Facebook has a revamped their Groups feature. In an attempt to address one of the most common feature requests, Facebook is giving users the ability to publish content, share and communicate with only a group of friends rather than all your friends. This seems like a natural enhancement for Facebook, but it’s also easy to speculate that this move is a reaction to the continued onslaught of criticism that Facebook has serious privacy concerns. Either way, it’s a pretty cool feature and I think it will get used by many people. Friends will create groups, families will create groups and teams will create groups. But will organizations create groups?

How do Organizations Centralize Communications with Facebook?

Sure my small group at church could go and create a group on Facebook. And then I could create a group for my soccer team and one for my family. And while that makes my life easier what about my church? Does that improve communication for the church on a whole? What about the school that’s trying to get all their teachers to use the same tool? Sure there’s half a billion people on Facebook, but there are still those that choose not to participate, mainly due to privacy concerns (and rightly so) and what happens when that one teacher won’t join? Is Facebook private enough for that person to change their mind and join Facebook so that they create a group for their classroom?

One of the biggest problems that private group communication tools solve is the challenge of ensuring that members, volunteers and people know how to reach their group, where to get the latest information and where the communication channels are. For an organization that has privacy as an utmost concern, using Facebook to centralize communication with and among members seems like a daunting task.

How do Organizations Manage Multiple Groups?

Imagine you’re responsible for communication at a nonprofit and you need to create an announcement to get to 3 out of 15 committees. How do you do that now? Maybe you run some query from an Access database, export some email addresses (that are outdated and will likely bounce) and send an email to all 30 of the members on these 3 committees. Okay, so maybe you have some sophisticated group communication software that will allow you simply create an message and send it to a select set of groups. Cool. But instead, what if those committees each have group on Facebook?

You’d have to go into each group, and post a message, assuming that you’re a member of the group…because you started the group for them, right…the group on Facebook. Do you catch my drift? As an administrator, can you mange multiple groups in Facebook, move people around in groups and make sure that your members are plugged in correctly? Can you look at one of your members, see what groups they’re in and then make sure they’re engaged?

How Effective Will Groups be For Planning?

One of the biggest benefits to MemberHub, particularly for small to medium size organizations, is that you’ll get membership management combined with communication tools. Having one tool where the administrators can manage membership information and communication effectively is a time saver and a must have if your organization’s mission will be accomplished. It’s about getting organized and taking care of the business of being a member. It’s not about social networking and spending lot’s of time on the internet.

Example: How many unviewed RSVP’s do you have in Facebook right now? Go look. I bet at least 5 are sitting there. And you know why…because one of them is likely from someone from high school that you decided to be friends with, that you barely remember, and is now having a pumpkin decorating contest at her neighbor’s house and she wants you to come. You’re thinking…”that’s weird, kinda creepy maybe.” Now imagine getting another RSVP from a board meeting that’s taking place next week to decide on next year’s budget (because they’re using a Facebook Group). What are the chances that this invite will get lost in the tsunami of information that’s being fed to you by Facebook? This is obviously just an example but you get the point.

How Will You Use Groups?

Facebook is asking people “How will you use groups?”. That’s perfect right, cause Facebook is all about you…your profile, your friends, your network, your social graph. It’s a social networking tool! It’s not an organizational planning and private group communications tool.

So I’m asking, how will your organization use Facebook groups? Will it? If so, how? If not, why?

When you adopt a tool like MemberHub as your organization’s primary communication tool you’re essentially telling your members that “this is how we communicate”.  Opening up two-way communication channels and putting your members in touch with each other will result in more informed, more engaged members. This means you get less phone calls and potentially save money on extra staff needed to ensure proper communication is taking place. But “will my members use it”, you ask.

Your members hang out on Facebook all day. You’re likely NOT going to get them to hang out in some other social networking application or communication tool. But that doesn’t mean that you should be using Facebook as your communication tool. And it also doesn’t mean that you need a really cool social tool to enhance communication.

A successful implementation of MemberHub means your members are connected, know how to reach other members, and can take care of the business of being a member (like signing up for an event). There’s no concept of “friends”. It’s not about logging on creating unbelievable online community. Online community doesn’t just happen. Even if you have the best tool in the world, online community only happens will it’s fostered and cultivated by people.

