A fish-eye lens attachment for the iPhone.

How to build an iPhone-ready DIY photo/video studio for under $200

Target audience: Photographers (amateur and professional), nonprofits, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, cause organizations, businesses, Web publishers, educators, journalists, agencies, general public.

Isaw a post from Chris Brogan a while back, talking about how it’s OK to not be an expert and, in fact, we shouldn’t wait until we’re experts at something to do it.

Sounds right to me. I never trained in public relations, much less social media, and my background is in economics and drama, but I think I’m doing OK. To me, non-experts doing things very well is one of the beauties not just of our profession but a gift that the social Web has given to us.

After all, you don’t have to be an expert to blog well, to excel at online marketing, to take great photos or videos, right? I don’t know about you, but I’m drawn more to the “non-expert” versions of these things because they have a realness to them that a lot of “expert” content doesn’t.

Being a non-expert at much of this stuff, I recently got a bee in my bonnet about finding a way to build my own, iPhone-ready DIY photo/video studio, that would let me create not great but good enough visual/multimedia content. (Project 366 is proving to be great testing ground for this.)

After a month or so of trial and error, finally all the pieces have fallen into place. And I did this on a total budget of less than $200, excluding taxes and shipping. Here’s how you can, too, with six terrific iPhone accessories that will give you a mobile “good enough” photo/video studio. Budget-conscious nonprofits and organizations who send staffers out into the field, pay attention.

Olloclip 3-in-1 lens

1The Olloclip 3-in-1 lens ($69.99) is a very cool little gizmo. It’s a fisheye, wide-angle and macro lens all in one. It clips onto your iPhone and gives you the ability to take some really neat photos.

For example, the photo below was taken during my personal training session the other day; I got Grant Hill to be my guinea pig, heh! Here’s the shot I took using the regular iPhone camera/lens:

And here’s the same scene taken with the Olloclip’s wide-angle lens:

See how it’s extending the visual to the sides, not to mention top and bottom?

And at the very top is the scene using a fisheye lens, which you usually only see on pro photographers’ lenses.

Finally here’s a photo using the macro lens of a really fab wine glass that Rachael Seda gave me. Macros are terrific for taking really, really close-up photos.

By the way, the Olloclip is also available via Apple.com, but I used an Amazon gift card that was crying out to be redeemed. There is also a cheaper version of this, i.e., the same three lenses that come with magnetic rings that you can stick onto the back of your iPhone, but when I tested it, they kept falling off. Not good.

Downsides:

• It won’t fit over a fancy iPhone case, if you have one
• The iPhone’s built-in flash and the Olloclip don’t play nice together, but I have a solution for that below.

iFlash

2So now you’re all excited about the 3-in-1 lens solution, but what happens if you want to use these when you need a flash? iFlash ($12.99) to the rescue. This is lovely, and it works great. It fits into the “30 pin” on your iPhone — that’s what you call the end where you plug your charger in. It will not fit if you have a fancy iPhone case. Yes, again.

Joby GorillaPod

3OK, so now you have your lenses and your iFlash. What if you tend to shimmer and shake when holding your phone/camera, and need something to hold it steady?

Enter the GorillaPod Video tripod ($29.95). Now, I originally bought this for my Flip camera, but I found a way to repurpose it for my iPhone.

Before I get to that, though, what is so neat about all Joby’s Gorilla products is the way the legs bend, which means you can attach them to shelves, branches, doorknobs — just about anywhere you need to, even if you don’t have a flat surface to stand them on. And they also have magnetized “feet,” so if you’re near a surface that will work, you can literally just stick it on there.

How cool is that? It’s a plastic yoga studio!

Joby has a ton of products, including a tripod specifically for the iPhone, but I don’t like that, and I’ll tell you why.

Glif

4The problem with using Joby’s iPhone tripod is that you have to use the case that comes with it in order for the tripod to hold your iPhone securely; it fits on other cases as well, but the point is, it won’t fit on just the iPhone. So if you want to take, say, photos or videos while using your 3-in-1 lens, or iFlash, and still need the steadying influence of a tripod, you’re out of luck.

This is where the Glif iPhone stand and tripod mount ($20) comes in. (I bought mine on Photojojo.) It’s a small piece of plastic – when mine arrived, I kept peering into the envelop to see what was missing – but it fits beautifully onto your phone without a case, and has this hole into which the Joby Gorilla Pod screws beautifully.

