Idealware and Darim Online, with support from Balance Interactive, have just released a free Nonprofit Social Media Policy Workbook for nonprofits trying to figure out how to get a handle on the personnel side of social media. In this simple yet complete guide, the authors walk through many of the critical social media policy issues with which organizations struggle: the reasons for a policy, applying organizational values to the policy, social media roles, what to say online, social media monitoring strategy, responding to criticism online, responding to other comments online, privacy and permissions, and thinking through copyright and attributions. If you are looking for a starting point for your social media policy, look no further. Read the full blog post for my review of the workbook.

Our social media experiences often boils down to one question: Do you want engagement? On Twitter, it’s going to require a two-way relationship, with communication that addresses questions and comments from your followers. Guest post author Susan Perri sees a lot of self-promotion and lack of common courtesy lately on Twitter. She offers examples of tweeps using Twitter expertly for real engagement, and three simple rules for using Twitter well. Ultimately, it’s quality, not quantity, and the same rules from your childhood playground still apply. Make friends, be nice, take turns, say please and thank you. Oh, yes, and have fun while you’re at it.

Why don't more nonprofits collaborate, online and offline? Social media culture is all about sharing, giving back, and being unselfish. You get more in return. In this post, I offer three examples of nonprofits working in collaboration to expand the potential return. What do you think?

Social media is a public platform, where we utilize the "power of weak ties" to move people to action. How does a weak tie become stronger, more fully engaged? It's when conversations move them from the public conversation places to private conversations. These private conversations are social media's "back yard." That is where the relationships are strengthened and built.

How do you express thanks and appreciation to your social networks? You can "like" a Facebook update, re-tweet a Twitter update, recommend a colleague on Linkedin. But there are so many other ways to say "thank you" as well. This blog post, part of the global Tweetsgiving effort, discusses why/how we create our own gratitude karma on social media. Join in!

How important are bloggers to online social media campaigns? What is the value bloggers bring, and how should campaigns best use bloggers before and during their social media campaigns? In this blog post, I consider how four social media campaigns used blogger influence during the campaign, and the degrees of effectiveness: a micro finance campaign for Opportunity International, Visible Government's Beers for Canada, and Tweetsgiving 2008 and 2009.

To create meaningful conversation and engagement, it is critical to understand the social media etiquette. The Etiquette Roundup includes 27 links to appropriate etiquette on LinkedIn, Twitter, Blogs, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, social bookmarking sites, Bebo, and in podcast culture.

Lessons learned and great examples of shared learning and letting others take the credit.