The crew over at the Hatcher Group selected my Facebook isn’t for kids post for the recent issue of the Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants - a bimonthly compendium of articles on a variety of topics, each issue hosted by a guest blogger (I had the opportunity to produce the October 1 issue when I chose to ask the question, what does it take to be a great leader?).

Take a peek - while the article was written with a nonprofit audience in mind, many of the same rules apply for other organizations. Social media is here to stay and it is changing the face of communications and marketing.

If you want to see how quickly a comment gets around the world, check out the exchange between international chairperson of the International Association of Business Communicators Barb Gibson and bloggers when she questioned blogging for pay as a marketing strategy.

Many organizations plan state of the organization presentations for the early part of the year. These are a great opportunity to share high level information with all-staff audiences — but don’t overlook that the greatest value is in the dialogue, and the follow up.

Especially in the current economic environment, we need to unbutton the formality and actively seek out conversation, input, and sharing. This is usually the opposite of what most executives expect, and are comfortable with.

More tips on this topic:

• From Melcrum, How Not to Conduct a Town Hall Meeting
• My November enews - Communicating in Hard Times (you might also want to read September and October 2007 articles in the newsletter archive)

When it comes to social media, there seems to be two distinct camps: those who embrace it, and those who dismiss it entirely.  For those of you who fall into the category that think it’s a time waster,  and for college kids and teens, here are some facts that might get your attention.

• Facebook is the 4th most trafficked website in the world
• It is the largest photo sharing platform in the world
• Facebook has 125 million users now and is predicted to reach 500 million by 2011
• The average age of Facebook users is 35 yrs old, and the demographic is mature, university educated people with higher income.

Another little known fact: you can collect email addresses from Facebook friends, as you would on your own organization’s web page. Simply install the application called Profile HTML and then paste the optin code from your website into your Facebook page.

You could use this for a promotion, for an alumni or employee club or association, or to offer information about your organization to potential customers or staff.