In the nonprofit world social media has become vital, having a direct channel to communicate to potential volunteers, donors, and supporters can take your mission and organization to the next level. Everyone knows what social media is, but becoming a social media guru can be overwhelming if you’re not up to date on all of the latest platforms and trends. The good news is that social media can be a nonprofit’s best friend, and it’s not as difficult as you might think.
So, why is it worth it to get involved in social media practices?
Besides the fact that there are such a vast amount of social media users, there are many other reasons your nonprofit should be posting online:
- Build trust: Posting on social media builds trust between you and your followers as you demonstrate your legitimate industry experience and strengthen your community.
- Fundraising: The ability to generate donations via social media can drastically improve a nonprofits’ ability to serve their communities. With creativity and sincerity, social media fundraising is possible on all platforms!
- Promote events: You can post details about in-person events or host virtual events, such as galas, fun-runs, adoption meet-n-greets, panel discussions, or town halls.
- Expand reach: Social media allows you to reach new communities and share your message and mission with them. Effectively channeling your messages can result in the growth of your organization and mission.
The next thing you’ll need to know are the differences and opportunities that each social media platform offers. Currently, the most popular sites are Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, with the latter reigning as leader of the pack. For nonprofits in particular, Facebook is the most effective platform for fundraising and building a philanthropic community. Despite this, each platform can serve a different purpose and they all function differently. And since they reach audiences differently, knowing a bit about all three can have a great impact on your organization.
Social Media Platforms
Facebook has 1.84 billion users that are visiting the social networking site daily. With Facebook, you can feature the latest news about your organization, images from an event, announcements of upcoming events, videos that demonstrate visually what your nonprofit is all about, the list is endless. Keep in mind, however, that with all of those users, people have developed habits when looking at Facebook, and it’s very possible that they will scroll right by your post. To make them stop and take notice, always think about different ways to post your subject. Is it just text about an event? There’s a good chance that followers will scroll right by. Can you get creative with that same post to make it stand out? Doing so could mean the difference between more likes and shares instead of scrolling right on by.
Instagram is more immediate. If you’ve got a funding campaign coming up, Instagram is a powerful tool to use to help promote it. Try doing a countdown that leads up to the kickoff of the campaign. Each post should feature a different story, or at least picture, that describes what you are hoping to do with a successful campaign. For example, if a food pantry wanted to conduct a canned food drive, imagine the impact of watching 10 cans become five, then one and then none. No cans of food on the shelves is what the pantry wants to avoid, and donating to the food drive can assure that the food pantry will continue to serve the needs of its constituents. You can show the impact of your donors’ support by posting an image of a food package being handed to a program participant. What a great story!
LinkedIn is a more professional social media outlet and has a primary demographic of business professionals aged 46 to 55. Consider it as a direct link to possible donors, employees, partners, and volunteers. This makes it a potential goldmine for networking. Other features of the application that make it useful include its live video streaming. This allows your organization to host webinars, panel discussions, or any other event! Its also the perfect platform to post content that focuses on your organization and shares your progress.
Think of Twitter as your newsflash. Did you just receive a large gift? Tweet a caption about the gift and picture of the check presentation. The character limit for a post sits at 280 characters per tweet. This makes it a great choice to share quick updates, links to your site, or start discussions with your followers. Make sure that a complete story is available on your website and link to it. Remember, Twitter is not a one-way street. If you’re going to use it, make sure someone is on the other end to engage your followers.
When you’re wearing many hats, time can slip by quickly, and competing priorities can take over. Before you know it, much more time may have elapsed between social media posts than you intended. To keep yourself on track, develop a social media content calendar to show what you’re going to post and when. Remember to schedule times at which you will review the analytics of your social media accounts. These built-in tools help you determine which posts and tweets inspired the most engagement. Use this information to tweak your social media strategy over time. Be sure that the person charged with social media keeps an eye on the channels. If someone responds to something you’ve posted, you want to be sure that you respond quickly. That person could be your next donor.
Utilizing Analytics
Now that you understand the platforms and have a posting strategy, you’ll need to understand analytics to continue to grow. Use your social media channel’s individual insights and analytics tools to track how posts are performing. You can learn so much about your audience through these insights. Think of it as your very own content rating system. Through this data, you can:
- View your overall likes, shares, retweets, reach, engagement, and comments.
- Learn who, how, where, and when people are interacting with your posts.
- Measure the retention over time, giving you clues on how to improve as you go.
- View demographics of your followers and define your audiences.
- Segment your audience to specific target posts. Then create content geared towards them for higher engagement.
- Find influencers and experts in your network to connect with.
Use this data to your advantage. Create content that matches your followers’ interests, test out your social media schedule for best results, and target like-minded individuals to grow your network.
In order to be successful on social media, a nonprofit must have an understanding of the different social media platforms and how they differ. Once you understand the basics, you’ll need to learn how to use the analytics you receive from posting to influence your strategy going forward. Adjust content based on what’s successful with your audience until you find an optimized pattern of posting. These fundamental strategies can be the difference maker that propels your organization into success.