I’m sure I will regret leaving that last phrase unedited. But whatevs.

Also, Photojojo has a killer website that is pure fun to go through, and just wait until you get their order confirmation packages. I got a teeny weeny dinosaur with mine!

Audio-Technica ATR3350 Lavalier Mic

5The Audio-Technica ATR3350 Lavalier Mic ($22.34) is just a lovely little lavalier (lapel) mic that you can use with an adapter to enhance your audio. So, say you want to do video interviews, or recordings, from your iPhone — it’s terrific. (I bought mine on Amazon.)

But wait! It won’t work on your iPhone unless you buy this:

KV Connection 1/8″ iPhone microphone adapter

6The KV Connection 1/8″ iPhone microphone adapter ($23.06) — you have to get this along with your lavalier mic, or else it won’t work. Trust me on this one. Better yet, trust Jeff Geerling, whose site I found this from.

I can’t tell you how excited I was when I found, and then ordered, these last two. And I was shattered when they didn’t work. Turns out the KVC adapter was faulty, as Jeff suggested when I wrote to him. So KVC sent me a new one at no cost, and everything worked perfectly. I can’t give their customer service a big enough shout-out.

In summary

Let’s recap, shall we?

• Olloclip 3-in-1 lens: $69.99
• iFlash: $12.99
• Tripod/stand: $29.95
• Glif: $20.00
• ATR 3350 mic: $22.34
• KV Connection adapter for mic: $23.06

Less taxes (if applicable) and shipping, that comes to $178.33.

So for less that $200, you can:

• Take photos and videos that don’t shake
• Take photos and videos from weird, crazy, funky angles, should you be so inclined
• Give new depth, and angles, to your multimedia
• Get extremely decent audio for videos/interviews
• Produce fun, possibly funky photos/videos for your organizations or clients
• Avoid gnashing your teeth when you want to record something on the fly, since you have your studio-in-a-bag
• Make sure the pros you do hire do a really good job — I mean, they’ve got to top you, right?

Add in 99 cents for Camera+, $1.99 for Photosync and $4.99 for iMovie – all great apps for the iPhone for effects, cropping and whatnot – and you got yourself a cryin’, talkin’, sleepin’, walkin’, livin’ doll of a mobile studio, still for less than $200.

And I think that’s pretty cool.

How about you? Have you tested great accessories that will let you take “good enough” photos or videos on the fly? Do share, I’d love to know — and maybe upgrade my own mobile studio!

Republished from Shonali’s Waxing Unlyrical blog.

Related

• 15 top iPhone apps for work, play & creativity (Socialbrite)

• Creating media: Resources (Socialbrite)

• Mobile resources (Socialbrite)Shonali Burke provides social media consulting services to nonprofit and business clients. See her profile page, visit her Waxing Unlyrical blog, follow her on Twitter, contact Shonali by email or leave a comment.

The multimedia consulting firm See3 Communications, NTEN and YouTube have announced that the DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards for 2012. They’re accepting submissions through the end of February.

This year, winners have the chance to win one of four $3,500 prize donations along with great products worth an additional $3,500 provided by Cisco, free registration to next year’s Nonprofit Technology Conference and a special prize to recognize fearless use of video, provided by theCase Foundation.

The winning videos will be announced at this year’s Nonprofit Technology Conference in San Francisco hosted by NTEN and featured on YouTube’s home page on April 5.

Visit the contest website and submit your videos today.

And speaking of video, check out TechSoup’s 2012 Digital Storytelling Challenge, also open to video submissions through Feb. 29. John Haydon delivers social web strategy solutions for “the quick, the smart, and the slightly manic.” Curious? Then connect up: Contact John by email, see his profile page, visit the John Haydon blog, follow him on Twitter or leave a comment.

Image by Milica Sekulic

The focus is on small actions that are perfect for thumb-friendly mobile devices

Target audience: Nonprofits, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, cause organizations, brands, businesses, mobile app developers, Web publishers, educators, journalists, general public.

Last month Facebook announced the release of more than 60 new Timeline apps that allow Facebook users to automatically share application actions on their Timeline. You may have first became aware of Timeline apps when all your friends were telling you what songs they were listening to on Spotify.

How do Timeline apps work?

Once you authorize an app, which only needs to be done once, a live connection is established with your Timeline. This means that as soon as you take an action with an app, like finishing a run with the RunKeeper app, the app automatically posts that action on your Timeline, as shown below.

