By Maria Sadusky, Community Boost
This article is part 5 of an 6-part series called “Digital Marketing Toolkit for Mission-Driven Organizations”. These articles originated from and were previously published by Community Boost, a digital marketing agency that works with nonprofits of all sizes and sectors to accelerate and scale online revenue and impact.
As we enter this new year, social channels aren’t just adapting to the changes that have been brought on since the pandemic in 2020, but they are finally settling in and the trends are building! However, 67% of nonprofits don’t have a solid nonprofit social media strategy in place and still stress how important it is. Let’s be the 33%. We’ve all heard about increasing presence on social media and building engagement.
But, what happens when your posting tons and you don’t see an increase in community size? Or you’re stuck because you don’t have a solid plan in place? The great news here is that social channels are on your side! There are specific trends and ways that you can “hack” the channels. Start building a nonprofit social media strategy that spikes quality engagement!
Get Reliable Supporters with a Nonprofit Social Media Strategy
Build Engagement
Engagement is an overall measure of how much your audience interacts with your account, and how often. Engagement may include likes, comments, shares, and mentions.
Share news about your organization
Keeping people updated keeps them engaged. Sharing your organization’s efforts will encourage people to follow, like, comment, and share
Drive brand recognition
Brand recognition keeps your nonprofit at the forefront of everyone’s mind! What are some of your favorite brands? Establish a brand strategy that can be easily implemented into your existing marketing strategy.
Attend the session that Canva is doing on “How To Create A Branding Strategy For Your Nonprofit” at The Nonprofit Marketing Summit: Momentum.
Build community by providing value
No, a good social media marketing strategy does not mean just spitting out posts and content everywhere. You will not build a quality community that way. Instead, try offering valuable content that your followers are waiting for every day.
Recruit volunteers
Again, younger audiences, activists, and other potential volunteers are more likely to volunteer for your organization if you are loud about it on social media. Your strategy can show them what they will be missing out on.
Overall, if your team is ready to build that community and increase long-term supporters, your nonprofit social media strategy will do just that by driving brand recognition, providing value to your supporters, and increasing social media engagement.
Create A Strong Foundation for Your Nonprofit Social Media Strategy
Define your goals
Defining goals is definitely easier said than done. We really like to use the SMART goal method. This is an acronym for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. Use this SMART goal template to define and attain your goals!
Marketing Where Your Audience’s Attention is Actually At
Where is your specific audience is spending their time? That’s where we need to invest our marketing efforts. For example, say you’re trying to target gen Z, a younger generation. Well, Tik Tok has been downloaded 2 billion times and it’s where Gen Z spends their time.
Knowing this, we need to really think about how we’re actually going to be relevant in those specific channels. Plus, young people are the future donors and supporters of your nonprofit organization, so maybe it is time to learn how to market to younger audiences.
Choosing The Best Channels for Your Social Media Strategy
When you’re deciding on the best channels for your nonprofit social media strategy, you’ll want to start by thinking through a few basic questions:
- What channels will you be using to generate awareness?
- How will you be tracking the success of these channels?
- Will you have a different approach for each channel?
In the webinar, we walked through each of these channels and how to best use them. Choose your best-performing channels by watching the recording!
This video is created and published by Community Boost
Choose the best channels for your social media marketing strategy, measure your success, and grow your community!
2022 Nonprofit Social Media Trends
Here are some of the most influential and currents trends across Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and TikTok. Get on top of them now!
Instagram Reels Will Help You Capture More Attention
Do you know how the Instagram algorithm actually works? Good news, it’s not a secret so you can hack the algorithm too! A few quick things nonprofits can do with their social media strategy are add in reels, use stickers and links, use 30+ hashtags, and cross-promote your content. INSTAGRAM IS PRIORITIZING REELS overall. Think about it this way reels get twice as much real estate on the platform. So, by you consistently sharing and adding reels, more people are going to notice you!
Adopting Twitter Spaces Will Help You Stand Out
Twitter Spaces allows you to have live audio conversations on Twitter! This is a great way to connect with your own audience without having to start from the ground up. Since Twitter’s algorithm is prioritizing this, it is likely that updates saying you are LIVE will be heavily be pushed to your network and even further! Twitter is an up-and-coming virtual event trend. Hop on it? I think so!
Live Social Video
I’m sure you’ve all seen Instagram Live and Facebook Live. You probably also get notifications from time to time when someone starts a live video. This is still being favored over other videos or regular photo posts. Instagram even has a feature completely for nonprofits where people can use Instagram live to create a fundraiser where 100% of the donations go to the organization of their choice.
Instagram and Facebook aren’t the only channels favoring live. Currently, you must apply to be approved to participate and use LinkedIn’s live-streaming service, LinkedIn Live. However, you may be pleasantly surprised by LinkedIn’s algorithm and notification system encouraging those in your network to drop what they may be doing and watch your event. Creating live social video content will allow you to reach your followers in real-time with an added bonus of a push notification to your audience.
Tik Tok
It’s not a secret that Instagram and Facebook are the top social media platforms to consider nowadays. However, TikTok reached 1 billion users in September 2021, which made it the 7th most popular social network in the world. Now it is launching the Tik Tok Instant Page shopping display option. TikTok describes it as a “lightweight native landing page within the app that loads up to 11 times faster than standard mobile pages.”
When you being to build out your nonprofit social media strategy using the new trends and knowledge about engagement, you will quickly see your community start to not only grow but also build stronger relationships. With all of the new features rolling out, you will be able to capture your audience, market to them on the channels they are using in the ways they are using them, and finally, have a strong foundational strategy.
This video is created and published by Community Boost