Start the New Year with Useful Social Media Research: What's Out This Week

With 2014 now well underway, everyone is forecasting key trends for social media.  And, there are the amusing, albeit useless, top 10 lists. 

Is there any “meat” out there – something that you can help guide your social media decisions?

Yes.

This week, two reports were released that contain useful data and helpful insights.  

The first is the Social Media Update 2013 from the folks at the Pew Research Center.  The findings are both intuitive and surprising.  For example, 73% of online adults now use a social networking site, and Facebook dominates. (Okay…this falls into the “intuitively obvious” category.)  However, Instagram users are just as likely as Facebook users to sneak away to check their site regularly.    

The second piece of research that caught our eye this week was the 2014 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report from Kivi Leroux Miller and the folks at Nonprofit Marketing Guide.  This report analyzes the feedback from 2, 135 nonprofits. 

Given that we’re tracking nonprofit use of social media, we were particularly interested in learning more about which social media choices nonprofits made in 2013 and anticipated making in 2014.  For example, the most important social media platforms for nonprofits are Facebook (95%), Twitter (64%), YouTube (38%), and LinkedIn (26%).  Yet, in 2014, nonprofits are more likely to experiment with Instagram and Pinterest.

We’re also conducting research on small business and nonprofit use of LinkedIn and will be presenting the findings that February American Marketing Association conference.  Our research indicates that yes, size does matter. And, we’ll be publishing more on this in the near future.

Stay tuned!

Higher Orbits: What's in a name?

By Monica W. Wamsley

I’m sure that if you asked your parents you’d learn the details of your name — something meaningful, maybe evoking a family memory; something distinct, but not so cumbersome that your given name doesn’t stick; something that grows with you.

The same kind of care and thought that goes into naming a child is used in naming a nonprofit organization and getting it off the ground.

“It’s not rocket science.” Well, this time, it is.

Higher Orbits (@HigherOrbits) is the brainchild of Michelle Ham (@spacechelle), former Mission Control and astronaut instructor.

“My nonprofit’s mission is to promote science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) subjects along with leadership through the use of space flight. Mankind’s journey into space serves as an ideal launchpad to excite students of all ages about STEM, leadership, and working to fulfill their dreams and ambitions,” says Ham.

Over the course of a few days in July (including brainstorming with Ham, white papers from Dr. Witzig, and feedback from her Millennial associates), Higher Orbits emerged with its meaningful, distinctive, positive, future-oriented name.

Ideen associates were particularly big on the name’s combination of higher education and space, its conveyance of the mission, and its gravitational pull, as it were — but the name had to appeal to the target audience and their parents, too.

But lest I lead you to believe Ideen had to just come up with something catchy, consider this: There can be several Michaels on your street, but that’s not so with nonprofits. Is the name available? Are there trademark issues? Is the domain name taken? Are there organizations with similar names? Are there organizations with similar missions? How do we condense the mission statement and make it a great tagline?

You can read Ham’s account of her decision and her next steps here on her blog.

Bookmark higherorbits.org and follow Ham on Twitter to watch this rising star.