What is frictionless sharing?

Frictionless sharing is Facebook’s new model for more digestible social sharing, both psychologically and technologically. In other words, Facebook has redefined sharing.

There are two components to frictionless sharing:

1. Gestures that make sense – Facebook is now allowing app developers to use gestures other than “like” for news feed stories. In the example above, it says that I just “completed” a run with RunKeeper. (By the way, I can run further than .27 miles.) “Completed” works better because although I definitely completed the run, I may have not “liked” it.
2. Permission hurdles removed – Timeline apps ask permission only once to access and share a user’s data. As shown below in the RunKeeper app, it’s easier for me to understand what the app needs to work. The app authorization also lists activities that will appear and allows me to choose who can see my activities.

It’s important to realize that frictionless sharing is about removing both technological and psychological hurdles to sharing.

Are Timeline apps intended for mobile?

Facebook is run by smart people. They know the future of the Web resides in mobile devices. Frictionless sharing will encourage the use of Timeline apps via mobile devices in at least two ways:

• Trust – With the old metaphor of app permissions, it wasn’t really clear what you were authorizing. This created mistrust,a psychological hurdle. But the new app permissions explain exactly what personal data will be shared the first time you give that app permission. This is critical for mobile devices, which previously had to ask permission repeatedly — an annoying barrier.
• Thumbs – The new gestures like “read,” “cooked,” “pinned,”  “completed” and “donated” are thumb-friendly. Notice how the emphasis is Not on writing comments, or entering data into fields — where you ran, who you ran with — in a browser. The emphasis is on very small actions – perfect for thumb-friendly mobile devices!

Finally, almost all of the 60 Timeline apps can be found in the iTunes App Store. This reinforces my theory that their ultimate use is to capture actions from mobile users and not necessarily people using Facebook through a browser. Please disagree in the comments!

Learn more about Timeline applications

Want to learn more about the implication of Timeline apps? Read Facebook Timeline Apps: A New Way To Engage? by Debra Askanase and What Do Facebook’s New Timeline Apps Mean for Nonprofits? by Beth Kanter.

For the nonprofit community, we’re just at the beginning of a long journey. Facebook Timeline apps offer a fascinating host of possibilities.

Do you think Timeline apps are about mobile?

John Haydon delivers social web strategy solutions for “the quick, the smart, and the slightly manic.” Curious? Then connect up: Contact John by email, see his profile page, visit the John Haydon blog, follow him on Twitter or leave a comment.

Image by eltoro69 on BigStockPhoto.com

Target audience: Nonprofits, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, cause organizations, businesses, Web publishers, general public.

Guest post by Carla Chadwick
Creative director, SankyNet

The email marketing and fundraising landscape keeps evolving, and it’s increasingly vital for nonprofits to develop a comprehensive email strategy. We’ve put together a short guide of email best practices to help you better focus their email fundraising and marketing efforts. It never hurts to keep reminding ourselves to focus on the fundamentals!

Here are five tips to keep in mind for your email marketing and fundraising efforts:

1Frequency: There’s a fine line between sending out enough emails to keep people engaged and relay important information, and sending out too many emails, causing open rates to decrease and unsubscribe rates to increase. While it varies among organizations and audiences, a good starting point is ensuring that each constituent typically receives no more than one email per week.

2Subject line: Subject lines should be short; most standards recommend either 35 or 50 characters maximum (including spaces), and testing has shown that shorter is typically better.

3Styling: Always keep web standards in mind to ensure usability. The number of fonts, text sizes, and colors should be limited for the cleanest user experience. Additionally, all text links should be underlined.

4Images: In an HTML email, it is important to include as much text content as possible — the ratio of text to images is a key factor in triggering spam filters. Ideally, images should be gifs instead of jpgs, and images should be compressed so that they are under 250 kilobytes.

5Social media: Excluding fundraising appeals, we recommend including social media engagement in emails, asking people to “like/follow” the organization or “share/tweet” the email.

Email is still one of the best ways to fund-raise and spread your mission online. What are your suggestions on how nonprofits can do email fundraising better?

If you want to increase pages views and site engagement, it’s critical that you create a more social experience when people visit your website.

For example, when people view an article from your blog, they can see which of their friends have already read that article. They also can share content on your site with their Facebook friends.

