darim online

As participants in the Jewish Day School Social Media Academy, we have faced many exciting challenges this year.  Getting our social media presence up and running was the first hurdle – daily posts, monitoring the likes, the reach, the insights overall – it has been a whole new world of lingo.

Originally posted on Clips and Phrases.

Well, not Facebook per se, but the fantastic, smart, and savvy folks on it. In short, I was preparing for a panel on social media marketing and put the following question out to my peeps:

"What's one thing you think is critical for (Jewish, nonprofit) social media marketers to know, do, or avoid?"

And here are the answers I got, divided into handy-dandy categories for your reading pleasure.

It’s Social Media, So…Be Social:

The 20 schools in the Jewish Day School Social Media Academy have been working on social media and social fundraising projects this year.  This post is part of a series of posts by the participating schools as they share their work, design and learnings.

The Charlotte Jewish Day School is now in our 13th year as a community day school and we are going to celebrate in a very 21st century way.

I don’t know anyone who watches television shows when they are actually broadcast. Most people I know rely on their TiVo/DVR. Even those who claim not to own a television watch shows on Netflix, or Hulu, or some more nefarious mode.

All of us in Jewish life are wondering how to reach the unengaged--and particularly young adults. At NEXT: A Division of Birthright Israel Foundation, we work with both mainstream and grassroots organizations, including many synagogues, to help them find new ways to connect with Birthright Israel alumni and their friends. While I do this work professionally, I’m also part of the demographic we’re trying to reach. Here, I’m offering eleven ways that synagogues can connect to the unengaged:

What is a synagogue? A congregation? A community?

We are more than a nonprofit organization, or a local center, or a collection of people who share certain practices or get together for holidays. It feels significant to me that words like “congregation” and “community” are grammatically singular but inherently refer to a multiplicity. The duality of meaning here is so critical for how we lead, congregate, and self-identify.

When I was a kid, I would listen to my mom talk on the phone with prospective members.  She would answer all of their questions about our synagogue treating everyone kindly and taking the time to get to know them.  The countless hours she spent at the kitchen table were well worth the time and effort because families felt a personal connection to our community.