Monthly Archives: August 2009

The Twitter Effect

Posted on by

Mashable published a blog post about new ideas for social media marketers. The last point was to embrace the Twitter Effect. The author highlighted the recent premiere of Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds.”

There’s a nice pie chart of who tweeted what, % of tweets that were positive, etc.

While Twitter is a great gauge of what tech-savvy, Twitter users are saying about a movie, I’m hard-pressed to believe that they represent a giant population of moviegoers. What about the Twitter users who don’t give a crap about the movie and didn’t bother to tweet about it because it either would make the movie a bigger trending topic regardless of opinion? Or they didn’t tweet because it wasn’t important for them.

If anyone has a chart or graphic that shows the reach of Twitter users, I’d love to see it. I think it would be helpful to see if tweets go unread the same way someone has 500 friends on Facebook but only actively communicates with 20 of them.

Grant Foundation Center

Posted on by

I just talked to yet another nonprofit professional, this time from Wyoming, regarding this fraudulent organization. URL: http://www.grantfoundationcenter.com/gfchome.html

I also just sent an email to my former colleagues in the nonprofit world. Please beware of the Grant Foundation Center, supposedly located in New York. They’ve been duping good people out of their hard-earned funds for their nonprofits.

Email below:

I’m sending this message as a heads up. This past spring, I signed up for a free grantwriting workshop by the Grant Foundation Center in NY. URL: http://www.grantfoundationcenter.com/gfchome.html

At the seedy hotel in downtown LA, about 20 of us were standing at the lobby, looking at ourselves. One of us called the Center in NY and was told it was canceled. The man who worked at the hotel lobby was unaware that there was a workshop scheduled too. Fortunately for us, the only charge we paid was for parking.

In the past few months, THREE other nonprofits have called me to ask about my experience with the Grand Foundation Center. The latest was director from Wyoming. I spoke with her this morning and she is working to get all charges on her credit card canceled. She and her coworker had paid for a workshop in CA that also didn’t happen. Apparently the address and phone number that are listed on the website is not even a physical address. It was sold to them by a company that sells street addresses and phone numbers.

As you can see, they seem to be targeting all nonprofit professionals. I ask that you please let your colleagues know about this org so they don’t get blindsided as well.