In the last week, I attended both the NTEN Nonprofit Technology Conference and the AFP 2010 Conference. One problem that I saw in many social media sessions at both – and a problem that I see far too often at social media conferences, seminars, and How To sessions – is that speakers and panelists rarely provide tangible How To advice to people struggling to get started. They tell you you should do something, “Start up a Facebook Fan Page and start posting content interesting to your fans,” but regardless of how hard they are pushed, they rarely can say how to go about figuring out what content your fans find interesting or maybe even how to gain new fans.

What attendees often need to hear is “Try Tool X” or “Read book Y,” so below, I will try to provide a little of that.

Common questions:
#1 “What do I do if I post something on Twitter, Facebook, etc and don’t get a response?”

• All too frequently, the speaker’s response is, “Ask your constituency what they want to see,” which leads us to the next question.

#2 “I asked them what they wanted to see and no one responded. What do I do now?”

• Again, the normal response is, “People are in social media because they want to talk to you. They want to interact.” Does that sound like a fluff answer? If not, look at the 90-9-1 rule that essentially says that 90% of people online lurk, 9% participate, and 1% are highly active or are creating content. Anecdotally, social media participants do wish to be slightly more engaged than the average web user…only slightly however. This being the case, the answer to this should be, “If your constituency does not respond, you have to go out, find where they are active, and use that information to guide changes to your content.” This leads to a third question, one that does not often come up in these How To sessions, but clearly should.

#3 “How do I find where my constituency is online and what they are saying?”

• The answer should always clearly and emphatically be “Use listening monitoring tools and spend time searching” and then accompanied by a list of what tools a beginner can use. Below, I have a short list of some tools of this type that you can use for free.

Everyone can use the Why of social media now and then, but beginners especially need the How. If you cannot answer the How questions with substantial responses, you need to rethink your presentation. As an attendee, if your speaker cannot answer your How questions, you should not stand for it. The time and money you spent on the conference would be better spent reading or watching tutorials like those on this blog.

As promised in my presentation with Todd Baker this last Saturday at AFP 2010, here is a list of free social media tools to help in finding content, monitoring trends, and listening to what the web says about you and your competitors:

1. Google Alerts is a comprehensive monitoring tool. It monitors nearly every corner of the web. Set up alerts and easily target keywords/phrases that are important to your organization and receive streaming or batched reports. Free.
2. Alltop is a news aggregation service that scans news sites, blogs, and forums making it a one-stop site for every online post relevant to your area of interest. It is customizable to your specific needs and also includes historical searching tools. Free.
3. ScoutLabs is a listening and monitoring service with a 30-day free trial offer. Volume, location, and sentiment scoring are included. Licensing fees apply.
4. TweetDeck & Seesmic are desktop apps that combine Twitter and Facebook monitoring with search for a multi-faceted social application that also allows you to publish to those channels. Free.
5. Twendz is a Twitter monitoring and measurement tool that provides a look into recent tweet volume, sentiment, and hot topics. Word clouds and sentiment estimates are auto-generated for your queries. Free.
6. Trendrr lets you set up dashboards to find conversations about any relevant topics trending in the “social” web. Free.
7. Hubspot’s Grader gives scores and metrics for Twitter, Facebook, and blogs to help marketing and customer engagement efforts. Free.
8. CoTweet & HootSuite are tools for sharing & monitoring marketing messages. The applications offer Twitter account management, sharing, and publishing tools for brand accounts that utilize multiple contributors. Free.
9. TubeMogul syndicates your video content to 20+ video sites (YouTube, Vimeo, etc) and helps track views, comments, embeds, etc. Free.
10. WordPress & Blogger are blog content publishing tools that are highly customizable and include the flexibility to pull in dynamic content relevant to your organization and message. Free.

If I have forgotten any tools, please let me know what you feel works the best. As well, if you have questions about free social media tools, ask away.

Tags: 10NTC, AFP, afpmeet, free social media tools, listening and monitoring, NTEN