When talking about social media and online communities, people often ask, “How much time should I invest?” From my experience the more time you invest, the more you will get out of your online communities. Personally, on average, I spend approximately 15-20 hours a week contributing to online communities. Most of my time is spent on Twitter.

I was trying to figure out what to write this week. I was reading some social media blogs and nothing jumped out at me. Then I decided to take another route. I wanted to find an environmental nonprofit organization that was doing something unique with Twitter and highlight their project. I started by typing “environment and twitter” into Google.

I think Facebook fan pages are an excellent way to market your organization. The magic of Facebook is that you are setting up a place for people to go to find out more about you.

Google maps is an easy to use tool to use that requires just a little imagination to create amazing maps that will really excite your members. I’m sure that you have used Google maps. You probably use it to create driving directions or map a specific location. I use it to find local businesses; but Google maps is a very powerful tool and has many other practical purposes.

Now that you have learned the basics of Twitter, it’s time to find out how to get even more from your Twitter account. If you have not read my first post title, “Tweet Tweet Twitter Twitter, Become a Good Follower”, please click here to read it.