Last week I went to an NTEN event about how nonprofits can take advantage of Foursquare, a mobile app that is gaining about 100,000 new users a week.

At the event, Naveen Selvadurai, one of the founders of Foursquare explained how their invention was driven by a series of questions: “How can we get better at living in our cities?” And, “How can we turn life into a game?”

For uninitiated, here’s how Foursquare works: get to a location and “check in.” Once the app registers where you are, businesses and nonprofits nearby can alert you to special offers — like a discount for frozen yogurt. Like Meetup, it’s also a way to connect with friends in real time. Depending on the number of times you check in, you can earn “badges” or be anointed “Mayor” of that place – which can come with special privileges and prizes. The app is expected to exceed the 2 million mark this month.

Foursquare makes intuitive sense for a nonprofit that is site-specific – like a community center or a museum. But what happens if your nonprofit isn’t grounded in that way? Is Foursquare still useful?
The answer is yes.

I talked with Fenton’s VP of digital, John Gordon, who has been working on Foursquare to create a “nonprofit” category for check-in spots along with a “do gooder” badge that can be earned by donating or taking action for good causes. He had some good ideas for how nonprofits can make Foursquare work for them:

1. Think “action” not discount. Instead of offering freebies and coupons, partner with a local business or mark a symbolically relevant site (for example, the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, or the statue of Gandhi in New York’s Union Square) by encouraging people to take action, whether it’s to support union workers or make a donation to a water rights campaign in India.

2. Stake a place as your own: Fenton is currently working with Heal the Bay to revamp its web site and digital strategy so PLACE is at the forefront. We’re integrating Foursquare by making it possible for people who check in at their favorite beach to receive an alert from Heal the Bay on actions they can take to protect the places they love

3. Partner with a local business: We mentioned this above, but it’s worth emphasizing. In New York, many owners of popular food trucks that sell everything from crepes to tacos, not to mention celebrity chefs at hot spot restaurants, are all using Twitter and social media to attract customers. Nonprofits can turn this into a win-win by encouraging their supporters to frequent their partner business, while using the business spot as a brick-and-mortar place for like-minded people to congregate around a cause.

“Foursquare gives you access to a shared community of people who share an affinity for the same beach or other favorite spot that you do,” says John. “Nonprofits need to develop an identity around these places to take advantage of people’s natural behaviors and lead them take action.”

Is your nonprofit using Foursquare or thinking about it? We’d love to hear about it!

Have you heard of Shoes of Prey?  The custom shoe design site had an explosive experience last week – thanks to a 16-year-old’s YouTube site.  Juicysatr07’s had 450,000 viewers, and combined with a giveaway prize from the company, lured 200,000 to Shoes of Prey’s site, according to PSFK.

How are you adapting to and including new voices in your online marketing?  How do you find the right influencers?

You can learn how to apply every kind of makeup, reorganize your closet, sketch a portrait, and a million other things thanks to the force of young women on YouTube. The tone of the video, the number of YouTube subscribers, and their comments can help you figure out which YouTube lady is the best to help your product, company or organization.  If you have an evening, watch their videos!

Women research their purchases and the young woman on YouTube — with hundred of thousands of followers — can help you whether you have a product or a non-profit to market.  They have built a reputation sharing the good, bad, and ugly about the products, and you need to be ready for their frankness.  Be frank yourself, and built trust with them. They are game-changers if you do it right.

The campaign, which invited the public to nominate and vote for the “small business story that most inspires them,” wrapped today with the announcement of the winner: Sacred Wind Communications, a telecommunications outfit based in Albuquerque that is working to wire Navajo lands with telephone and Internet access. The company will receive with $100,000 in grant and marketing support.

“Shine the Light” is a great example of a campaign that was not overtly marketed to women as the target audience, but nonetheless capitalized on a number of marketing principles and tactics that appeal to them:

1. You decide: The entire contest was driven by public input, from nominations to voting for the winner – the principle of putting women in CONTROL in action.

2. iVillage: This women-oriented online entity, which NBC acquired in 2006, was responsible for creating the online community platform; it also hosted the campaign web site (http://shinealight.ivillage.com) and promoted the campaign heavily.

3. All-female judging panel: Coincidence or not, all three judges were women: Talk Show Host and Entrepreneur Ellen DeGeneres, Fashion Designer and Entrepreneur Diane von Furstenberg, and MSNBC’s Small Business Expert JJ Ramberg. They winnowed the nominees to three finalists.

4. Social media: The corporate sponsors of the contest offered promotional tools like widgets and badges on the campaign web site that people could easily use them to CONNECT and spread word of mouth through their networks on Facebook and MySpace.

The campaign smartly tapped into the growing trend among women entrepreneurs, who make up the fastest-growing segment of U.S. small businesses. What’s more, businesses owned by women of color are growing three times faster than all U.S. firms, according Center for Women’s Business Research.

When Lisa and I were promoting The She Spot, one perceptual hurdles we had to overcome was the notion that, if a campaign doesn’t hang out a big banner marked “women”, it somehow doesn’t “count.”

Shine a Light proves that you don’t need to call out your target audience in boldface to hit the mark. In fact, there are many instances when doing so isn’t the strategic thing to do. The winner of the contest, for example, wasn’t a woman. That wasn’t the point. It was about getting brand exposure among the audiences that mattered most.

Some highlights include:
- 59% are are visiting sites multiple times per day.
- Facebook was the most popular social network among these users, with 83% belonging to the site.
- 55% were on Twitter.
- 93% said that control over their own privacy settings were very important.
- 71% said using social networks to network professional was very important and 62% said to stay up-to-date with friends.

More women use social networking than men and if your organization doesn’t understand the trends and strategies on how to maximize them you’re missing out on a key audience.

In a new post today on Media Post’s Engage Mom blog Tiffany Jonas suggest that affluent women expect more online. According to Jonas wealth women are turned off by Web sites that are sloppy and disorganized. She suggest design with a clean “high-end” design. She sites Vera Wangs Web site as a good “art level” example.

Not all NGOs want or can afford “high art” but they can take Jonas’ advice and make beautiful, yet functional sites. Chen and I argue in the She Spot that women, in particular, are looking for Web sites that reflect real people and excude authenticity. Here are some good examples in the NGO space:

Women for Women International

American Red Cross

Innocence Project

Planned Parenthood Federation of America

Vittana

Action for Children

Do you have others to add?

Libby Chivers of SEO Optimise gives the following tips  to marketing to women online:

1. Women enjoy socializing online more than men. Chivers suggests that  confrontational forum debates are out and supportive social networking is in. She suggests allowing users to personalize their platforms, encourage the sharing of ideas and support and create a space for off-topic chat.

Don’t be afraid to have your site not be 100% about your mission. The goal is to foster community. Remember, when you connect women to each other you deepen your own brand.

2. Attract women with attractive Web design. Men tend to appreciate functionality in websites. Women want that too but they also want colorful, attractive and textured sites.

3. Grow your user generation content. Women trust each other more than they do organizations/corporations. Some of the most successful Web site are ones that let the users generate their own content and share it with others.  “A female reader will prefer to trust their fellow consumers rather than the company message, no matter how many statistics, blueprints and facts the firm has provided.”