Named one of the most influential women in technology by Fast Company and one of BusinessWeek's "Voices of Innovation for Social Media," Beth Kanter is an international expert in maximising social media for nonprofits. 

She recently visited New Zealand last May to host two workshops in Auckland, geared towards nonprofits that are either newcomers or established in social media. These workshops were based on her two books, "The Networked Nonprofit" and "Measuring the Networked Nonprofit". 

In both workshops, participants learned how to map their networks, develop a robust social media strategy, learned best practices in social media engagement, brand monitoring and content strategy. 

The first workshop was held on 11 May at the Makaurau Marae in Mangere, South Auckland, where the focus was on teaching participants how to effectively measure and analyse their social media strategies. 

The second workshop was held on 13 May at the Fickling Centre in Three Kings, Auckland, with a more introductory slant for nonprofits that are just beginning to experience social media.  

TechSoup New Zealand was there at the second workshop. 

The room was abuzz with people eager to tap into Beth's prodigious knowledge and experience with social media, heralded as a one-off opportunity to listen and share with one of the world's foremost social media proponents. 

We explored the continuum of ‘crawl', ‘walk', ‘run' and ‘fly' and cast our place on that continuum with then a view to going away that day to achieve the next level as a priority. Most were crawling, some walking, but that was about it. 

They key was to become networked, be smart, use measurement and create the change we're all aspiring to, but now through social media as well. 

TechSoup was able to confirm its role in supporting Beth's workshop through Connecting Up Inc. We took the opportunity to speak to the audience with significant interest being showed in what TechSoup has to offer, with many still unaware of it and eager to know more to save valuable dollars.  Even Beth herself underlined the value of the service to nonprofits globally. 

Both workshops were co-hosted by Common Knowledge and Mangere East Family Service Centre, with support The Tindall Foundation, and hosted by co-trainer Stephen Blyth from Common Knowledge. 

There were several notable gems from the workshops, one of which was participants being taught how to do network maps. These maps illustrate their online & offline relationships and how these factor in on their social media strategy. Colourful, hand-drawn network maps became visual overviews of the participants' existing networks, making it easier for them to think on how to develop these relationships further. You can view photos of these dynamic network maps from organisations such as Oxfam NZ, Auckland Action Against Poverty and more here. 

Other valuable insights from the workshops included the current reality of brands becoming more human (commercial and nonprofit alike), the dynamics of offline relationships translating to online and vice versa, how to effectively engage the right audience, do's and don'ts of posting links, posts from an organisation's leaders having a 1000 times more impact than regular staff posts, focusing on measurement and analytics, and the "Crawl, Walk, Run, Fly" Framework. 

Jade Tang, co-director of Curative was one of the participants. Running a design and communications agency for nonprofits and social enterprise, Jade found Beth's insights illuminating. "I am an avid user of social media channels for both personal and professional worlds. Beth is just as generous and kind with her social media knowledge, expertise and experience offline in person, as she is online in the digital world."

For more on Beth Kanter, please visit her blog http://www.bethkanter.org/netnon-nz/ 

The slides from Beth's workshops can be found here: 

And online feedback on Beth's workshops can be found here:

http://storify.com/kanter/new-zealand-networked-nonprofit-workshops

Twitter hashtag: #Kanter_NZ