Online Ambassadors and Digital Nomads

As an NGO, how do you manage your reputation online, draft a winning strategy to get your message out via social media? Why should you claim your space on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, Ning, SecondLife or use mobile technology in your campaign? How did Obama actually manage to turn thousands of supporters into millions of on- and offline ambassadors? And why is it a good idea to start your own blog? These were just a few of the many issues highlighted at the Uthango Social Investments' Annual Workshops for civil society organisations on social media (Online Ambassadors and Digitial Nomads).

 Three workshops took place in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg over the course of November and involved a star speaker cast consisting of Jack Kruger, Head of Digital Old Mutual; Dave Duarte, director of Huddlemind and one of South Africa's top-bloggers; Dorette Steenkamp and Erna Sittig, the wonderfully innovative ladies of Uthango Social Investments and BKB Africa's director Karin Veltman. A mind-blowing and inspiring mix of expertise, fun, good ideas and highly practical exercises on how to create your platform in the digital space, highlight your cause and create support. Carefully selected NGOs from all three cities got the scoop of this first of hopefully many more training events to come. BKB Africa fully supports this important initiative and thanks Old Mutual and Uthango for investing directly and effectively in the South African NGO sector.

Tweets on the workshops are available on Twitter via #zaCSO, the hash tag that was launched during the workshops. #zaCSO is only the first step in a much bigger plan to build an online community of South African NGOs where people can connect to share knowledge, expertise and provide support to one another to alleviate poverty.