Flickr Photo by Forever Souls

For my New Year's reflection, I decided to start a meme with the questions and tag some colleagues:

"What if I could start all my social media and nonprofits work over from scratch? What would I do differently? What lessons have I learned that will stick with me for 2008?"

I managed to come up with four lessons learned, but the most important was this one:

Don't Join New Social Networks Without Thinking.   This is especially important if you got an email invitation from a friend.  If I learned anything from the Shelfari and the Spock, it is to use your critical thinking skills before joining a social network that a trusted friend has invited you to join.   Ask your friend why they invited you.  Refrain from joining as a knee jerk response until you know that your friend has really checked out the service and has not been duped.  (Thanks Nancy White)

I shared three others, size of your network doesn't matter (inspired by Connie Bensen's advice), deep engagement is one community more important than being spread too thin, and translation skills are really important for those of us working with nonprofits.   In the comments, this music education blogger, Jeane Myorch, disagreed with my comment about numbers.  What do you think?

Deborah Finn shared four lessons, but emphasizes that it is all about mission!

Britt Bravo, over at the NetSquared Blog, shared these lessons:

1. Comments are small, but powerful tools.
2. Have a purpose for each of the social networks you join.
3. A blog can be a website too.
4. Information overload is real.

Now it's your turn BlogHers who are interested in social media and nonprofits, what are your four lessons learned that you will carry into 2008?

Beth Kanter, BlogHer CE, writes Beth's Blog.