Gigya published data showing that Web users spend 50 percent more time on websites that use Facebook social plug-ins. They also view twice as many pages.

Use social plug-ins to increase engagement

As you can see in the bar graph above, users spend most of their time commenting, which, according to Giya, “allows them to share opinions on content and interact with other users – including those from their social graph.”

This makes sense when you remember that people are busier today than ever before, but still want to converse with their friends on topics they care about.

Increase page views with social plug-ins

They also found that page views more than doubled for sites that use social plug-ins. Again, commenting and sharing were the two biggest activities.

What does all this mean for your website?

The more pages people view on your site, the more chances you have to convert them into an email subscriber or donor.

View your website as a fishing net. Web visitors either keep swimming on by your site or get caught in your net — subscribe to your email newsletter, etc. Social plug-ins encourage these fish to swim around a bit more, giving you more chances at catching them!

Which Facebook social plug-ins should you use?

Putting your organization’s goals aside for a moment, and viewing the data above, it’s safe to say that you should at least be implementing Facebook’s Like Button and Comments plug-in. For instance:

• Like Button: When a user clicks the Like button, a news story publishes to his or her News Feed, and this story includes a link back to the content on your site. If your site offers a lot of content that users can like individually (such as in a blog), you’ll invariably increase referral traffic from Facebook to your site.
• Comments: This plug-in allows you to add a comment box to your website content so that Facebook users can enter their comments, which can automatically be published to their Facebook News Feed. These republished comments also include a link back to the comments on your site.

Facebook has excellent tutorials on installing these plug-ins, and if you use WordPress, all you need is to install a few plug-ins. The plugins I use are Facebook Like and Send and Disqus for comments (users can log in with Twitter or Google in addition to Facebook).

Have you installed Facebook social plugins on your site?

John Haydon delivers social web strategy solutions for “the quick, the smart, and the slightly manic.” Curious? Then connect up: Contact John by email, see his profile page, visit the John Haydon blog, follow him on Twitter or leave a comment.

Here’s a short video that provides a tour of Salsa, which offers a suite of online organizing tools to help you build awareness, mobilize your people and keep them engaged.

One client’s data-driven approach multiplied its supporter network exponentially

Guest post by Jason Zanon
Salsa Labs

Talking from the heart may be what motivates supporters, but when it comes to building a long-term social network strategy, there’s no substitute for having your head in the game.

The Environmental Working Group, whose disciplined and data-driven outreach has multiplied its supporter network by nearly a thousandfold since joining Salsa, generously shared its social media playbook with Salsa, and we thought Socialbrite’s readers would like to see how this unfolded. It includes a few common-sense strategies that any organization can put into effect — and a whole lot of shoe leather.

“We’re really aware of our audience and meeting their needs,” said Colleen Hutchings of the Environmental Working Group. “When we post an action, we’re being really conscientious of who our audience is and of meeting them where they are, which may not always be the same as an email audience or a blog audience.”

The thousands of nonprofits and campaigns that, like EWG, count on the Salsa online communications platform can light up sharing features on any page with the flip of a switch. Salsa Sharing helps visitors channel the message to their own friends on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

Curation that targets each social network

Hutchings credits its burgeoning Twitter and Facebook footprints to the extra effort EWG puts into curating specifically for each social network. Some of her tips:

• Craft custom suggested sharing messages (under 140 characters, natch) to make sharing super-easy for your social network people.
• Have appealing linked images in the action page — essential for making Facebook shares pop.
• Use a trackable link shortener like bit.ly to capture metrics. EWG’s last campaign as of this writing: 2,344 Facebook shares on an action with 31,095 online advocacy messages sent.
• Try (gentle) cross-channel recruitment. For instance, suggest a Facebook, Twitter or Google+ share in your acknowledgment auto-response to folks who take the old-school webform action.
• And most crucially, care for your community beyond your asks.

“We get into the comments and foster dialogues and direct people to resources they ask for,” Hutchings said. “People are coming to our Facebook page because they are involved in a conversation. We try to talk about actions in a way people care about, and care for the community that cares about them — and we do see new email signups and actions as a result.”

