There's a great post today from Michael Gilbert: Online Social Networks Are Not Mailing Lists.

I love it because a) it's true and b) he ties it to the larger issue, RESPECT. He argues that thinking about how to use social networks as communications channels is disrespectful. It undermines the community your stakeholders want. This line sums it up:

The genuine respect that is the key to success takes this form: First use your resources to build community and only secondarily use community to build your resources.

I talk about this with a lot of nonprofits, and yet I think we still struggle with it here at NTEN. In some cases, we succeed. I think the Office Hours program is a good example of using social technology to build community. I thought our NTC Sprout Widget was a great way to build and show the NTC community.

In other cases, though, we fail. Try as we might, we can't figure out how to help our Facebook group connect more. But we ARE working on it. We understand that you have to respect your community enough to allow them the space to connect freely. My mantra is this:

We expect our stakeholders to trust us with their donations. The least we can do is trust them with our causes.