Overall, the advent of social media has been a positive experience, especially when it comes to Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg’s genius, innovative, website has allowed us to connect with families and old friends who would’ve otherwise been neglected, market ourselves in never-before-seen ways, and divert our attention from work, school, and other important duties (thanks, Zuckerberg).

However, there are some aspects of Facebook that would irritate even the Winklevoss twins: seemingly never-ending game requests, “Friends” who cannot stop updating the world on their lives, email notifications that never cease to end, etc. It’s okay though, just make like Bob Marley and “don’t worry about a thing”,  because we got you covered on how to make your Facebook experience less annoying.

1. Peace and Quiet

Facebook is unique in that it makes a sound once you’ve received a notification, one which most of you are familiar. That sound can get annoying though, especially if you’re receiving notifications faster than Jacoby Ellsbury can steal a base. Yeah, you can mute your volume, but how about just eliminating the sound all together? Under the Facebook’s “Account Settings”, you can disable the sound with one click of a button. Just go to “Notifications” and then click “On Facebook” then click on the box adjacent to “Play a sound when each new notification is received.”  It’s so easy, your grandmother can do it. Grandmother would probably enjoy her quiet since — let’s be honest — she’s probably on Facebook too.

2. Thwarting Unwanted Opinions

Everybody has that friends on Facebook who wants to insert his or her opinion on every topic, but what if you don’t want said friend to yap it up on one of your statuses? There’s a way to avoid such an occurrence. Prior to posting the status, simply click on the drop-down menu labeled “Friends” then go to “Custom” and under “Don’t share this with” insert the name (or names) of the people you don’t want seeing a particular status or post.

You can even block a whole segment of your friends from seeing a status. Don’t want family members seeing a status from last night out on the town? Type in “Family” and you won’t have to answer any questions about what you did that night (sorry, Mom).

3. Don’t Worry, We’re Still Friends

Say your friend from scenario two not only loves to toss his or her opinions around the virtual world, but he or she loves to constantly post statuses updating the world on the important things of life, like — you know — taking a showing, going to the gym, doing homework, reading a book, and going to bed. You can filter updates so most are displayed or just the important ones show up in your news feed. Better yet, you can even eliminate any updates from showing up on your news feed.

Once on the friend’s Facebook page, click on the drop-down titled “Friends.”  In order to completely remove the annoyance out of your life, click “Show in News Feed.” This avoids any potential drama of removing somebody from your friends list. Think of it as if your Ron Wesley and your friend is Harry Potter in the invisibility cloak. Your still friends, but you’ll never have to see him.

If you’d rather not have a person completely removed from your Facebook world, manage the updates settings to your liking by selecting “Settings” under “Show in News Feed.”

4. Stop the Emails

If you registered for Facebook with an authentic and your everyday email address, then first, shame on you. Second, you can easily prevent emails from constantly swarming your inbox. Under “Account Settings” go to “Notifications” and then click “Email.” You can, again, filter the emails to your liking. You can always mark Facebook as spam as well. The latter completely hinders Facebook from ever letting you in on what’s going on with your friends.

5. This Isn’t an Arcade

Facebook as evolved into a gaming platform, but most users  (if not all) would rather stay away from the Candy Crushers of the world. There are two ways you can block that distant cousin from sending you game requests.  You can click the “X” on the notification to disable future requests from said game, or you can manually enter any game under the “Blocking” settings under your “Account Settings.”

Twitter has evolved into one of the top social media sites for businesses. It started as an unknown website with questionable features, but now it’s as popular, if not more, than the relatively easy-to-use Facebook. It’s an effective tool for businesses, but social media sites are only as effective as their users, so here are some tips to take full advantage of Twitter for your business.

 5. Lay down the groundwork

Before you even think about sending out your first tweet, you’re profile should be completed. This means presenting your brand (or yourself) by taking advantage of the two different images you can use to represent your account – the profile picture and background photo – and three important profile features: location, website and biography.