EWG is definitely a power user that keeps the Salsa team motivated, and our social media feature set has been expanding like gangbusters to help our managers execute their own smart social media strategies. Here’s a sampling of the social media elements that our clients deploy:

• Custom share content: Specify channel-specific share messages for each social network (and, for Facebook, a share image).
• Event sign-up via Facebook: Allow one-click registration via Facebook Connect for supporter sign-up and event registration. We’ll fill in their registration from their public Facebook profile, making sign-up quick and simple.
• Ask email recipients to share: Add sharing code to an e-mail blast. Just copy and paste the code where you want it to appear in the blast. When the blast goes out, all e-mails will contain links to share the corresponding web version.
• Tracking: Track how many times your pages have been shared on Facebook or Twitter, then monitor it with our handy Sharing Statistics sticky. Plug into your own bit.ly account, or just use Salsa’s default.
• Link Facebook ID: Need to link your Salsa sharing utilities to an organization’s Facebook account? No problem, just give us your ID and we’ll take care of the rest.

Contact us if you have any questions. And please share your campaign success stories in the comments, whether on Salsa or another social action platform.

Posting to Facebook Groups from HootSuite

Target audience: Nonprofits, foundations, social enterprises, cause organizations, NGOs, business professionals, educators, students, journalists, general public.

The other day, my brother sent me a message asking me what apps I was currently using on my iPhone. As I went down the list of my frequently used apps, I realized there are a lot that some of you may not know about.

So I put together a list of my 15 top iPhone apps for you, in case you have been evaluating your own use of apps. Some of these might be new to you, some not, but either way, I hope you find the list helpful.

While these apply only to the iPhone, several reside on my iPad as well, and some of these can be used on Androids and BlackBerrys. Most of them are free; I’ll tell you when they’re not. The apps generally fall into the categories of communications, productivity, social networks, photography and video.

Viber: Call and text for free

1This might be a new one for some of you. Viber is a terrific app — both for iPhone and Android — that lets you call other Viber users free. It’s really easy to set up, and once it syncs with your Contacts, it creates a separate list of people who have Viber installed as well. So when you want to contact them, you can IM them, just as you would ordinarily, or call them. Viber uses your data plan, so if you don’t have unlimited texts that come with your plan, it’s a terrific option. It uses wi-fi or a 3G network to connect — there may be charges if you use the latter — and the sound quality is incredible.

Path: Share life with your loved ones

2I joined Path quite recently, and have been enjoying it. It bills itself as “the smart journal that helps you share life with the ones you love.” I don’t post very frequently, probably once or twice every few days, but since I’m keeping my network over there relatively small, I find it provides a more intimate feeling than blogging out to the whole world. And I still get a kick out of Path’s visualization if you tell it you’re going to sleep, or have woken up. It’s also cool that you can post to Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Tumblr, or any combination of them, if you want to.

Beejive for GoogleTalk: Gtalk on the go

3I learned of this app from Ray Richman, and I love it. It’s free. Beejive for GoogleTalk basically lets you G-chat — as you would from your Gmail interface — on your phone. Beejive has a bunch of other apps as well that I haven’t tested, but I do like this one a lot.

HootSuite: Cross-post to your networks

4HootSuite has great apps for both the iPhone and iPad, so I have it set up on both. I like that I can use my multiple profiles even when I’m not at my computer, and most of its “regular” functionality is contained in its apps, such as scheduling tweets, posts and so on. Hot tip: In HootSuite’s desktop version, specifically with Facebook, in addition to setting up profiles for your personal and business page (or pages you manage), you can also set up profiles for specific Facebook groups you participate in regularly. I saw this a few weeks ago and it is a boon! However, you can’t do this from the apps. I don’t think that’s such a big deal, and you’ve probably already seen that if you reset some profiles in your “main” HootSuite account, the apps won’t automatically sync them, you’ll have to do so manually.

Tungle: Easy scheduling from the road

5I’ve long been a fan of Tungle, and it finally introduced an app for the iPhone last year. It’s as easy to use Tungle’s iPhone app as it is to use the desktop version, and that’s not something you can say about all apps.

Skype: The ultimate communication tool

6Skype has become the de facto way I communicate with my family and quite a few of my friends, and I suspect you do as well. It’s also how I’ve done interviews. The call quality is great most of the time, and you can’t beat the price of free.

Tumblr: Post photos to a blog

7I set this up recently after embarking on Project 366. I did so because the photos I take are almost always from my iPhone, so I wanted to see if I could post directly to Tumblr from my phone. And, of course, you already know you can. When I was reading the app reviews, I saw a number of complaints, but so far at least, it’s been pretty easy to post to Tumblr from my iPhone, and that includes the caption, tags, short URL, etc.

