I had the opportunity to discuss social-media strategies this morning with nonprofit executives attending Catholic Charities USA's Centennial Gathering in Washington.

On a national scale, Catholic Charities is huge—it ranked No. 13 on The Chronicle's most recent Philanthropy 400 survey, which lists the nation's largest charities based on their fund-raising totals. But Catholic Charities is made up of thousands of small, local organizations that are often stretched to their limits in terms of budget and manpower.

Most of the people in the room for today's discussion manage local organizations that fit that description—and they are struggling to find the time to build effective social-media networks while delivering services to their clients, raising money, and managing their offices.

At one point during the conversation, the question arose of who should manage the Facebook pages and...

Facebook recently added a new feature that allows users to take advantage of location-based postings.

To find out how nonprofit groups can benefit from this new feature, The Chronicle asked John Haydon, the founder of Inbound Zombie, a company that specializes in social-media marketing for nonprofit groups, to offer some suggestions.

Here's his guest post on the topic: 

You're probably aware that Facebook released a location-based tagging feature a couple of weeks ago called "Places" that works similarly to FourSquare or Gowalla. The basic idea is that Facebook users can share when and where they hang out with their Facebook friends (and sometimes the universe). And if you've kept up on what's new with location-based marketing, you've read about the companies that have emerged in response to our need to "check in."

So great—corporate brands are benefiting from the emphasis on...

How does your organization measure the value of its social-media efforts?

For many nonprofit groups, those measurements start and end with some basic numbers. They count the numbers of Facebook fans or Twitter followers and call it a day.

But to truly gauge the effectiveness of their social-media efforts, nonprofit groups need to dig much deeper and measure more significant data, according to Allison Fine, in her latest Social Good podcast.

In this new episode, Ms. Fine interviews KD Paine, chief executive officer of KD Paine & Partners, in New Hampshire, a consulting company that helps nonprofit groups and businesses create measurement and accountability systems.

Ms. Paine offers some excellent tips for those who are looking to get meaningful information about their social-media efforts.

Nonprofit leaders often assume that they are reaching out to supporters in their 20s and 30s when they use tools such as Twitter and Facebook.

But a new study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that more and more older adults are also using those tools.

According to the report, use of social networks among people older than 50 went from 22 percent to 42 percent from April 2009 and May 2010. (The figures include only people who use the Internet.)

The jump was particularly big among those older than 65.

“Young adults continue to be the heaviest users of social media, but their growth pales in comparison with recent gains made by older users,” says Mary Madden, the report's author. “E-mail is still the primary way that older users maintain contact with friends, families, and colleagues, but many older users now rely on social-network platforms to help manage their daily...

Google Wave was hailed by many as a revolutionary new way to share information online when it was released in 2009.

In fact, invitations to test the product were considered online currency.

But Google Wave didn't quite catch on—it was seen as too complicated by many people.

Now, many outlets are reporting that Google is pulling the plug on Wave.

The announcement will be greeted by many with a shrug.

But some organizations have been using the tool to share information and connect with supporters.

We're curious to hear whether your nonprofit group has been using Google Wave. If you have, please feel free to share your story in the comments section—and explain how you plan to deal with the news of its demise.

The American Museum of Natural History, in New York, offers a great example of how museums and other cultural institutions can use the iPhone and other smart-phone devices to help patrons navigate collections and learn about exhibits.

Its new iPhone application, AMNH Explorer, gives visitors access to customized tours of the museum and provides turn-by-turn directions to specific points of interest and to restrooms. For visitors who don't have iPhones, the museum lends them for free.

You can learn more about the application by watching the preview video above.

The social-media Web site Mashable notes that other museums—notably the Brooklyn Museum, in New York, and the Graphic Design Museum, in the Netherlands—have iPhone apps. But it praises the American Museum of Natural History's for the depth of its application.

"This is by far the most robust we've seen," writes...

Facebook pages and LinkedIn groups offer some great tools for nonprofit groups that want to encourage discussions about their causes.

An environmental charity, for example, can create a Facebook page to point to news about the latest research, to start discussions about their work, and to create connections for people who are interested in finding others who care about conservation.

Unfortunately, these mini-networks can quickly devolve into grab bags of unrelated information and spam.

Not everyone who signs up to participate on a Facebook page or LinkedIn group joins for the same reason. Some people join to promote their own agendas, to advertise their own products or services, or simply to be trolls.

If you truly want to keep your group on target and to keep your members engaged, it's important to take steps to keep out the people who aren't interested in substantive discussions.

...

We recently explored what nonprofit groups can learn from the much -acclaimed social-media marketing effort by the men's deodorant Old Spice.

What we didn't explore as a suggestion—spoofing the campaign.

That's exactly what Brigham Young University did to persuade students to use the library.

The video above features Stephen Jones, a Brigham Young student, borrowing heavily from Old Spice's actor, Isaiah Mustafa.

It has been viewed more than 1.3 million times on YouTube.

Have you seen other adaptations? Share them with us in the comments section.

You wouldn't expect a generations-old product commonly associated with your grandfather to rule the Internet. But that's exactly what happened last week when Old Spice men's deodorant became the talk of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube with an inventive (and funny) campaign featuring a previously unknown actor with amazing abs and enough stamina to spend nearly two days cranking out videos wearing nothing but a towel.

Old Spice's campaign featured the actor Isaiah Mustafa responding by video to questions posted by its followers on Twitter and in other social networks.

Mr. Mustafa's video responses became viral hits. The video, above, has been viewed nearly 3 million times on YouTube.

And the creative approach earned online mentions from stars such as Ellen DeGeneres, Demi Moore, George Stephanopoulos, and Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg.

What can charities learn from this...

The following is a guest post submitted by John Karr, digital-media director for the Asia Foundation in San Francisco.

It describes an effective campaign his organization recently completed for its Books for Asia program.

It also includes a video that was created as part of the effort. Mr. Karr's post follows:

Has your charity experimented with Facebook as a source of donor-driven philanthropy? Were the results positive and the return on investment worth the effort?

If so, then you’re among a fortunate minority. Despite anecdotal evidence to the contrary, recent research suggests that social-media fund-raising campaigns bring only a small return on investment, if any at all.

A 2009 survey by the Non-Profit Technology Network, Common Knowledge, and The Port found that 61.1 percent of respondents reported no results for fundraising through social networks, and 37...