Destiny Technologies specializes in customizing the open-source, open-market content management solution called JOOMLA. This software is available to any developer who wishes to gain experience and expertise with the system. Programmers, designers and developers at Destiny Technologies have been working with JOOMLA almost as long as it has been available to the public. The advantage for our clients is that rather than utilizing a website developed in a proprietary code which ties the client to the owner/developer, our JOOMLA websites are wholly owned by our clients and there are thousands of companies and individuals working on this community.

JOOMLA is a powerful and efficient tool for developing highly interactive websites and online communities because of the ease of use by the average client with only minimal training. There are a wide variety of modular functions for E-commerce, newsletter subscriptions, blogs, response and comments, interaction with outside social media networks and the development of profile development and sharing (Facebook-style) which can be applied and programmed into a custom site.

We have a deep level of experience with both content management utilizing JOOMLA and online communities and consider these our preferences for development.
All these things make Joomla a GREAT OPTION for Non-profit organizations, since you can develop Content Management Communities with lots of features for a very low price.

Here's a new website we just put live this weekend for a non-profit organization in the Sarasota, Florida Area. (Bertha Palmer Alive!)

Many people view online social networking tools, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Myspace as time-draining distractions. But a benefit of Facebook that may not have occurred to you is that Facebook will allow you to aggregate content from around the Web, and easily pull it into one central page, which will help you spread the word about your organization. Facebook also has the benefit of having your installed audience, your network of friends at your fingertips, so you can easily announce new activities, campaigns, and events to your self-selected constituency of like-minded individuals and groups, without having to email a large group of people and risking the effects of a spam filter's black hole.

Facebook can be an essential tool for nonprofit organizing, because it is an efficient way to connect with other organizations and people which might not have known about your organization before. It's also an easy venue to plug into an existing audience that has similar interests. If your nonprofit has video content, podcasts, interviews, or documents just languishing on your desktop, creating a presence on Facebook provides an easy way to upload these types of media, without spending the time or resources required for updating your own Web site.

The way that Facebook interacts with other social media tools, like Twitter, blogs, and Flickr, can provide a simple interface to consistently and easily update your community of supporters with news of your organization's activities.

Best of all, using Facebook is free so the cost is only in how much time you and your staff choose to invest. What's the return on the investment? If not a direct monetary ROI, there will definitely be a marketing return that becomes evident as your network grows. Creating a fan page on Facebook is also a great way to increase your volunteer base and to help your members do the advertising of your organization’s mission for you.

Finally, if you are worried about your personal pictures or information being visible to your nonprofit colleagues, take a word of advice: Nothing on the Internet is private. It is common practice for a hiring manager to search online for prospective employees. You can set up a Facebook fan page and create a network for your organization from there, but you will need to have an account to connect with others. It is more effective to connect with others as a real person than it is as a faceless organization. It's much more effective to become a personality on the Web, no matter the magnitude of your stardom, and let the person'behind the organization make the announcements and grow the network. If you really want something to remain private, don’t post it under your own name on the Web

How Can Your Nonprofit Get Started?

Here are a handful of resources to get you started.

• www.facebook.com
• Facebook for nonprofits
• Nonprofit Organizations Facebook Page

Do you use Facebook for your nonprofit affiliations and networks? Post a comment bellow with the link to your profile and discuss how you use this newly expanded online social networking tool.


Original post: http://blog.techsoup.org/

Draw traffic to your website using Twitter:

Every time you have a new product, a new services, a special or anything that might be useful for your customers you should communicate that to your followers on Twitter. There's a chance they will click on it and go to your site to read more about it and that generates more traffic to your site.

Follow your brand and products on Twitter:

Twitter has become one of the best tools to see what people think about your brand and products, competitors and keywords related to your business. This allows you to reply to any concerns immediately and really know what is what people is saying about these issues.
You can use Twitter Search (http://search.twitter.com) to find your brand on twitter and subscribe thru RSS Feed to get updates of that search.

Use favorites in Twitter as your Testimonials:

Mark all good comments about your company and products in Twitter as Favorites and then use this as a new source of Testimonials. This is done thru the STAR icon on the top-right of every tweet.

Be the expert and leader on your area:

Use twitter to help other people, send tips, recommendations, and valuable links thru Twitter. This will help improve the credibility and image of the brand and company on twitter.

Use Twitter as a customer service tool:

• Reply to all comments about your company and brand:  Designate a person in your company to check search.twitter.com every day and if there are questions or issues about your products reply to them as soon as possible. This will help keep the image of your company and your customers happy thru good customer service.
• Use twitter to let people know your site or blog is under maintenance or down: This will help communicate this to a lot of people very easily and fast.

A few months ago YouTube announced that organizations that are in the YouTube Nonprofit Program would be able to use the overlay advertising feature to create donation links. They call the feature “Call To Action”. While this feature was nice, it was really limiting. In addition to only appearing in a very limited way on the video, it only works on YouTube and not when you embed the video on other sites.

The good news is that now, Nonprofits that are part of the YT Nonprofit Program, will have the ability to create links to an EXTERNAL WEBSITE (not only youtube videos). All they’ll have to do, when creating an annotation, is click the “link” symbol and select “external link”. Then they’ll be able to link to external sites right from the annotation. Better still, these annotations should show up on embedded videos.

If you still aren’t sure what all of this means, it means that nonprofit YouTube videos can have buttons built into the videos that say DONATE NOW or SIGN THE PETITION and these buttons will work—they will link to any site you point them to. You can even go back to all your old videos that are on YouTube and make your logo into a clickable link, add annotations to donate with a link, and otherwise make your video into a center of engagement. This is now, by far, the most important reason to be in the YouTube Nonprofit Program.

People who watch videos on YouTube are very likely to do one thing when they are done…watch another video on YouTube. Not any more. With this new feature, YouTube can become a center for creating effective calls to action and engagement.

If you need more information about the Youtube Nonprofit Program click here to contact us or go to the youtube nonprofit website.

Here's a video we found explaining and showing this featured working:

Original Blog post:  beth.typepad.com