I spent the last 3 days at the CASE District VII conference, for schools in AZ, CA, Guam, HI, NV, and UT.  Social Media was a big topic this year, with workshop titles like "Maximizing Social Networks and Online Resources in Alumni Relations", "Now That Facebook and Twitter Aren't Enough: Integrating Social Media into Your Advancement Toolkit ", and "Making Community Real in a Virtual World".  Speakers and attendees reported heavy use of Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, Twitter, and YouTube (the few times I heard mentions of MySpace were negative). 

Very few speakers or attendees reported using these tools for fundraising, though.  UC Berkeley talked about a badge that donors can post to their Facebook pages after making a gift ("I Feed The Bears").  This is the online equivalent of a window decal or bumper sticker, with the added benefit that one's friends can click the badge to make a gift.  It's not an explicit fundraising appeal, but they might start using fundraising badges for class campaigns in the future.  Peer-to-peer class campaigns (at least for recent classes) seem like a natural for social media, and I expect we'll start seeing them.

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