Intergrating Convio into Facebook??

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Hi,

I was wondering if anyone had information on how can our organization intergrate Convio e-mails and campaigns into facebook??

any help would be helpful.

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  • Rachard, that's sort of a big question. If you've already gone through the exercise I'm about to launch into, then, just ignore all this and look up the Convio Facebook Connect documentation -- it's linked to here on the community somewhere and certianly support can point you in the right direction 

    What are you objectives in doing so?  There are many ways to "integrate Convio into Facebook" but some take a good deal more work than others.  Also, "integrating" e-mails and web pages into Facebook is really two seperate things and, again, the answer might be different depending on what you're really trying to accomplish.

    Some questions for thought:

    1. Are you trying to provide additional ways for people to share your content in social media?
    2. Are you looking to build your own community within Facebook?
    3. Do you already have a presence on Facebook?  What scope?
    4. Are you thinking about some sort of SSO with Facebook Connect?  Why?
    5. How are you using Facebook currently with regards to your web and e-mail campaigns?
    6. Are you looking at other social networking sites as well as Facebook (Twitter, MySpace, Change.org, care2, etc)
    7. What is the overall goal for your online presence?  Is it fundraising, advocacy, general cultivation, volunteerism, something else?
    8. How do you see the use of social networking and social media fitting into this?  Do you see it playing a central, critical role to achieving this primary goal? How so?

    I've see and talk to lots of people who want to "use Facebook" but the more I talk to them, the more I realize they really don't know why they want that -- they just keep hearing about it and figure they'd better get on the bandwagon.  The problem is, if you can't at least answer all those questions above, then you're never going to see any particular success in the social media space.  Probably the most important place to start is #7.  What's the point of online anyway to your organization.  If it's Fundraising then Scrreeeeeechhh Stop!  You need to think hard because, unless you're a fairly small organization (where, A) donations are more important than donors -- if you don't understand what that means, I'd love to explain it! and B) $5,000 a month -- if you're lucky -- would be a big number) or unless you have a relatively large team (say...  4 or 5 dedicated people, maybe more) to throw at social engagement, you're probably not going to see an significant ROI in terms of direct fundraising, so if you have a budget line item with a target.... better set that target LOW.

    If your overall goal isn't fundraising, or if you aren't going to attach any fundraising ROI to social engagement work (however that works out for you internally), then your landscape is a bit prettier -- Advocacy is where its at in social spaces, and if you're a more cause-based org (like, say, Diabetes or Cancer, or whatever), then you'll have a much easier time than more esoteric orgs (like mine... what IS international developement anyway?  I mean, what does that even mean?  Oh well, hey, I wonder what sort of stuffed animal I am!?  -- er, a little facebook humor there, ha ha ha....)

    Sorry -- long story short -- the technology is the easy part.  Your success in making good use of social spaces lies completely in the strategy, then secondarily, in your organizations willingness to devote resources to that strategy (same as any initiative).  If you start with the technology and try to formulate your strategy around that, you'll end up with something that isn't particularly satisfying.

  • Keeping Michael's excellent discussion of When and Why in mind, here are a few links to information about How:

    Facebook Connect features let you add Facebook "Share" and "Publish" links to your Convio pages. For information on how to set these up:

    1. Log in to Convio as an administrator.
    2. In the Help menu, click "Help Topics."
    3. Click the "Facebook" topic link.
    4. See the section "Adding Facebook Connect Widgets"

    Convio Facebook Applications Extensions provide the hooks to incorporate more of the Facebook API. These are described here:

    http://open.convio.com/extensions/extensions-facebook.html

    Finally, some notes on the example Donation form implemented in Facebook that is demonstrated on the Facebook Extension page above are posted on the community here: http://community.customer.convio.com/docs/DOC-2495

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