At the end of March 2012 I went to a networking meeting of the Late Breakfast in Oxfordshire. We were treated to a brilliant talk by the guys at Special Effect, a charity that helps people to communicate through use of computers. They use Social Media very successfully and I was so inspired, I thought I would share some of what I picked up from them and encourage you to get in touch with them.

Special Effect use Social Media for a number of activities:

• Recruiting volunteers
• Getting advice from business people and experts
• Recruiting fundraisers
• Responding to urgent requests ? from fundraisers and the people they support
• Credibility ? being talked about by journalists (and people blogging about them!!)
• Learning more about their audiences and what they need from them
• Engaging with the local community
• Increasing their website traffic ? one third of their traffic currently comes via Social Media.

How do they do all this? They make their Social Media personal, without just chasing the numbers. They respond to people who ask questions and make comments. One thing they?ve done which I think is a brilliant idea was to use Twitter to promote eBay bidding of signed football shirts. They raised £6000 for the charity that way!

How long does it all take? Nick at Special Effect spends just 30-45 minutes a day ?doing? Social Media. This proves that done properly, it doesn?t have to take up all your time.

Want to know more? Find them @SpecialEffect and see how Nick and the team use Social Media. Then follow them, get involved, talk about them and help them do more of their fantastic work!