blog updates.  But that's just the beginning of what FeedBurner can do to help your nonprofit ...