Your online bio: How accessible are you?
One of the great (and terrifying) realities of social media has been the way they’ve broken down the wall between inside and outside of an organization. As a result, it feels like information and conversation ebbs and flows more organically between nonprofit leaders, staff, activists, donors, clients, and interested bystanders.
As I watch conversations unfold in places like Twitter, I often find myself thinking about the people behind the obtuse or organizational Twitter handle. Who are they? What’s their role?
In some nonprofits, the way a staff person’s bio is shared really helps clarify their point of view on a topic. It can also help make the inaccessible more accessible (check out @BarackObama or @flotus on Twitter!), and make you feel connected to founders, visionaries, and change-agents worldwide.
But it’s not just about your staff’s personality on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media. The way you share who they are on your website counts too- and can be important to help a donor, client, or peer reach the right person. Our pals over at Nonprofit Hub wrote a nice piece recently called 7 Steps to Compelling Staff Bios on our Nonprofit Website that’s a useful read on this subject: check it out.
My advice? Be transparent about who the real people are behind the organization, and behind the Tweets. Make it easier to connect, and you’ll find the walls that divide us begin to crumble.
