A first year teacher who is a member of NEA/OEA/Tulsa Classroom Teacher's Association has developed an incredible website for his students.

This is one of a plethora of members who is leveraging social media tools in the classroom to engage and benefit students.

[visit www.afterschooltoday.com ]

By Andrew Analore
www.ragan.com

A scatter-shot approach dooms your PR campaign to scorn—or simply silence

Blogger outreach seems simple. Find a blogger, make a pitch. You're done.

Wrong. Following the old "Reach out and touch someone" slogan will get you nowhere, if you do it indiscriminately. In some cases, it will even gain you notoriety in the blogosphere.

Darren Rowse writes:

While I know many bloggers like to blog spontaneously and to go with the flow, I’ve found that planning a blog (both before you start it and in an ongoing way) can save a lot of heart ache later on.

Following are three of the issues you might like to consider ahead of time and before you start blogging that will help you later when it comes to maintaining momentum on your blog:

Ragan.com
[online@ http://www.ragan.com/]
By Michael Sebastian
michaels@ragan.com

Ranging from who should write your blog to the value of images, here are 10 lessons from business blogs that have flourished...

online@ LookupPage Blog

Creating a web presence and building your Google CV is extremely difficult without using social, consumer generated media. Here is some insight into areas for optimisation and interaction:

by Heather Mansfield

Published March 11, 2009 @ 06:42AM PST online@http://nonprofits.change.org

Newsweek said it best: "Suddenly, all the world is a-Twitter." Simple and powerful, Twitter is a must for nonprofit organizations. I created and manage a portal to nonprofits on Twitter @nonprofitorgs and based on my experience using site, I have crafted ten of my favorite Twitter Tips for beginners:

Strategic Guy; Online@ http://strategicguy.blogspot.com/2008/04/spielberg-lonelygirl15-and-entertaining.html

Public relations has traditionally been defined by education and engagement. Communications executives excel at forming meaningful, mutually beneficial relationships with an organization’s key stakeholders. Often mischaracterized as spin or influence peddling, public relations practiced ethically presents a perspective, opinion or corporate story, and then encourages dialogue and debate. That's how relationships are formed.

The requirements of PR professionals have changed more rapidly in the past year and a half than at any time[.] In addition to education and engagement, we need to add a third "e" to the public relations skill set -- entertainment. The ability to capture and hold an audience's attention in unique and innovative ways is a must for any communications program to achieve its benchmarks. It's comparable to the creative spirit that permeates Hollywood, Broadway or the Web 2.0 start-ups in Silicon Valley.

[Continue reading @Strategic Guy]

Preparing for A New Kind of Customer Relationship in the Facebook Era (Web 2.0 Expo - Clara Shih) from Steffan Antonas on Vimeo.

With over 200 faculty members spread across locations in Orlando, Florida, New York, and Salt Lake City, JetBlue wanted to make it easy for JetBlue University faculty to collaborate and communicate among each other, as well as support more ideas from the bottom-up rather than top-down. To do so, JetBlue turned to internal blogs, wikis, and other social media tools to help its corporate training team share knowledge.

NEA's fan page on Facebook continues to realize steep growth especially among 25- to 34-year-old females. NEA has begun interacting more with its fan base by engaging it in responding to relevant content such as Thank a Teacher and information about swine flu and its impact on schools. Response has been very positive.

Additionally, cross-Web application use has had a positive impact on fan's willingness to engage with NEA--e.g., we encouraged our Twitter community to "Thank a Teacher" by sending a tweet with a message thanking educators. NEA Twitter followers were asked to tag their tweet with "#teachersrock."

NEA reposted member involvement back to the NEA fan page and listed members who participated in the NEA "twitter bomb" as "Winners!"

Sign-up on both NEA Twitter and Facebook accounts averages between 15 to 30 member/non-member subscribers per day.

Membership: Twitter, 500 followers (members, news media, etc.); Facebook Fan Page, 1,453

[repost from The Marketing Technology Blog]

Too many companies have been diving first and then trying to sort out the issues later but I believe this could severely handicap a company’s success. Too often, we don’t get a second chance to implement a social media strategy. There’s a growing graveyard of abandoned social media projects, including corporate blogs, started by companies with talented employees and great intentions.

Social Media Challenges Component Leaders
Component Relations, August 2009
By: Cynthia D’Amour
[Thank you to Sara Gjerdrum, MWRO Staff, for sharing!]

Social media is here whether your component leaders want it or not. Described below are four scenarios—all real-life examples of components turning to social media—and advice from three component relations professionals concerning each scenario.

The CRPs commenting on these examples are:

A long-time Facebook user and association social media expert, I have been perplexed for a while now over Facebook Pages vs Facebook Groups: What’s the Difference?

Thanks to a well-written piece by Mashable, The Social Media Guide, I am a bit more clear with my understanding of the differences between Facebook Groups and Fan Pages!

Here’s Howard Greenstein “Facebook Pages vs Facebook Groups: What’s the Difference?” article that appeared in the May 27th issue of Mashable:

[Excerpt from Inside Higher Ed; online, Friending a Strike ;September 10, 2009 ]

When Oakland University, in Michigan, and the union that represents 600 of its faculty members failed to reach labor agreement last week, the professors went on strike and the university shut down -- while representatives from the opposing sides went behind closed doors in downtown Detroit to negotiate. At the same time, a much larger and more eclectic group began discussing the issue in a space that had no doors -- just walls.

Edutopia wants To help you make the most of the latest technologies and innovative ways to use them as we settle into the 2009–10 school year, so we’ve put together this brand-new resource for you containing ten of the best tips and resources on how to bring new media into the classroom.

Full of succinct and practical ways to prepare our students for 21st-century success, this guide will educate and inspire you to embrace the new-media frontier and embark on a new learning adventure. From “Breaking the Digital Ice” to “Working Better, together” each tip provides succinct and practical ways to turn your classroom into an environment for learning with new media. And each tip includes a wealth of Web sites and additional resources to help you deliver the relevant and meaningful education all students deserve.

—suzie Boss
Journalist and Edutopia blogger edutopia.org/suzie-boss

[view resource]

Can we regulate what employees say on Facebook?

The answer is "sometimes" and "maybe."

On social networking sites such as Facebook the line between work and non-work use can be fuzzy. What seems like harmless, fun gossip on a personal level can be damaging to the organization whose employee has posted.

[Continue Reading...]

Also read: Sample Nonprofit Policy on Social Networking