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Social Media for Non-Profit Outreach
How to Address Challenges and Basic Tips for Getting Started
By Andrea Fox
www.AndreaFoxCommunications.com
Social Media provides no- to low-cost opportunities to promote an organization,
its events, and causes. It’s also a great way to communicate news and updates
about the organization. You can reach hundreds of people with just a few
words, a link attachment, and click to post.
Social Media channels are complex, organic online conversations.
Benefits:
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Increase your organization’s exposure.
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FaceBook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pinterest are effective tools for
building awareness of your organization and calling citizens and supporters to
action.
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Social Media builds relationships—you can demonstrate your organization’s
unique value proposition and you can involve and empower your followers
and partners.
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Social Media is a new avenue to get feedback for your organization. Even
negative feedback can help an organization with its outreach strategies.
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Social Media posts increase search engine rankings for your organization and
increase traffic to your website. This is especially true with Twitter, which is
essentially a searchable microblog (see www.search.twitter.com, which is a
partnership between Google and Twitter).
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Social Media creates new partnerships in your sector.
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Social Media can increase membership leads.
The Five Organizational Steps to Getting Started
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5.
Strategize--what’s your page/profile about and what are its goals?
Establish a Presence
Expand Reach
Nurture Relationships
Maintain Your Presence
Sounds easy, right?
The Challenges:
Social Media can be challenging for those unfamiliar with the tools. The
challenges to the organizational steps include:
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2.
3.
4.
Knowing what kinds of information to post and what to say
When to post your information
Responding to posts
Engaging with partners and members
1. Knowing What to Post
There is no right or wrong answer for what to post. Your audience uses Social
Media for a variety of reasons:
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Entertainment
To engage in conversation with others
To learn about community events
Knowledge
Brand/self promotion
To find a job or network for business
On Facebook, experts recommend short updates, less than 80 characters.
Pictures and queries tend to resonate because they are entertaining and
promote dialogue. Photos are engaging—make sure that they are at least 846 x
403 pixels (Note iPhone photos are 1936 x 2592). Post questions—the comment
rate more than doubles!
Facebook posts about contests and events may not generate as many
comments or likes, but they are an effective way to show that your organization
is active and are potential avenues for engagement. Note: Events should be
posted early enough for them to spread through your network. If they are open
to the public, be sure to select that guests may invite others. Highlight posts (an
option in the top right corner of your post in your timeline) for maximum visibility.
Sharing news articles, e-newsletters, and announcements will support your
causes and would be picked up by partners. When you share a Facebook post,
edit the title, description and picture for relevancy to your organization or
mission, and to make sure your posted link stands out.
Join groups that have your targets in them on LinkedIn and Facebook—local,
regional, and national. You can even start a group—once you reach critical
mass (60-100 quality connections), a single post could have the group creating
content for you!
Post business and social updates. You want to be informative and fun.
Don’t post just to post. Simply posting a link to your website on Facebook without
explaining why or what is new there does not make a sense. Posting a link to your
website and talking about your amazing new projects or flash opener is better.
To get started on your postings:
1. Optimize your organization’s profile. Complete the “About” section of your
page or profile, and add some pictures.
2. Friend partners and “like” organizations that you know. Invite friends to like
your organization’s page. Expand your reach to connect with your target
audience. Search by zipcode on Facebook to find targets, On Twitter, search
keywords.
3. Determine your best messages before posting. Don’t forget each post is an
opportunity to build goodwill—help people while building trust and popularity.
Do some hashtag (#) research on Twitter—what are your relevant partners
talking about?
4. Engage in dialogue on a regular basis. This will nurture relationships and keep
your organization relevant.
This last one can be tough for someone just starting out. However, the good
news is that it’s easy!
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Log-in and look around at what partner organizations are posting.
Like their posts and share them where it’s relevant to your organizations
supporters or the work of your organization. Say why it’s great and ask what
others think.
Share topics of interest, feel-good news, or information with your members
and those likely to support your organization. Retweet and tweet thank yous!
It’s also very important to optimize your settings for engagement. According to
Nonprofit911.org:
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Posting ability - Allowing users to post increases exposure for your organization
through virality.
