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!

Image courtesy of Ms. blog

Who is Feminist Hulk? He’s a mash-up between a muscle-bound, radioactive monster and a card-carrying feminist whose own personal superhero happens to be Judith Butler. And he’s become a cult favorite on Twitter (16,000+ followers) with his ALL-CAP reflections on modern-day patriarchy, gender and feminist intervention.

Feminist Hulk isn’t formally tied to any nonprofit. But he could be. If you’re a cause-driven organization struggling to generate social media buzz and build Twitter followers, one approach might be to adopt a colorful persona who can add some winking humor and pop culture cool to promote your issues.

Ms. Magazine’s Blog recently did an interview with Feminist Hulk and “J,” his “literary life-partner.” Here’s FM’s response about his origins:

IN BEGINNING, HULK SMASH FOR LOVE OF SMASH. LATER, HULK REALIZE CRAVING FOR SMASH CAUSED BY HYPERLINK HEGEMONIC FORCES WHICH DISCONNECTED HULK FROM SELF. HULK QUESTION SYSTEMS OF PRIVILEGE. SOON HULK SMASH WITH GREATER PURPOSE. CULTURAL MINDFULNESS GIVE HULK SUPERPOWERS OF ANTI-PATRIARCHAL SMASH!

This approach wouldn’t work for every nonprofit, of course. But given the personality-driven appeal of Twitter, it’s worth thinking outside the box. Are you a land conservation group? Maybe your Twitter persona could be an “Angry Beaver” whose habitat is threatened. Are you running a campaign targeting a bad corporate actor? Try on the voice of an imposter CEO or PR flak trying to spin his way out of the mess he’s created.

The key is to be true to the voice you’ve created. And tweet on topics that aren’t necessarily about your immediate issue. Part of the fun is applying your persona’s point of view to current events and other trending topics.
People like to follow Tweeters who have a distinct personality and thoughtful or playful take pm things. If you make them laugh, you’ll score big points and keep them coming back for more.

Thanks to Fenton’s social media wiz Hugh McMullen for the Hulk tip off!

The Women’s Empowerment Campaign 2010 is a collaborative of many led by GreatNonprofits and GuideStar in partnership with Kiva, the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, MADRE, Wider Opportunities for Women, Dress for Success, Women’s Media Center, Women News Network, and Women’s Philanthropy — Women’s Issues.

Voting, reviewing, and other open-source competitions and collaborations online allow organizations like GreatNonprofits to learn about their audience, learn from their audience, and collect awareness on issues with a much wider net than they could alone.  It builds upon the golden rule of relationship-building: listening.

The Stanford Social Innovation Review highlighted two organizations — Jeannette Rankin Women’s Scholarship Fund in Athens, GA and Be The Star You Are! in Moraga, California — and responses to them.

Time remains for you to add your voice to the conversation, though!

Which organizations will you review?  Support?  Critique?  Vote now through May 31.

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.

This isn’t a big spread but it does make you wonder why.

It’s not a big surprise to me. Women, in general, are more interested and engaged in social networking. They love to be connected whether by phone, laptop or desktop.

Mobile makers better make sure they are 1) hiring women engineers, 2) surveying their women customers for product design and 3) engaging their women customers in getting feedback on what’s working (or not) in their products.

The study also showed that while social networking is commonly thought of as something for “the kids,” the 35-54 age group had more active mobile social networkers than any other group.

The old soda wars used to involve the “man on the street” blind taste test ads. Today, Pepsi is seizing the social media moment and engaging the public to do good. Since women make 80% of the consumer decisions, are the majority of socially responsible consumers and lead the use of social media it seems that Pepsi is targeting the woman consumer.

Their new campaign “be sociable, have a Pepsi” speaks right to the heart of what women want – a company:

1. with a social conscious that does good;

2. that taps people’s collective creativity; and

3. that connects people to each other.

You can see the campaign at: refresheverything.com.

Stuart Elliot, in today’s New York Times, covers the Pepsi push: ”Pepsi-Cola is formally introducing on Monday an ambitious campaign named the Pepsi Refresh Project, aimed at doing well by doing good. The brand is dedicating at least $20 million through the end of the year for donations to local organizations and causes proposed by the public in realms like health, arts and culture, the environment and education.”

As part of the campaign consumer will be asked to vote for causes they like.

