Social Networking: A Guide to Strengthening Civil Society through Social Media (#SMGuide4CSO) offers a high level overview of best practices used in social media for advocacy. Realizing the ever-changing landscape of social media, we have tried to avoid focusing on details associated with individual social platforms, as there are many and keeping track of them is almost impossible. Instead, we offer NGOs a solution on how to approach social media as a whole, no matter the platform, and how to reach their intended programmatic goals using the medium.

Highlights

• The guide offers an overview of the major global platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google Plus; with tips on how NGOs can best use these platforms to reach their advocacy goals. (Pages 14-18)
• Realizing its global scope, the guide has a section highlighting social platforms that are popular regionally where USAID has missions. (Pages 19-20)
• The guide offers an introduction on how to use analytics to measure the impact of social media in programming, plus an overview of what key performance indicators to analyze. (Pages 43-51)
• We have dedicated an entire chapter to potential security and privacy risks that may come up as NGOs adopt social media. (Pages 53-55)
• The guide has close to 90 terms, and in the Flipbook version of the guide, users can link back and forth from the term to the page it’s referenced on. (Pages 57-61)
• The guide has a comprehensive list of online tools and resources which can help NGOs effectively use social media and stay engaged with the social good community around the world. (Pages 62-66)
• Six case studies at the back of the guide highlight different tools used by NGOs to achieve a particular goal. The case studies are also referenced throughout the guide, when applicable. (Pages 70-81)
• Finally, you will notice throughout this guide highlighted sections and links which feature helpful tips and tools for users seeking even more information about a certain topic.