Nonprofit organizations often do not have the administration or marketing teams to stay on top of the latest social media trends, let alone regularly update multiple platforms. Many also find social media to be an uphill battle that they find impossible to stay ahead of the curve. The fact of the matter is, every industry and every little niche is utilizing social media. If you don’t create compelling content and stay on top of the game, you could be missing out on valuable donations, membership drives, promoting events and more! These three tips will help nonprofit organizations harness social media and use it to their advantage:
1. Know the platform and tone
According to a recent survey by HubSpot, the most commonly used social platforms by nonprofit organizations are: Facebook (98%), Twitter (70%), LinkedIn (55%), and YouTube. But more importantly than the preferred networks themselves is how to utilize every platform to use it to your advantage. Facebook is the most commonly used and diverse platform of them all. A Tweet has a short lifespan of 1.5 hours and a micro-blog format, so you are going to want to Tweet multiple times a day. LinkedIn is a professional platform with longer content and a professional tone. If you are making a promo video, make sure to host it on YouTube and then share throughout your networks.
2. Outline your engagement goals
What do you want the outcome of your social posts to be? For many nonprofits, it’s getting donations or spreading the word about events. Are you looking for your posts to generate mentions on other social pages or transition to a one-on-one email conversation? Are you looking to get blog content shared? Every organization is different, so a clearer vision of your goals yields greater results.
3. Manage your content
Social calendars are KEY! Since we know many nonprofits are short-staffed, the reality of an in-house person is most likely not the case for most organization. Oftentimes nonprofits have many hands on deck with multiple people handling multiple networks. In an effort to streamline your efforts, generate a calendar that includes every platform, the content to be posted, the time it’s posted, and who made the update. This makes life much easier. Trust us.
By using these 3 keys, you can overcome many of the time and budget restraints that non-profits have to create awareness and increase fundraising.
Please contact us for more Social media marketing strategies that can propel your non-profit organization.