It’s about taking care of the business of being a member so that you can leave time for REAL community when members do gather together; rather than worrying about logistics and planning.

So when you’re considering your communication software needs don’t worry so much about getting members to hang out in the tool all day. Just make sure that you’re using it. Make sure that members know how to reach their group. Make sure that they know where to get the latest information. Make sure that communication can take place. Do these things and you will enhance communication in your organization.

Last week I put up a post on why nonprofit strategies often fail. The message wasn’t ground-breaking or all that entirely original. It was designed to get you asking yourself a lot of questions. My passion for great communication was refueled this morning when John Saddington challenged technology people to put communication first, technology second.

We’ve had a quite a few posts here about “communication”, but they don’t get as much attention as other posts. Why is that?

Why is it that year after year, nonprofit members list “communication” as the number one area that organizations need improvement. Why is it that something so obvious constantly goes overlooked?  Why do your members constantly tell you that “they didn’t know that” or “that wasn’t in the newsletter” or “nobody told me that”?

My challenge here is this: You’ve got talk to your members/employees/constituents. Get a discussion going. Get their feedback. Make them understand what you’re seeing. Work together. Collaborate. THAT’S what social media is all about. It opens up the channel for people to speak about something so that other people can understand it. It’s less about what tools you use and more about making sure that communication is taking plan.

Even with the myriad of social networking tools available, members still feel in the dark? Why?

I’m not quite special enough to have a one-word post, so I’ll elaborate a little bit. I am 100% certain that if the people in your organization do not learn how to effectively communicate, then your strategy will fail. So what does this mean? Here are few questions you can ask yourself.

Are you communicating to your members?

Do your members know your organization’s mission? Your purpose? If you have a mission statement, can they repeat it? Are you sharing your plans and strategies? What about your thoughts? You have so many people in your community and you’ll need them to pull off your strategy. Talk to them, make sure you’re painting a clear picture for your members. There are a vast number of tools to use for this (follow up post).

Do your members have an easy way to communicate with each other?

You have this big community…members, constituents, followers. Whatever they are if they’re gonna help they need to talk too. Are they communicating and sharing ideas? Do they even know how to reach each other?

Are you encouraging your team and your members to actually speak?

This piggy backs off the last one, but  as the leader of your organization you need to encourage your ministries, committee’s teams and groups to communicate with each other. You need to empower them to make a difference. What are their impediments? Remove them.

What else have I missed? Please leave a comment. I know you have something to share.

I recently read the following:

“America is the queen of trash. Every day in the U.S., we produce enough trash to equal the weight of the Empire State Building. We throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour, produce enough styrofoam cups annually to circle the earth 436 times and trash enough office paper to build a 12-foot wall from Los Angeles to New York City.”

This is just one of the many startling facts that is prompting churches, nonprofits and associations to actively “go green”. Online collaboration software can help your organization reverse these statistics.  Here are 5 things your organization can do with online technology to start your “greening” process:

• Online File Sharing – reduce the amount of paper used for newsletters, copies,  handbooks and other important documents.  Also, quickly get new members up and running with all necessary documents stored in files.

• Online Discussions – reduce the amount of gas and travel time (and styrofoam coffee cups) it takes to attend meetings and collaborate on topics and instead use efficient online discussions with mailing list software for example.

• Simple Sign-ups – reduce the amount of paper (time and confusion) when using online tools for simple sign-ups.  MemberHub has a Whiteboards feature that can help for upcoming holiday parties, volunteer sign ups, upcoming events, etc.

• Quick Announcements – send out announcements via text message and/or email to members to reduce the amount of paper made for flyers, newsletters, postage, etc.  Also, send messages for last minute reminders, room changes, cancellations to reduce unnecessary drive time and/or gas!

• Photo Album Sharing – reduce the number of photos by sharing pictures online.  Print only the ones you want to keep in an album.

You can find other startling statistics here as well as check out National Geographic’s Green Tips.

So what is your organization doing to go GREEN?