I read about the P.O.S.T. strategy in Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff's book, Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. That book is directed primarily at businesses, but the P.O.S.T. idea really stood out for its simplicity and applicability to all kinds of organizations, including nonprofits.
P.O.S.T. stands for People, Objectives, Strategies, and Technology, and should be executed in that order. Steve McLaughlin recently wrote a blog post about P.O.S.T. that does a good job of explaining this strategy.
Steve says that, "Social media and social networks are fundamentally a communications and relationship building channel. It's just on such a mass scale and full of plenty of sound, fury, and hype that we momentarily think the normal rules don't apply. They still do."
In addition to using P.O.S.T. to clarify your thinking about how you use social media, Steve suggests that you set up a "listening post," and provides links to some good resources that will get you started.
Even if you are already flailing around in social media, it would be wise to stop and start strategizing by thinking through your P.O.S.T. Read Steve's Creating a Social Networking Strategy (Part 1).
Related Resources:
- Can Small Nonprofits Reap Success With Social Media? Beth Kanter with several good examples.
- How Small Nonprofits Can Leverage Social Media - Armchair Founder offers a four-prong approach to social media for time-crunched nonprofits.
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