Social Media Strategies

An organization’s social media strategy is part of an overall communications strategy A communications strategy is designed to help an organization communicate effectively and meet core organizational objectives. “Social media shouldn’t be out there alone; it should be integrated and aligned with your strategic goals and target audiences,” said Beth Kanter, nonprofit consultant and author of Beth’s Blog, one of the longest running and most popular blogs about nonprofits and social media. “The role that it can play really well is engagement, especially donor engagement and donor retention, getting people to pay attention—capturing their attention.” Source

Elements of a Social Media Strategy First, it’s a good idea to be honest and know your limitations. The decision must be based on the skill set of employees and time constraints that those employees may have. (So this is a question you have to ask of your nonprofit, ad the answer will play a role in your strategy recommendations)

1. Assessment (this is your audit) Overall assessment. Begin with an assessment of your nonprofit’s current social media capabilities. A strategic plan sometimes includes a competitive or peer analysis, a look at how you’re doing when assessed against others in your sector. Assess your community. Include an assessment of your online community. Identify who they are and how they might want to be involved, and don’t be afraid to ask, using online survey tools like SurveyGizmo or Wufoo. Remember that you don’t have a single online audience but a myriad of audiences: constituents, partners, funders and supporters with varying levels of passion for your cause.

2. Goals Goals. Spell out your organizational goals. Where do you want to be six months from now? A year from now? (So 100 new followers on our Facebook page by month’s end.) You can set both long-term and short-term goals. Make sure they are specific, measureable, achievable, relevant and time-limited. Your strategy always should relate back to these goals. So you will need to have discussed these with your nonprofit. If you haven’t yet, you need to.

3. Choose the best network/s for your goals Too many nonprofits get caught up in the excitement of social media and don’t think about what will fit with their strategic goals. Where are your constituents online and what do they use? How will participating help you achieve your goals?

4. Plan your content Based on your audit and other research. A social media calendar is a good idea. Here is where you will make key recommendations to your nonprofit.

The “E’s” of your strategy: Education - enriching your target community's knowledge with information and resources for them to better understand you. Entertainment - creating fun, sticky and memorable content that allows them to associate the image or message to your brand or organization. Engagement - engaging the community by recognizing their presence, contributions and inputs. Empowerment - give your target community the power to play an active role in what you are doing

Create a Content Strategy for what to share (make sure to cite your audit!) 1. Your organization should share a variety of posts across its networks. Visual content can often reach emotional triggers in a way that words alone cannot. There are plenty of free tools for image creation that can help you create beautiful graphics, but don’t worry about making every image highly polished. Capturing snapshots and short videos on your phone enables you to share powerful moments from events, and those types of posts can give your followers a meaningful peek behind-the- scenes of your organization 2. What past posts performed well and what types of content get your followers engaged. (Don’t be afraid to ask supporters what type of stories they would like to see from your organization. You can gather this information in person, via an email survey or by asking on social media.)

3. Develop content categories for social media that you can cycle through on a regular basis, such as volunteer spotlights, client stories and how-tos. Think of “evergreen” material. 4. While every post doesn’t need a link, social media can be a helpful tool for directing people to your website, blog or mailing list.

5. Modifications to content Suggestions about: When to post/tweet Length of posts/tweets Number of posts/tweets Posting consistently Hashtags Mentions Language used How to achieve goals Humanizing their cause Looking professional Responsiveness Using Live functions Sharing non nonprofit information/similar information Varying types of posts Use of a third party such as Hootsuite But you will need to back up these suggestions with research, experts. And you will need to provide as many specifics as possible.

For example: 1) We suggest you post twice a day at 10 and 2 because a 2018 study by Social Media Today found that … AND 2) A good social media rule of thumb is to spend at least six hours per week, or around one hour per day, engaging with your followers, according to Social Media Today. In order to carve out this time, we think you should consider using a social media management system (SSM) (or using a free service like Hootsuite). These tools allow you to schedule content ahead of time. You can create posts that publish months down the line so you won’t forget or be struggling in the moment and will have more free time to interact with your audience. AND 3) We suggest your create your own hashtag for your nonprofit and/or campaign. Don’t: only post it once or twice; make sure to use it a lot. The more longevity a hashtag has beyond one event or campaign, the better. Tweets with more than two hashtags actually can drop in engagement by almost 20 percent according to Linchpin SEO. Make sure the hashtags you select are specific and relevant to your organization. Here are a couple of suggestions based on our research.

6. What should they prioritize? Social media is far more than a publishing platform—it’s a place to capture people’s attention, connect with supporters and build communities. With limited time to spend on social, engagement should be a priority. Respond to questions, comments and posts tagging your organization, and look for relevant hashtags to find new conversations to join.

Part of this plan is to have a Social Media policy Who can create content? Who can post? What types of things will you NOT post about? How will you respond to people who post about your organization?

5. Measure your success Using those analytics we discussed, measure the success of the content (and your goals). Again, suggest measurements to your nonprofit. Back up your recommendations with measurements.

There are some templates online Might be helpful so you don’t forget anything but not necessary. There are examples from previous semester on your course Major Assignments page.