By now, you’re probably convinced that it’s a good idea to encourage constituents to follow your organization on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.  You’ve also heard that it’s important to generate content that your audience will want to engage with and to share with others.  You (hopefully) have a constituent relationship management (CRM) database where you maintain information about your supporters, which you then use to target your communications.

What is there’s a better way to use these systems together?  At a webinar yesterday given by Common Knowledge, Small Act founder Casey Golden discussed how some of his clients are doing just that – integrating social media data into CRM to build a more complete profile of constituents.  Clearly, supporters who are more ‘social’ are also more likely to spread the word about your cause and to promote your fundraising campaigns.

Especially if you’re planning to implement a new CRM, ask how social data can be tracked within.  My take – this will eventually be as common as including a constituent’s email address, physical address and phone number. Including social data will provide you with an entirely new way to segment your audience so you can communicate differently with your ‘social’ supporters.

P.S. With help of a great WordPress essential training course at Lynda.com, I’ve made several cosmetic improvements to my website this week – let me know what you think.