The Pew Internet and American Life Project recently published The Demographics of Social Media Users, detailing the demographics of social media users by age, ethnicity, household income, gender, urbanity, and education and platform. It's no longer enough to broadly assume that "everyone is on Facebook, professionals are on Linkedin, and women are on Pinterest." Our thinking about our online audiences, and potential fans, must be more sophisticated. If an organization works with urban youth, then look to Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter. If you want to engage young adults, think beyond Facebook to Twitter, Pinterest and Instragram. If you want to specifically attract African-American stakeholders, do not leave Twitter and Instagram out of the mix.

How can Twitter work for you? Do you need more volunteers? Jersey Cares recruited over 1,000 new volunteers using Twitter in just one month. Last year, Jersey Cares doubled our volunteer participation in MLK Day of Service with the extraordinary work of a few AmeriCorps members. When MLK Day of Service finally arrived, Jersey Cares had a record turnout of over 2,000 volunteers – over 1,000 of which were new volunteers to the organization! In this guest post. Jersey Cares staff Sherry Lynn Fazio and Siobhan Tiernan offer a step-by-step blueprint of how they moved their twitter following from 800 to 1,600 and brough 1,000 new volunteers to their MLK Day of Service 2011.

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.

I cannot think of another organization that better exemplifies the concept of "followership" than Epic Change. They listen, include, incorporate, and respect followers. This year's Epic Thanks is a result of good followership. This Thanksgiving season, as in years past, Epic Change is raising money to support the Shepherds School in Arusha, Tanzania.

What is your organization's primary topic of conversation online? If you don't know the answer to that, you may find that is the crux of the issue with your online strategy. Without knowing and owning the online conversation topic, your organization is doomed to wander aimlessly about in the online desert. To get at this, I often ask this simple question: "What about your industry or issue is so interesting that you want to have a conversation about it?" Taking this simple question a step further, I'll often ask: what topic of conversation is interesting to potential fans, can define your organization, but isn't about the organization itself? Knowing your conversation, then owning it, offers a map through the online desert to real engagement, trust-building, and advocacy. This post includes three examples of nonprofits who really know what their conversations are about, and execute them superbly.

Tweetsgiving 2010 is all about Epic Thanks. It includes some great features: gratitude cards, online evangelists, and community organizing. It's also one of the great online fundraising campaigns of 2010.

The Universal McCann Wave 5 study is out, identifying trends and key data points on internet use by active internet users worldwide. The key takeaways are the socialization of brands, the rise of branded communities, the continued rise of microblogging, and the results of joining a branded online community.

The single most frequent question that I get from nonprofit organizations who want to use Twitter is "how do I get started?" My response is to follow The Twitter Rule: Less Broadcasting, More Conversation. The embedded slide deck includes strategies for using Twitter to create social capital and conversations.

Florence Broder, Social Media Manager for the Jewish Agency for Israel, writes about how the Jewish Agency uses social media, especially Twitter, to successfully and meaningfully connect with stakeholders online.

Why do people participate in Twitter chats? I asked a number of friends and colleagues this question. What came back was pretty consistent: people participate to get information, ideas, contribute to a community, and meet new people. Read more to find out about the components of a successful Twitter chat.