My Problem with the 2012 Nonprofit Social Networking Benchmark Report

Well I guess that something had to ignite the fire enough within me to finally come back and write a blog post again in the midst of dissertating. I’m nearly done with the dissertation and plan to post many results here on my blog. This is also the reason for this post, or the fact that NTEN/ Blackbaud/ Common Knowledge just released their 2012 Nonprofit Social Networking Benchmark Report. There is a wonderful Infographic, which sums up the report nicely and the link will also help you download the full report.

I have to say that the information is great. I am so glad that this data is being compiled and I have built a survey instrument using similar questions to these folks for my dissertation. I also compiled my data during the same time period, but with a much smaller sample that was focused on Nonprofit Human Service Organizations. I focus on these unique organizations because of their important roles in society and NO research has looked at how they use social media.

The Benchmark report and my dissertation have many things in common. This makes me smile because it indicates that my findings are generalizable. However, I do have some problems with the recent Report. The main problem is around their methodology. I understand they only solicited and primarily reported descriptive data, but they do not explain this in the report. They have a small section on their methods but nothing beyond that. This is critically important because of how the data is being used in practice. For all we know, the methods they used could be based upon incorrect statistical principles which would nullify all of the findings. I don’t think this has happened, but in a sector which promotes transparency I would think they would have no problem in divulging their methodology.

This is also important considering the new statistic they are reporting around the cost of a follower on Twitter and a Like on Facebook. They indicate that these numbers are based upon self-report and that respondents have different ways of calculating this cost. I would be extremely cautious when looking at this statistic and thinking about basing some budget decisions around this because there is no clear indication of how the number was developed. It is a good statistic, just not one I am very confident in.

I am defending my dissertation in a little over a week and will likely begin to disseminate my own findings after that date. This is mostly to help the community where I collected my data, but it will also help many other nonprofit human service organizations think about their own social media strategies, planning, and implementation.

@SM4SW #SM4SW New Twitter discussion

I have been sitting on this idea for nearly a year now and I have finally decided to follow up with it. Taking inspiration from @SWSCmedia I hope to further the discussion around social media and social work by connecting social workers through social media. Right now it is pretty small, mostly existing on twitter, but via the SM4SW blog. I hope that anyone who is interested in social work and the intersection of social media will join in our chats by using #SM4SW. You can also follow @SM4SW to engage in the discussion. I would encourage anyone interested in any part of social work to come and join. From the seasoned practioner to the still undecided social work student. I hope that this dialogue will help many excited about social media, social work, and positive change.

The Twitter Community

I just have to send a quick shout out and BIG thank you to the many tweeps helping with my dissertation research by tweeting and re-tweeting my survey link. I am gathering data on social media use among nonprofit organizations in Richmond, VA. So far I have had a number of mentions and re-tweets which have helped to gain some headway in my data collection process. I still have a ways to go but I have some time as well. That being said, if you are or know of a nonprofit organization in Richmond, VA then I would really appreciate your help and or input on this survey. You can click the link below, which will take you to a secure site and you can answer the questions I have come up with for this project. The survey only takes about 10 minutes. Thanks in advance for your time and help. Also, if you can share the link with anyone else then that would be fantastic.

http://bit.ly/Ac2abT

2011 in review. My Blog stats

Just when I was thinking of taking this blog back to Google’s Blogger, I received my year end stats. Although it’s not that impressive, comparatively speaking, I am pleased with the response and interaction that I consistently receive from all of you. So I manly share this with you to say thank you! I hope to continue to add to this blog in the coming years and sharing my research and other insights I gather along the way.

Happy New Year!!!!!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,400 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 40 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

A Really Great Idea

It’s nearly midnight and I can’t sleep. It’s one of those nights where I suddenly woke up after only being asleep for probably 15 minutes and I just can’t go back to sleep. The more I stay in bed the more my mind starts racing about a multitude of ideas. I get up to begin to journal and even blog some of these ideas but as I begin to write them down I realize that either the idea has already been done before or it just wasn’t that great of an idea to begin with. Is it just doubt creeping in? Perhaps fear? By this time I have usually deleted my idea and now the main point of the idea is gone, as well as the excitement of the idea or the motivation behind the idea.

So I come here to ask; How do you get a really great idea off the ground? How do you tell if it is a really good idea? I ask this mostly for my own introspection but also because I think input on ideas is critical. My wife would say that I’m an IDEA GUY, meaning I always come up with these grand ideas. She is so good to sit back and offer a listening ear knowing that I usually never follow through. I can’t help the idea part, I think it’s a family trait, but then again maybe the no follow through is too

Perhaps what I really need is a pen and paper beside my bed to document these ideas and simply go back to sleep. Then in the morning or a day later I can go back to see what I wrote. At least it might be kind of funny or maybe, just maybe, I will come up with a really great idea!