I predict that this is the future for corporate social responsibility. Gone are the days when it will be just enough if corporation give to causes. Now, because of social media, consumer will expect to have a say on where the dollars go.

Stoneyfield Farms has been an innovator in this field and for years has been engaging their customers in voting where part of their “Profit for the Plant” gets invested.

This is going to be a campaign to watch. I can’t help but think their female CEO, Indra Nooyi, had a lot to do with it.

Stay tuned…

Forget “Supermom.” Meet the “Real Mom.” That’s the message behind a recent white paper by Advertising Age and ad giant JWT.

According to authors Marissa Miley and Ann Make, today’s younger generation of Real Moms (Gen Xers and millennials) are similar to their have-it-all Super Mom predecessors insofar as they’re just as busy in their roles as “chief operating officer of the home.” The difference is, they’re more realistic about the push-and-pull dynamic of their multi-tasking lives and less beholden to perfection. Call it the New Pragmatism.

While the paper, which is based on a survey of 870 men and women, is ostensibly geared to consumer marketing, it has important insights for cause-driven communicators, too. Take, for example, these findings into What Real Moms Want:

Put family first: In today’s overscheduled world, Real Moms feel responsibility to create family time. Next time you want a mom to give money or take action for your cause, think about how you can turn your “ask” into an teaching moment for her children by creating kid-friendly content on your web site. That way she can do double duty: do good and pass along values while spending time with her kids.

The New York Times recently reported a recession-related lifestyle trend: Americans are buying less stuff—and doing more stuff together with their families. For nonprofits have an experiential activity they can offer as an entry point to their issue, this represents a big opportunity.

Be more than just mom: Real Moms want to be good caretakers. But they want to have an identity outside that, too. I have a 30something friend and new mom of twins who is hyperconscious about not becoming “one of those moms” who talks about her kids to the exclusion of all else. She also relies on Facebook to stay connected with friends.

For nonprofits, this is a reminder that the causes we support are one way we project our unique identity: they are an extension of our personal brand because they show the world what we care about (think Leonardo DiCaprio and the environment or Lance Armstrong and cancer). Social networking sites are ideal places to connect with Real Moms and encourage them to share their causes with others.

Permission to indulge/be imperfect. The new, pragmatic mom is open to brands that give her permission to be imperfect without feeling guilty. Frit-O Lay has cashed in on this phenom (which they dub “permissible indulgences”) with its 100-calorie-a-pack snacks.

I’m from a family of immigrants that derives intense pleasure from saving money by spending less. My mom practically levitated off the ground when she found a pair of pants discounted from $138 to $21 at an after-holiday sale a few weeks ago. Bargain hunting is our excuse to indulge our inner clothes horse.
The edge that nonprofits have on all this is that they can offer permission to indulge through giving back.My mom, for example, would never buy expensive chocolates for herself: too extravagant. But if I get them for her for Mother’s Day and part of the proceeds go to the Global Fund for Women, it’s all good.

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.

Last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine cover story “Are Your Friends Making Your Fat?,” posed some intriguing ideas for social marketing campaigns.

The crux of the social contagion theory: friends and even friends of friends can have an enormous influence over your health habits and other behaviors. So why not, for example, combat obesity by urging people to diet with their close friends?

Easier said than done. But there are promising applications of this theory in the works, according to reporter Clive Thomson, who describes an effort by researchers at the Schroeder Institute for Tobacco Research and Policy Studies to develop a Facebook app for people trying to quit smoking. The app allows them to publicly post how long they’ve gone without smoking and how much money they’ve saved.

By going public, the theory goes, you’ll inspire and influence others to quit smoking, too.

Going public also creates accountability. In “Julie & Julia,” the Amy Adams character takes on the challenge of cooking all 524 recipes from Julia Child’s cookbook in one year while chronicling it all on her blog. It’s her growing readership that goads her through the toughest tribulations. I’ve often thought wedding ceremonies – beyond the pure celebratory aspects — perform the function of holding the bride and groom accountable to the larger group of family and friends who witness the marriage.

What’s more powerful than a word-of-mouth campaign? A campaign with built-in accountability. It’s a tougher ask, but in our social media era where many people are connected online and accustomed to sharing the intimate details of their lives, it may be easier to achieve than ever.

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.