It also helps if you understand the basics of Twitter (retweets, favorites, direct messages, reply, and mentions).

4. Be active

It’s recommended that you tweet at least once a day, with a max of five. Being too active can tune out followers (unless you’re job entails it) and creates an annoying image to your company. Not being active at all, though, will have the same effect. Try tweeting a couple of times per day and see how your audience react, then adjust accordingly.

3. Keep Tweets short and sweet… and smart

Tweets are limited to 140 characters, a pretty well-known aspect of Twitter even for those Facebook-loving, anti-Twitter people, thus they’re easily consumable by readers. However, a study done by Buddy Media says tweets containing less than 100 characters are 17% more engaging than longer tweets.

It’s not all about length, though. The quality of your tweets will aid in the growth of your Twitter following. You’ll need to find out how word resonating tweets within the 140 character limited, which usually entails possessing a strong vocabulary.

2. Use hashtags

Facebook has recently implemented hashtags in its programming, but hashtags became common practice through Twitter. Hashtags allow users to see what’s trending and to cater their tweets around those trends. This allows businesses to see what’s going on in order to stay trendy with their tweets and expand their audience.

1. Engage with followers

Twitter is unique in that businesses can interact directly with customers. Several companies asks their followers for feedback on products, troubleshoot any issues they may have, or just general conversation. It’s one of the top features of Twitter for business, and you can certainly take advantage of it.

Any nonprofit owner or community organizer knows that fundraising can be a real hassle.  First there’s all the planning, then there’s bugging people to come, and in the end, if your initial costs outweigh your profits your fundraiser was a total bust.

There are a lot of ways to fund raise money and they range from mundane to exotic.  There’s the direct method of soliciting donations via phone calls, emails or websites like KickStarter.  This is a rather difficult method because you need lots of friends with spare money who are really into your cause.  Of course, there are also the old tried-and-true upstart methods like car washes and bake sales.  These have minimal cost but also result in minimal return.  Finally, there are fundraising events which take a lot of work to plan, but can be successful if implemented properly.  We’ve all seen (and probably attended) fundraising events, whether it be a 5K or a cocktail party.  They can be fun, but they can also be dry and dull.

So, how do you keep the fun in fundraising?  To start, know what your target audience is into.  If most of your supporters are over the age of 65, a Saturday morning brunch with light musical entertainment might be just the thing.  But if your supporters are twenty-somethings with limited cash, you might have to get a little more creative to get them out of the house and into supporting you.  You get the idea.  If your organizations is all about marine life, think about how you can blend that theme in for aquatic lovers.  If they are health buffs, maybe you can plan a road race or fun or host a nutritional cooking class.  Entice them to be excited for your event so they’re not left thinking “it’s just another thing to do”.

At Civic Support, we’ve had quite a learning curve when it comes to fundraising.  Here are two creative fundraising events that we’ve hosted which have seen increased success as we get better at planning:

1) Brewery Tour

Craft beer is a huge up and coming thing nation-wide.  As a nonprofit that is interested in promoting localism, we felt that a tour of some small breweries would not only interest our supporters, but would also solidify our position on “support local, buy local.”  We have done two brewery tours so far in which we rented a bus and brought ticket buyers to four breweries/brew pubs where they could sample beer and learn about how it’s made.

The cost of a fundraiser like this is a bit high, but the fun everyone had both years was priceless!

2) Silent Disco

If your supporters are a fun and energetic group, there’s no better way to get a lot of attention than hosting a Silent Disco.  For this fundraiser we organized a pub crawl across Boston but here’s the catch; we were all wearing wireless headphones that were tuned into the same music.  As we danced our way across the city dozens of people stopped to ask what we were doing and what the fundraiser was for.  Not only was it a blast for all involved, it was a great way to get exposure and raise some money.  Silent Storm Sound System provided the equipment rentals at a very reasonable price.

Do you have any fun/ unique fundraiser ideas?  We’d love to hear all about it in the comments section below!