We have dug deep into the underbelly of
social networking, honed our own social media
endeavors, indexed and read hundreds of posts
and guides by social media experts and discovered
that the key ingredients to a well-shaken cocktail
of social media success are as follows…
What might also be a boon to you: Social media
isn’t fundamentally different from the marketing
efforts you’re already engaged in. The field is just
a highly variable and fast-paced way to share
your nonprofit organization’s story, with its own
nuances and challenges.
Strategy, Prioritization and Dedication.
So close out of your news feed and prepare to
tweet some cutting insights while we run through
how to reboot your nonprofit’s social media efforts.
Don’t worry, we’ll happily break down these dense
categories into simple, easy-to-digest examples,
geared toward helping you personalize a truly
strong social media plan that’s tuned to the unique
needs of your nonprofit.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO SOCIAL MEDIA
Strategy
Your social media plan’s number one goal is to
have an impact—to make significant, measurable
strides for your nonprofit.
Without developing a honed strategy, you’ll end
up spinning your wheels, working hard without
any real headway. Start with a strategy to avoid
future frustration and a sense of aimlessness.
Use Existing Content
Social media ought to be a way to amplify your
existing resources, not create new headaches. The
first place to distribute original content should be
your nonprofit’s website and blog, the nucleus of
your organization’s efforts.
Imagine your nonprofit’s main website and blog as
the beating heart of your vibrant online presence.
Social media outlets are the network of veins that
transport life-sustaining content out to the remote
reaches of your online constituents, nourishing
their connection to your cause.
Through social media, you can extend the impact
of your nonprofit’s original content, campaigns
and drives.
Furthermore, you’ve given your loyal constituents
the opportunity to discuss, retweet and otherwise
share that content over and over again, which
extends the impact even further with no extra
time investment on your part.
Make Sure You Have a Unified Vision
That’s right: Social media’s purpose should
be geared toward what you want to achieve—
there isn’t a single way to use it, despite what
the uninitiated might tell you. In fact, certain
social media forums are especially good at
accomplishing certain things or reaching out to
particular demographics, something we’ll cover
more deeply when we discuss prioritization
down the line.
Consider: Some nonprofits’ Facebook Pages act
as a platform to actively promote drives and
conversions. Others use social media as an
opportunity to humanize their organization, build
trust and relate to the average constituent. Others
still focus on the element of interactivity, trying
to foster community and discussion. Others still
just look for positive exposure.
Look at your nonprofit and identify which of these
goals are the most important to you, then gun for
them aggressively.
Some Applications
•
Trying to humanize your nonprofit? Gear
your content to your organization’s specific,
vibrant personality. Post eye-catching stories,
even if they don’t
directly relate to
your cause.
nonprofithub.org
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO SOCIAL MEDIA
•
Looking to recruit volunteers or hire
folks? Convey the fact that your nonprofit
has a fantastic working culture. Are
current employees and volunteers making
unprompted solicitations of your nonprofit’s
greatness? What can you do so that they are?
•
Shooting to maximize exposure and interactivity?
Use status updates to ask for subscribers’
opinions—get them to contribute. Create
addictive, shareable content, such
as videos and infographics. Try
offering content “rewards” if your
page receives a certain amount of
Facebook likes.
Hone your social media message, use existing
content and apply your organization’s ethic to
your social media. With your strategy in mind,
you’ll be ready to move on to step two.
Prioritization
Once you’ve established a strategy, it’s time to
use that to decide your priorities. What venues
will you pursue, and exactly how much should you
invest in them?
The Best Fit for Your Message
We’ll be straight with you: We at Nonprofit Hub
vouch for Facebook and Twitter as the most
effective social media investments.
The Lupus Foundation of American (LFA) is a
great example of when a nonprofit’s social media
efforts attract substantial donor engagement.
After actively plugging in to Facebook, LFA
improved their online donations by 790% in
six months.