Facebook: Carry your friends in your pocket

8It wasn’t that long ago that Facebook introduced its own app, and it works pretty well as you post comments, post status updates or photos, like brands and all the rest. Crashes at times, but what app doesn’t? If you have the new Timeline, you’ll notice that it appears on your mobile device as well, which is pretty nifty.

Camera+: Edit and share your photos

9I learned about this from my trainer, Grant Hill. It is absolutely terrific! There’s a free version, but I bought the 99 cent Camera+ app, and it works beautifully. There are a ton of editing options, and you can also share your photos to social networks or via email directly from Camera+ if you want. I highly recommend it.

PhotoSync: Sync photos instead of emailing them

10The $1.99 PhotoSync app is just brilliant. Once you buy it, install it on your iPhone and computer (and I have it on my iPad as well, and no, I didn’t have to pay again). What this does is let you wirelessly transfer photos, which is great – no more cables or emailing photos! You’ll need to make sure the app is open on each device you’re syncing from and to, and you have to enable location services, though I haven’t found that to be a problem. It works quickly, and I haven’t had a single issue. In addition to photos, it transfers videos well, too. And, you can send photos to Flickr, Facebook and a bunch of other sites if you want to.

Flickr: Create photo albums from your phone

11It’s pretty easy to post your photos to Flickr using the Flickr app, though I find the tagging, etc., a bit laborious from the iPhone. Still, it does give you a way to create a Flickr album on the go, say, if you’re at a conference. And what photo sharing network is better than Flickr?

iMovie: Quick and easy video editing

12One of my goals this year is to do more video — using my iPhone. I’m getting more and more comfortable with iMovie, and purchased the $4.99 iMovie app not long ago. I shot this short video of my dog Lola meeting Snoopy over the holidays. Since it was already on my phone, I did some quick editing via iMovie, transferred it to my computer via PhotoSync, and voila. It’s pretty decent for quick editing, but it doesn’t have the full functionality of the regular iMovie software program. Still, for on-the-go stuff, it works.

The Weather Channel: Bring an umbrella?

13I know the iPhone comes with a weather app, but I like the one from the Weather Channel better. And yes, it’s free.

Weather Doodle: Making weather fun

14This is just lovely. It’s a really cute 99-cent app that turns your weather forecast into a cute, animated doodle. Even on a rainy day, I’m pretty sure Weather Doodle will make you smile. And hat tip to@sbc111, who pointed me to it.

Emojee Free!: Emoticons for every occasion

15If you like playing with different emoticons, this one’s for you. It’s free, and it gives you an astounding collection of emoticons, from a wide range of categories, that you can add to email, text messages and so on. However, be aware that only other iPhone or iPad users will be able to see them. Still worth a look, I think, and once you’ve downloaded Emojee Free! it will walk you through how to set it up.

There you go. Fifteen apps for your iPhone — and quite a few will work on your iPad as well. Most of these are free. Check ‘em out and let us know what you think.

Do you have favorite apps that you use frequently? Do share, I’d love to learn!

Republished from Shonali’s Waxing Unlyrical blog.Shonali Burke provides social media consulting services to nonprofit and business clients. See her profile page, visit her Waxing Unlyrical blog, follow her on Twitter, contact Shonali by email or leave a comment.

The people who inspire us the most are often quietly changing the world each and every day. They’re not on the front page of the newspaper, and they’re not mingling with the Gates and Buffets of the world. They’re everyday people like you and me who have shown extraordinary commitment to making this world better than when they found it.

The CTK Foundation Heroes with a Heart Grant Award asks you to nominate a “Hero with a Heart,” and give them a chance to win $5,000 – a simple thanks for the hard work that they do.

What are the details of the Heroes with a Heart grant?

At top is an overview of awards the CTK Foundation will offer and details on how you can nominate your hero.

Applications for all Heroes with a Heart grant awards open today and close Wednesday, Feb. 29, at midnight. Finalists will appear on the CTK Facebook page for public voting during April and winners will be announced on May 1. This award is open to registered nonprofits or charities of all types and sizes, worldwide.

Go to communitytech.net/foundation to nominate your Hero with a Heart today!

For regular updates on the Heroes with a Heart Grant, check out the CTK Facebook Page.

Good luck, heroes!

