Just like you build community offline with your organizers, make sure you're creating and sustaining relationships online with your Twitter followers and community.

It's Friday! If you're on Twitter, you know that means #FF (Follow Friday) tweets are popping up all over the place. #FF is more than just a way to give shout-outs; it's one of the best ways to build connections and community on Twitter. Here are a few of the ways I like to think about, and use, #FF:

I've managed a lot of great people, and I love providing references when my former staff, interns, or volunteers are looking for a new gig. But there's one thing that a lot of folks forget to do that can make a big difference:

While the technical tricks for increasing Facebook influence by boosting Edge Rank and Affinity can give you a boost, it's also important to remember that content is still king. And some of the best lessons in curating content on Facebook come from an unexpected source: George Takei.

All field organizers and volunteers spend time at rallies, events, and outside supermarkets signing people up for things. Regardless of your goal (collecting signatures to get your candidate or issue on the ballot, building a petition, registering voters...), there's a simple step to ensure that you're able to efficiently collect as many signatures as possible:

Ever wondered why certain people/pages always show up in your Facebook News Feed, and others barely ever do? Who sees what is largely determined by your "affinity," part of Facebook's edge ranking system. Facebook tracks how people interact with both your page (personal profile or fan page), and with individual posts. Here are a few things to consider when building your brand on Facebook.

Ever wonder why certain people and organizations always seem to get the love in your Facebook timeline, and others barely show up at all? Facebook employs a complex algorithm that creates your "Edge Rank," which determines how important it think your posts are. (This holds true for personal profiles and fan pages.)

If you're on Twitter, you've probably seen a few tweets that look something like this: ".@neworganizing, what time does tonight's event start?" Recently, I've gotten questions about the dot (.) at the beginning of a tweet. It all comes down to how Twitter determines what to show people. When your tweet starts with the handle of a person or organization, Twitter assumes it's a reply. So why does that matter?

Last week, Melissa Foley encouraged you to get to know your Twitter followers. Here's a little followup tip: Pay attention to your community, and respond accordingly. Not paying attention can cause real problems. A few weeks back, while progressives the world over were tweeting about #TroyDavis during the leadup to his execution, Senator McCaskill was tweeting about her home-town baseball team.

And that, in a nutshell, is why we launched the Tip of the Day last February. We're not all data wizards or masters of Excel, but someone in the community is. So we decided to create a platform to share community knowledge, from technical tips in Data, to New Media strategies, Field tricks, management systems, and much more.

For organizers, Facebook privacy can be particularly daunting. When I was first organizing, I didn't want to reject or ignore friend requests from volunteers, but I also didn't want them to see the pictures of my night at Karaoke or random comments about TV shows. That's when I discovered the magic that is Friend Lists. You can create as many lists as you need, then manage individual content pieces (like photo albums, links and status posts) based on those lists.

 Setting up lists and

So what happened? Was it the nefarious "internet flake rate" that cast a hex on your event? Or was it something much simpler?If you were recruiting for an event using classic field organizing, you would have made confirmation calls before the event, right? And, without confirmation calls, your field recruitment would probably yield the same poor results.