Another example of a nonprofit who has adapted
to social media with panache is The Humane
Society of the United States. They’ve clearly found
a social networking niche that works for them:
As of October 2012 their organization’s Facebook
Page has garnered nearly 1.5 million “likes.” The
Humane Society uses the timeline functionality
to share historic animal rights achievements,
disseminate petitions, show support for their
sponsors and much more.
Let’s put it another way: Ever heard of Vilfredo
Pareto? The 19th century Italian engineer/
philosopher after whom the Pareto Principle
was named?
Here’s the skinny, so you don’t have to google it:
Back in the day, dear Vilfredo observed
that around 80% of the peas he
harvested from his garden
were the product of a mere
20% of the garden’s actual
pea pods.
Well, this Pareto Principle
has proven highly relevant to
modern business economics.
Any investment’s output is usually
spread disproportionately to the
input: 80% of a nonprofit’s active
engagement is usually the result of a
loyal 20% of the constituents it attracts.
In an example that pushes Pareto’s
conclusions even further, NPR’s radio
personality Ira Glass regularly stresses
during the station’s annual pledge drives that
only 10% of NPR’s listeners account for the
station’s pledge drive goals.
Application
Say a nonprofit’s cause is particularly
relevant to women’s issues. That nonprofit
might consider the benefits of investing in
Pinterest. According to a study, 83% of Pinterest’s
global users are women. This means nonprofits
whose cause directly supports women would
benefit enormously from the resources they
invest in Pinterest.
nonprofithub.org
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO SOCIAL MEDIA
Finding Your 20% Solution
One way to find your 20% solution is to
test your content on all of the social media
platforms available.
If this is the way you’re leaning, go ahead and
invest in the big outlets, namely Facebook, Twitter,
Pinterest, Google+ and LinkedIn. Then, figure
out which venues provide you the best results,
according to the strategic goals you’ve already set
up. Finally, then pare down to the 20% of social
media that’s giving you 80% of total value.
But more practically speaking, prioritize Twitter
and Facebook, then expand as you see fit. We’ve
found that for most organizations, Facebook
and Twitter is their optimal 20% solution for
social media.
Take the time to ensure your Facebook content
truly shines, and all of the content you produce
gets funneled into the Twitterverse. Look into
investing in other social media platforms if
they seem like an especially great fit for your
nonprofit’s message. Keep in mind that it’s often
a good idea to claim your “real estate” in major
social media outlets, as you never know when
those outlets will be where your organization
needs to communicate.
The important message: Don’t go for 100%
engagement in 100% of social media and stretch
your efforts too thin on venues that won’t give
a great return on your social media investment.
Think 20/80, like our friend Vilfredo Pareto did.
Dedication
If you haven’t first taken the time to develop a
clear, unified strategy, then focused on a few key
social network platforms to prioritize, no matter
how much effort you put into your social media, it
won’t be enough. You might as well try to
move a mountain by pushing on it through
willpower alone.
Dedication has to be the final step, once
everything else is in place. With
perseverance, all your social
media efforts can blossom and
create a dynamic social media
presence for your nonprofit.
Time to Make a Commitment
Once you’ve set up your social media network,
the most important thing is to devote daily time
and effort to keep it well maintained.
Most people don’t work at a given investment
long enough for it to actually pay off, and
tragically choose to jump ship right before
they see returns on their hard work.
Let us give you an example. Imagine you
pay twenty dollars a month for a
gym membership.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO SOCIAL MEDIA
You go to the gym once the first month, and
then cancel the membership, having noticed no
observable improvement in your physique since
joining the gym. What a waste of money!
While it’s obvious in this example the party to
blame is you for being a couch potato, the same
principles apply to dedicating time to your social
media. If you don’t put the requisite effort into
your initial investment, don’t blame social media
when you don’t reap the benefits.
The typical social network users who stumble
onto your content aren’t what you’d call “hot
leads”—while they might be interested in your
cause generally, they’re typically just tuning in for
information and a reason to trust your nonprofit.