John Haydon delivers social web strategy solutions for “the quick, the smart, and the slightly manic.” Curious? Then connect up: Contact John by email, see his profile page, visit the John Haydon blog, follow him on Twitter or leave a comment.

TED takes place Feb. 27 to March 2 in Long Beach, Calif.

Planning for the month’s top conferences & events

Will I see you at some of these conferences this month? Lots on tap for February, including Wisdom 2.0, Blisscom, Media That Matters, TED and more.

For the full year, see our Calendar of 2012 nonprofit and social change conferences. If you’re interested in social media, tech and marketing conferences, see this month’s calendar on our sister site, Socialmedia.biz.

If you know of other events, please share by adding the info in the comments below.

February
Media That Matters	Feb. 10-11	Washington, DC
This year’s theme, “Change for Good,” features conversations about how independent social change filmmakers can execute integrated campaigns that are strategic, action-oriented and have enduring impact.
ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work	Feb. 11-15	Seattle
CSCW presents research in the design and use of technologies that affect groups, organizations and communities. CSCW encompasses both the technical and social challenges encountered when supporting collaboration. The development and application of new technologies continues to enable new ways of working together and coordinating activities.
Rootscamp	Feb. 18-19	Washington, DC
This year marks the sixth anniversary of the Rootscamp unconference where organizers set the agenda, share lessons learned and drive the conversation about best practices in organizing. RootsCamp is an “open space” unconference driven by the people who attend to share, debrief and celebrate the tremendous work organizers have made.
Wisdom 2.0	Feb. 23-26	Redwood City, Calif.
Join the founders of Facebook, PayPal, Zynga, and other technology leaders along with wisdom teachers in this conference where they focus on exploring how one can live mindfully and wisely and engage the great technologies of this age in ways that benefit us, our society and our world.
BlissDom	Feb. 23-25	Nashville, Tenn.
This conference is for women who find and express their bliss by publishing online. Speakers and panels will feature the best blogging, public relations and social media pros who’ll be on hand to mentor new and old friends.
Social Enterprise Conference	Feb. 25-26	Boston
This year’s conference will feature two days of rich content at the Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School. The Saturday schedule is designed for a smaller and more practitioner-focused audience, while the Sunday schedule will feature about 100 speakers with a more general focus with a Pitch for Change Competition and Career Fair.
TED	Feb. 27-Mar 2	Long Beach, Calif.
From dazzling technology and leading-edge science to the richest veins of human creativity and interconnection, TED 2012 will display remarkable speakers, new uses of music, extravagant use of underused senses, intricate choreography between speaker and screen, new ways of involving the audience, breakthroughs in animation, intense, campfire-style storytelling and some “spectacular surprises.”
TEDActive	Feb. 27-Mar 2	Palm Springs, Calif.
TEDActive is an opportunity to let your mind travel the world of ideas while watching the live-hosted TED 2012 program on screen in a comfortable, customizable space. When the talks are over, your conversations with other passionate people begin — a chance to engage in inspiring discussions and projects.

JD Lasica works with nonprofits, social change organizations and businesses on social media strategies. See his profile, visit his business blog, contact JD or leave a comment.

Try out the funnest visual social network on the Web

Target audience: Nonprofits, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, cause organizations, brands, businesses, Web publishers, educators, general public.

Guest post by Noland Hoshino
[B]cause Media 

There is a new darling in the social media world and her name is Pinterest. It’s a virtual, interactive bulletin board where individuals, businesses, and nonprofit organizations can pin their interests and drive traffic to their website.

What is Pinterest?

Pinsterest is basically an online scrapbook that you put together while surfing the Internet. According to the website, “Pinterest is a virtual pinboard. Pinterest allows you to organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. You can browse pinboards created by other people to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.”

Although Pinterest is chiefly being marketed to women between the ages of 25 and 44, an increasing number of visitors have taken to the social platform: more than 4 million users a month, Mashable reports.

I know what you’re thinking, “Argh, not another social media platform I have to manage. I can barely keep up with updating my Facebook page, or Twitter account, or Google Plus.” But Pinterest is different, which is important to their success because the field is already crowded with so many social networks, apps and widgets, and soon-to-be copycats (MingleWing, Piccsy).

How does Pinterest work?

You build a collage of images by pinning them to your Pinterest board. It can be done in three ways: Use the Pinterest “Pin It” bookmarklet while perusing the Internet, upload your own images, or re-pin other users’ images to your Pinterest boards that you’ve created and organized.

