As many of you know, I use social media when I attend conferences. I tweet, re-tweet and blog about my experience, share information, link to handouts etc. I also interview many a nonprofit representatives on my radio program, Making a Difference radio, and through Cinchcasts at conferences.

I always ask if their nonprofit is on Twitter or Facebook, so I can link the post back to their social media stream. Most of the time, the person I am speaking to knows their nonprofit organization has social media presence, but has no idea what the handles or URLs are.

This is a problem. If your nonprofit staff (internal audience) doesn’t know how to connect via social media, how will they communicate effectively with your external audiences? And worse, when they are asked by anyone how to connect to your nonprofit using social media, they have no idea. Start your social media program with your internal audience. Or if you are already engaged in social media, make sure your internal staff know and understand the program. EVERYONE at a nonprofit organization should know how to connect on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, blog locations.

Thanks to Mitch Joel and his Six Pixels of Separation blog! He penned a great post on how to get your organization understanding, working and using social media and digital marketing. It is a great read and he offers real, useable tools you can implement NOW to get everyone on board. Be sure to read his post Digital Marketing Inside Out.