Social Media Hubs

In my earlier post I mentioned that only a handful of clever NGOs have managed to find the answer to two questions at top of their minds now that we’re all together deep into a long recession with no clear end in sight: How do we survive this and how can we effectively build a capability to gain access to scarce financial resources and supporters?  The answer I suggested was — invest in social media. 

I subscribe to the saying that no client wants to hear “Spend!” They want to hear “Here’s a better way….” They’ll spend on that. But spend on what? 

There’s nothing like feeling a product before buying it and it’s more difficult when considering a service. This isn’t a sales pitch for Convergent Digital Solutions Ltd. and I want to remain neutral as I write this. So instead of beating my own drum, I’ve browsed through dozens of websites on the Web this week to see if I could find at least one that best represents how an organisation — whether it is for business or is not-for-profit oriented, has managed to employ social media tools in a savvy way to generate public interest and awareness about themselves and their services or products. 

My candidate is the Dell Community Home website. On this site, you’ll find great solutions, advice and how-to’s, discussions and friends. It also includes community-oriented features like their blogs, forums, wikis, media galleries and groups all rolled and wrapped into one convenient focal point. It also manages to allow site visitors to create a new accounts by simply clicking on a login link where users can choose appropriate options. It even contains a helpful guide on setting up an account. 

It also displays a convenient site map at the bottom of pages to help visitors and members navigate the site with ease. 

Now we all know that charities, schools, and other nonprofit organisations are not into selling what Dell Computers does. But if they look more closely at what this business has done with their community home website by embracing social media it shouldn’t escape any one’s imagination of the vast potential this model has for NGOs themselves. 

It’s a networked world we live in today and it’s no longer involves a one-way conversation. Whether you’re in it for business or are the head of a nonprofit organisation you need to engage, observe, participate, and pay attention to what others have to say about you. You need to be part of the conversations they’re in. Markets are conversations. The knowledge and insights your organisation acquires will be its own reward. 

Dell Computers has learned this lesson very well. They’ve managed to create a hub for themselves so it seems to me.