Favorite TED talks

This post is meant to share some of my favorite TED talks with @HildyGottlieb who asked me to share with her via twitter. Because of the limited number of characters and the fact that there are so many talks I like, I thought I would post them here, for all to enjoy.

Defining Light, Medium, & Heavy Social Media users: Survey

I was hoping to get a bit of help from some of my readers and followers in defining social media use by the number of updates a user posts to their social media profiles. The results of this brief poll will actually inform a similar type of question on a survey I have developed for my dissertation, so your help is much appreciated. Also if you disagree with my scales of Light, Medium, and Heavy, then please leave a comment explaining what might be a more appropriate way to determine someones social media use in a given day.   Thanks!

The Social Search…The new Background check

Yes, I am currently on the market as they call it. Meaning I am applying for jobs in higher ed. and with any luck I will have a great opportunity at a wonderful institution where I can teach and conduct scholarly research. The reason for this post is mainly that I am interested in the concept of the social search or when a company performs a search of your online identity to help them in making a hiring decision. This has been happening for years now with for-profit companies and some nonprofits as well. However, I haven’t really heard of it happening with higher Ed or in social work and I wonder if any of the institutions to which I am applying are employing this tactic?

I don’t really know for sure, but tonight I received an alert that someone had searched for me on Google and found one of my social media profiles. Thankfully, I am pretty thoughtful about what I post online as I realize that companies currently do conduct these kinds of searches. Plus, I just am not that crazy when it comes to posting dumb content online (or personal content I should say). If there is a photo or something I don’t like on Facebook, then I untag myself or ask my friend/family member to take it down. I don’t mind and so far they haven’t either. I just think it’s amazing that in this day and age I can receive an alert about someone searching for me online. Although I don’t know who it is, it is just kind of neat that I know someone is looking for me and I hope they find what they need

Dissertation Update…Proposal Complete!!!

I can’t believe how long it has been since I have updated, let alone actually blog. My excuse, dissertating… It completely consumed me. The good news and the point of this post is that my proposal is complete. I sent it off to my committee for review last week and my defense date is on the 26th. I do need to put together my presentation for the defense, but I think that should come together rather easy.

In case you are wondering, I am working towards a PhD in Social Work and my dissertation focuses on social media use among nonprofit human service organizations. I blogged several times about where my dissertation was going, but this is finally it. The dissertation proposal consists of the first three chapters of the dissertation and represents your rationale for doing what you want to do as well as a plan or research protocol. Once the project is complete, I will have to revisit each chapter to change to what actually happened because research can often be a muddy process. It’s supposed to be clear, but as my 10th grade math teacher used to say…”clear as mud.”

I am excited for the project as I haven’t found anything in the literature that focuses specifically on nonprofit human service organizations and their use of social media. If you know of anything, please let me know!!!!  I am conducting an exploratory analysis utilizing a cross-sectional survey design. I’m hoping to obtain a large enough sample to help out with the generalizability of the results, but time will tell. The study is meant to provide a foundation for the rest of my career and add to the literature on this emerging area. I believe social media has the power to change organizations for the better, but it’s unclear how that actually happens. Hopefully my results will help to shed some light on this area.

Once I defend my proposal I will post more on my theoretical and conceptual framework for the study as well as more about what I am doing. For now, it’s back to work. Wish me luck

Social Work and Technology

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to give a couple of workshops on Technology and Social work. I am linking my presentation, which I did in Prezi and apparently cannot embed in wordpress, here.  The workshop was part of the 31st Annual Rally in the Valley BSW Student Conference entitled “Leadership for the Millennial Social Worker.” This conference was sponsored by Virginia Social Work Education Consortium and NASW, Virginia Chapter.

I thought the workshops were great, despite a few technical glitches, but then again, what would a workshop on Technology be without some tech-hang ups, right? At any rate, I fully enjoyed working with the students and I hope they also enjoyed what I shared with them. Be sure to check out that link above or here below, for my prezi on this workshop. An internet connection is needed to play the videos

Thanks,

Jimmy

http://prezi.com/pqtap9yyf3kz/social-media-smartphones-technology-social-work-practice-in-a-connected-world/

 

P.S. Thanks to Iggy and the socialworktechblog for some great help in this area. I pointed a lot of students in your direction.