holy.
Have you tried making the case for your nonprofit to start blogging, or get into social networks, or in some other way try something bolder than Ye Olde Corporate Website as a means of engaging your community online... only to be rebuffed by the mentality that "our constituents aren't online" or "our members don't read blogs" or something of the sort?
Ever get frustrated that you didn't have the data to either refute or confirm that kind of assertion?
Well, my heroes over at Forrester Research have released an interactive tool that allows you to build a profile of your constituents (assuming you have an accurate profile of who exactly they are) and how they use the internet.
Plug in different profiles based on age, gender, and country, and you'll get information where those users sit on the ladder of engagement.
Data from Forrester Research Technographics® surveys, 2007. For further details on the Social Technographics profile, see groundswell.forrester.com.
(For more information on what exactly the different levels of engagement mean, check out this quick slide deck.)
The authors of the new book Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies, Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li, are also releasing more in-depth research information on groups -- like small business owners -- once a week on their blog, also called Groundswell.
These weekly tidbits should give a finer-grained view of various groups of people who might be persons of interest, let's say, to a nonprofit looking to interact more meaningfully with their existing constituents, or to reach new supporters who are already online, interested in similar causes, and engaged in social media.
I'm hoping to read and review Groundswell (the book) soon. In the meantime, I'm enjoying the rare peek behind the curtain that these top analysts at Forrester are giving us at some serious market research.