Image: Filomena Scalise / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

There is a lot of buzz today about a report that was released by The Foundation Center discussing that foundation leaders are not regularly using Social Media. 

They examined a sample of foundation leaders use of Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, or reading blogs. Personally, I was mostly interested in how many of them are reading blogs. Of the 13 blogs mentioned in the survey, about one-thirdof the respondents (33 percent) said they had not looked at any in the past six months. Another third (32 percent) had looked at one or two, and 35 percent had looked at three or more.  Now if mine had made it on the list, I am certain it would have skewed these numbers.

 A community foundation president may have spoken for many when she said, “I am personally inept and disconnected, but I see its value.”  I think she nailed it in that quote.  I used to feel the same way.  In fact, it was only recently that I began learning about all of this stuff,  and it was a painstaking process. 

I think the reason more leaders of foundations and nonprofits are not as “connected” is because social media involves a language they are not familiar with and don’t have time to learn. If you have been following me for awhile you may remember I touched on this subject once before.

For example, tell me if you know the answers to these questions:

Who governs the internet?

What is the difference between a blog and a website?

What does RSS mean?

What is SEO?

If I like your blog do I just add it to my favorites toolbar?

How do I subscribe to a blog?

These may seem like very simple questions, but there are a lot of folks of my generation and older who don’t know the answers.  In the report, Karen McNeil-Miller, president of the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, notes that “the end has yet to be written on the social networking chapter in philanthropy. I imagine a generation of foundation leadership (myself included, even as one of the relatively younger CEOs) will have to go away before it is embraced and tested fully.”

I don’t think we have to wait that long – and that will be a long time, especially now that folks are not in a financial position to retire.

HERE IS THE SOLUTION – send everyone in your address book my age or older (psst…I’m 42, for real!) a link to this post because I am going to reveal some very useful information that can help you to feel a bit more comfortable with blogs.

The main difference between a blog and a website is the interface. A blog’s content is updated frequently – well, if you’re a good blogger.  A website’s content only gets refreshed occasionally. A blog is meant to be more interactive.

There are blogs on every topic you can imagine.  There are professional niche blogs, like this one and personal blogs.

RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication. You usually see on blog sites the opportunity to subscribe by RSS or XML or saying Syndicate this site.  It is a quick way to have any new post delivered to you as it occurs so that you do not have to manually check back to see if there is anything new.

The RSS newsfeed reader is the program used to track and compile all the headlines, excerpts and links to the sites that you have subscribed to, allowing you to scan the headlines quickly, and then go to the full article, if you want.  There are a lot of different programs you can use.  Some hate google reader, but I like it.

You can also subscribe by email to many blogs.  For example in my blog, on the bottom right hand side you will see that you can subscribe by email.  I use a program called Feedburner and it automatically generates an email to you of my most recent post.  Personally, I find this to be the easiest way of keeping up with the blogs I care most about.  If you subscribe to blogs through an RSS reader, you have to make sure your reader program is open and check it to see what is new.  You also have to have your email program open to see if you have a new email update but most people these days have their email programs open all the time.

That is really all you need to know about blogs.  Now go to Alltop, think of it as a magazine rack for blogs, and choose a category you are interested in and start clicking on blog links and find what you like.  Once you start scanning different blogs you will get a better sense of what it is all about and how some of them are really useful.  When you find those useful ones, subscribe by email or rss feed.  You will be glad you did.

Wait, first, subscribe to this blog if you haven’t already.  Your free subscription gives me the encouragement I need to keep writing, and gives you some great information concerning the third sector.

I will blog about my new experience on Twitter in a separate post –boy, does that one require a learning curve.