These potential donors need to be nurtured.
Give them great content and reward them for
their loyalty, and they’ll have plenty of goodwill
toward your organization when they probe your
organization’s main website, replete with your
strongest calls to action.
The great thing about social media is that you
don’t have to get out of your chair and head to the
gym to make a good return on your investment—
in fact, you often don’t even need to create much
unique content.
Dedication simply means committing to a system
of regular posting and updates, making sure that
your network stays vibrant and active.
Curate Your System
To create a successful social media plan,
dedicate staff time and energy into making
regular posts, tweets and pins (depending on
your earlier prioritization).
After all, the point of social media is to be
social. At the end of the day, you are fostering a
relationship between you and your donors. And
as in any relationship, a variety of interesting,
relevant interaction is the only road to growth.
Commit to a certain amount of content every
week—or preferably, every day. Obviously, it’s
going to depend on your platform: A couple
tweets a day won’t even register to your followers
on Twitter, unless those tweets are massively
retweeted. Keep your content streams active.
Figure out what posting interval works best
for you. Ideally, you want to stay fresh in your
donors’ minds, but not be so present that they’ll
either ignore you or unsubscribe to get away
from an unending torrent of updates. Measure
responsiveness.
One of the best ways to keep you accountable to
your social media plan is to automate it. Preload
and schedule your content using services like
Hootsuite or Buffer so that your sharing will be
spread throughout the day at organic intervals.
Again, try mixing up the times you post content
throughout the day. Psychologists who study
behavior have determined that intermittent
rewards are more effective in determining
behavior than scheduled ones. Use science
for your cause’s good.
The other essential for a developing digital
relationship: interaction. Dedication is
required when responding to tweets,
comments and community questions.
Creating a social media network is like
planting a garden: If
you want a vibrant
community, you’re
going to have
to water those
plants, and
occasionally
maybe even
pull up a root
or two.
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO SOCIAL MEDIA
The final step of dedication is having the
determination to fix things when you see they
aren’t working. Mercilessly test and vet your
social media priorities and adjust your methods
until you see progress.
Applications
• Use services like Google Analytics, Kred, and
Klout to actively measure your social network
efficacy. When you vary your posting times,
which times garner the most responses?
Focus on those!
• Get notified. Make sure your system
(Hootsuite, Buffer, etc.) notifies you of any
“gap times” when your social network hasn’t
been active for a significant amount of time.
This ensures you avoid long spells of inactivity
or didn’t up your scheduled postings. (You
have set up scheduled posts, right? Good.)
• Post media that encourages sharing and
response. Producing content that’s likely to be
shared effectively automates your network. If
three people share your infographic and three
of their friends repost it again, your message
immediately has nine times the traction. Ah,
the beauty of the web.
Congratulations in Advance
Here’s your mantra:
Strategy: Devote your social media efforts to
create a unified strategy.
Prioritization: Decide which venues to pursue
based on your newly minted strategy.
Dedication: Develop a system to consistently
create and share rewarding content that advances
your nonprofit’s goals.
How is your nonprofit going to apply your
new knowledge? Have a question, concern or
suggestion? We’re standing by—tweet us one
thing you learned from this report @nphub.
Tell us one specific way you applied your
knowledge from this report. We’d love to hear
from you. It’s ok to be extraordinary.
TWEET US!
We got your back—and wish you more than luck.
Now head to the interwebs, and make use of what
you have learned.
Who We Are – Nonprofit Hub.org
Nonprofit Hub.org is a proud part of the Digital
Community Foundation (DCF), a 501(c)(3)
organization with a mission to educate and
empower people on issues related to technology
and marketing.
Our foundation offers grant opportunities for
nonprofit organizations wishing to improve their
online presence. You can learn more about the
grant application process on our website,
digitalcommunityfoundation.org to see if your
nonprofit can take advantage of this opportunity.
We launched Nonprofit Hub to scour the internet
for the most relevant content that affects your
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