For example, I’ve created several Pinterest boards: Nonprofits on Pinterest, Social Good Marketing, Good Designs That Shine, Hugs My Soul (Motivational Quotes), to name a few.

What makes Pinterest so interesting?

Pinterest can generate a lot of traffic to your website because pins link back to their original source. For example, if you pin an image of a product from your business’s website onto your Pinterest board and a person clicks on the image, she will be directed back to your website (huge SEO bonus points).

There’s an element of social broadcasting by re-pinning other users’ images in Pinterest, tweeting pins to Twitter and liking pins to your Facebook wall. You can also embed pins onto your website or email them to a friend.

You can pin videos, too, which is cool.

Women, who  are usually the retail buyers in a household, have flocked to Pinterest to share decorating ideas, crafts, cooking recipes, bargain products and much, much more.

12 tips to Pinterest your nonprofit’s interest

1. Create Pinterest boards with a specific purpose in mind. Example: Humane Society of New York Woof – Adopt A Dog.
 
2. Follow Pinterest users with similar interests with quality pins on their boards, like Nonprofit Organizations, National Wildlife Federation, Water.org, Jokolna Foundation. You can follow all boards or specific boards, such as Jennifer Windrum’s SMAC! Sock Monkeys Against Cancer, Sylwia Presley’s Nonprofits and Social Media, Miranda Carter’sCause, Jenn Howard’s Sayings or Sevenly’s Get Inspired.
 
3. Follow back influential people who follow you. The trick is to click “Follow All” on the individual’s profile, then unfollow specific boards that aren’t of interests to you.
 
4. “Like” pins or re-pin items that appeals to you. This action will show up on the user’s sidebar. It will also send an email notification to the user (if turned on).
 
5. Use the pin comments section to engage in conversation and leave your mark.
 
6. Collaborate with co-workers or team members to help build your Pinterest board by using the board edit feature “Me + Contributors.” Let’s say your organization has a project to build a house. You can call the board “The House That Love Built” and invite team leaders to post photos of tools needed, progress of the build, and volunteers.
 
7. Use eye-catching images to get people’s attention and re-pins. The more re-pins, the more chances you’ll have people clicking to the source website.
 
8. Create an online fundraising catalog. Add a “$” symbol and the amount of an item in the pin description, i.e., $7.95 or $5.00. A gray banner with the price will be displayed on the upper left corner. Your pin will automatically go into the gifts tab located at the top of the homepage.
 
9. Use the search box by typing in topics, people’s names, businesses, etc. Then filter search by clicking pins, boards, or people.
 
10. Use the @ feature in the comment box to tag specific people (like other social networks).
 
11. Use keywords to name your Pinterest boards, board descriptions, and pin descriptions for search engine optimization (SEO).
 
12. Add a Pinterest share button to your website and URL on your business cards.

What I like most about Pinterest is that it’s visually appealing and easy to use. If I’m perusing the Web and I come across a really cool image, I can “pin” the image to my Pinterest board, like I’m creating my very own lifestyle catalog. Plus, all of my friends can see what appeals to me, which is useful when buying gifts (hint, hint).

Tip: If you highlight the Web context with the left button of your mouse, then click the “Pin it” button, the highlighted text will show up in the Pinterest description box.

Like the other social media networks, Pinterest is not a place to blatantly promote your organization. You will turn people away if you constantly push your cause. Instead, pin images that capture the lifestyle and essence of your organization while building a community of potential donors and volunteers who share the same interests.

Pinterest resources

• Joe Waters: Why and How Causes Should Use Pinterest
• Beth Kanter: Pinterest: A Tool to Curate Relevant Visual Content for Your Audience
• Avi Kaplan: Steal These 42 Creative Pinterest Ideas for Nonprofts
• Mashable: Pinterest: 13 Tips and Tricks for Cutting Edge Users
• LinchpinSEO: Ideas For Marketing Your Products Using Pinterest.Com
• Bcause Media delicious Pinterest Guide and Resources
• Kelly Lieberman Scoop.it Pinterest

Note: Pinterest is still in invite-only mode. Many of your friends may already be using Pinterest and have invites to hand out. Just ask.

If your organization already has a Pinterest account, let us know in the comments so we can follow your inspiration.

How would you use Pinterest for your nonprofit? What types of images would you post to your board? How are you pinteresting? Share your ideas in the comment below.