Post visibility - If your organization has a thriving community of customers,
displaying this section on your page will help amplify your community's voice
on your Facebook Page simply because what they post on your page will
have more visibility.
Tagging Ability - This creates viral exposure when people tag their friends.
Moderation and Profanity Blocklists - This helps mitigate any possible negative
effects from opening up posting abilities.
5. Plan to spend up to an hour per day on various Social Media channels to
familiarize and begin creating an impact for your organization. Plan to check in
everyday or every other day. According to studies, 20% of posts occur in the
mornings or evenings. You can spend a few minutes in the morning checking
in/posting, researching partners and news in the afternoons, and checking
in/posting in the evening.
6. Create a badge for your website—there are many options. You can show just
your posts, display pictures of your fans, or add their comments. This will help
drive traffic from your website to your Facebook page and grow your
friend/follower base. There are also social plugins (see TJG Designs list of best
plugins at www.massdesign.biz/TJG-BLOG/2010/06/must-have-wp-plugins/) that
you can add to your website or blog that will enable others to share your
content on multiple channels.
To build momentum:
1. In many ways, you have to change your outreach thinking, and you also must
consider your Social Media time as part of your marketing tasks.
2. Traditional channels like local news articles, e-newsletters, and websites are
great companions to review for posting unique Social Media content. Don’t
forget YouTube, Vimeo, etc… Posting content that supports your organization or
mission will be interesting to your followers.
Examples:
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Did you launch a new section or portal on your website? Announce it on
Facebook.
Was there an article about your latest event? It’s time to Tweet!
Does your e-newsletter offer something different? Say so, and post
information on how to sign up.
Did the director of your organization receive an award? Tweet, post, and be
sure to update your organization’s LinkedIn profile.
Does your director have a blog? Regularly post announcements about new
blog posts, but be sure to explain why the link to the blog is worthwhile.
Is there an insightful or incredible video from one of your partners or another
working in the field? Share it.
Always be thinking of news you can share. You can keep a file in your own email
inbox or set up reminders for info to post. Tools like PostPlanner
(www.PostPlanner.com/) can schedule your posts.
3. If your outreach routine has you following news sources, share what you learn
with your organization’s followers. Post pictures, links, and queries. How do they
feel about the news? Can they offer insight? Ask for their opinions—be chatty
and interactive. Like their comments and respond to them.
4. Create helpful items for your followers—Create a list of your Twitter news
sources and announce your news list is available on Twitter. Post how-to videos
on YouTube and inform your followers through Twitter. Get your podcasts out
there.
5. When there are picture- or video-worthy moments, be ready to record.
Windows Movie Maker is easy to use—post amateur videos on YouTube and
promote them on Facebook and Twitter. You can also Tweet live news and post
pictures using TwitPic (http://twitpic.com/) and post Facebook updates and
photos from events using your smartphone.
6. Develop personal relationships with active followers. Post items of interest
directly on their timelines. Invite them to special events. Be sure to speak directly
to individuals to demonstrate credibility.
7. Consider inexpensive Facebook ads to target prospective followers and
increase your numbers.
8. Be careful with promotional offers in status updates—it’s more important to
build content and be social. The top two most popular status update types are
personal updates and questions. Reminder: The comment rate more than
doubles when you post questions.
2. When to post
There is no easy answer for this because social media is round the clock.
Remember that studies show most posting happens in the morning or evening.
How often to post is an easier question to answer. There is so much going on in
the digital space that if you only post occasionally, you may get lost in the feeds
and your followers will forget about you.
According to Nonprofit911.com:
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Non-fans can comment on your page updates
84% of your fans don't get your content in their newsfeed
Less than 5% of your Facebook Page fans visit your Facebook page
However, post too often, and your followers will begin to glaze over what you are
saying. They may even hide or unfollow you if they find your posts intrusive or
annoying.
According to Nonprofit911.com, three factors that determine your Facebook
rank (Edgerank):
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Relationship between user and story
How people talk about that story
How recent the story was published
You can export posts to see what time of day your posts are experiencing the
most traction.
I recommend posting a few times per week to keep your followers engaged. Be
sure to peruse Facebook as your page (see “Use Facebook as” in the top right
corner), not your personal profile, so you are not missing opportunities to cheer
on your partners or learn something new you could share in the page’s feed.
Note, the feed for your page is based on which organizations and people your
page likes. Make sure you are out there commenting on others posts as your
organization and sharing your organization’s content in conversations.
Tips for keeping yourself engaged:
1. If you have a smartphone, the Social Media “apps” can be a real timesaver.
Engage when you are waiting in line at the bank or grocery store. Checking
in a few minutes several times per day will help you become more aware of
what your partners and followers are posting/talking about.
2. Create lists so you can streamline your feed. You can access lists on your
smartphone and in no time at all, review the most relevant posts. The same is
true on Twitter.
3. Add a widget to your Google desktop—you may catch posts and make
quick comments while you are doing something else. You spike your visibility
and promote relevant dialogue.
3. Responding to Posts
Respond to wall posts and comments by others. This is really important! Blind
posting is easy when you are short on time, but if you do not check back, you
might leave people feeling like they are hanging. You’ll lose them next time.
Check your email notification settings and make sure you get an email every
time someone comments on your posts or posts on your page’s wall. You should
try to respond within 24 hours.
In some cases, you may want to remove comments or posts if they are negative
and do not add value. Always respond positively because real friends and true
followers will see any negative comments and be turned off.
However, in most cases, simply respond positively to criticism or difficult queries
and leave everything posted. Criticism or difficult queries are opportunities to
respond to issues others may have. Your organization earns respect for facing
criticism on social channels. The dialogue also sparks interest and conversation
and increases your Facebook rank.
4. Engaging partners, followers, members, and others:
There are a few simple rules to follow when engaging with others.
You want to follow their posts in the way you hope they follow yours—make
positive comments, like their initiatives, and lend support by sharing their posts.
The information from your partners will be appreciated by your followers.
Be aware of social media etiquette. If someone were talking about their issue,
would you immediately stand up and comment about a completely different
topic? No, of course not!
The same works on Facebook. No matter how important your issue is, do not
make a comment on another’s post that ignores his or her purpose and goes off
on a tangent about something you want to say. This will look and come off like
cheap self-promotion, and you may lose followers or prospective followers.
However, if you can add insight—comment! If you want to help them spread the
word—share and say why your followers should be aware or supportive. Partners
can see when you have shared their posts or retweeted their tweets, and that is
always appreciated.
Be sure to retweet—it’s quick and easy and results in increasing your followers.
Simple Rules for Posting on Facebook:
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Keep it clean.
Keep it positive.
When highlighting a negative issue, offer your followers a way to act or a
resolution.
Add relevant comments.
Use humor if possible and add pictures and links where relevant. It’s more
interesting to readers.
Sharing Posts on Facebook
When you find something that you like, click Share:
In the pop-up, select the drop down for reposting options. Be sure to say what
the link is and why your organization is sharing.
Tagging
Tagging other organizations, fans/friends in posts, pictures, and news items is a
great way to leverage visibility.
In text, type the “@” symbol before the page/fan’s name and it will
automatically become a link in the post. They will be informed you tagged them,
and so will their friends. Note, this does not work with all smartphone apps.
For pictures, there is an option to tag others in the photo.
One interesting way to run a Facebook contest is to ask people to tag
themselves in a photo you’ve posted, and they’ll be entered into a raffle that
wins a specified prize. This is a great way to promote your organization prior to a
big event.
Pinterest
Pinterest is one of the newest and fastest growing social channels. You can
create boards and post images that link back to your Facebook photos. It’s a
great way to promote intellectual and other products—a city’s rain barrel
discounts, for example.
If you are curious about Socialcam, the latest social media video app, read this
article: thenextweb.com/insider/2012/05/10/socialcam-is-pumping-popularyoutube-videos-into-its-app-to-drive-usage-smart-or-seedy/.
Additional Resources:
Nonprofit911.org
Social Media Magic
The Purple Diamond, LLC