The Importance of Social Media for NFPs

If nonprofits wish to survive and thrive, they must have support. This support can come in many forms such as advocacy, donations, and volunteering.

Increasing Support Doesn’t Have to Be Costly

At its heart, social media marketing allows nonprofits to use one of the most successful, and oldest, forms of advertising to increase its base of support: social influence, or, word-of-mouth marketing. Social media campaigns are effective for increasing an NFP’s reach because their cost can be easily controlled by scaling campaigns up or down.

Once the initial content is created, connections within various networks spread the message on their own, creating organic support and traffic without incurring additional cost. Using social media to find and recruit supporters, however, isn’t just about controlling costs. The following is a brief overview of two additional reasons why nonprofits need to be using social media in their marketing campaigns and communications.

To Stay Competitive

Competition is a key factor that affects the impact and growth of every nonprofit, despite the increase in collaborations and partnerships between third parties.

Nonprofits compete to recruit skilled, talented people to serve on boards, and as staff members and volunteers. Funds are also a scarce resource, as there are not enough grants, endowments and individual contributions to fund every need.

Research shows that if you want your nonprofit to be able to recruit enough staff, volunteers, advocates and donors, then your nonprofit must have an online presence, and be using social media to spread the word about your cause and how others can help.

According to statistics provided in the 2016 Global NGO Online Technology Report, most not for profits worldwide are actively online using multiple social media channels to connect with supporters, accept donations and spread awareness about their NFP’s mission. A full 92% of NFPs have a website and 46% blog regularly, making it easy for online users to discover information about their mission and projects.

75% email their supporters’ donation requests and other news, and 75% accept donations online. 95% have a Facebook page, 83% have a profile on Twitter, and nearly 40% use Instagram to keep their supporters up-to-date and motivated about the good work that their organisation is accomplishing.

To be effective, nonprofits must use social media to stand out from all of their competitors in both the for-profit and not-for-profit world. They should use it to firmly establish their brand, and link their brand to their cause, their vision and the work that can be accomplished with the support of others.

To Remain Relevant

It’s not just other NFPs that are online. According to data on social media trends provided by Track Maven, nearly one third of the entire world’s population will be online by next year. Global Web Index statistics reveal that most online users have about 6 social media profiles and regularly use nearly half of them.

This data clearly illustrates why it’s so important for your nonprofit to enter this space! A growing number of us no longer get our news from traditional network broadcasts and media outlets. Instead, we are leveraging our social media networks to stay up-to-date on the latest news and events. We then share those stories that personally connect with us and then like or otherwise express an opinion about these posts with our connections.

To become a part of these crucial conversations and exchanges of ideas, you must be online, and using the social media channels where these conversations are taking place. To engage with potential supporters, you must be online where your supporters are likely to be. Otherwise your cause will go unnoticed and your projects will go unsupported. To stay relevant, nonprofits need to include social media in their marketing strategies, and engage their supporters on the social media channels of their choice.  

If your nonprofit is struggling to build its base of support, this is likely a sign that your social media strategy may need some fine-tuning to return the results that your nonprofit wants and needs. 

Revising Your Fundraising Results

Planning is an integral part of successful fundraising, and you can never get an early enough start! As the end of the year fast approaches, many nonprofits are busy hosting holiday galas and other end of year events. Most members of the staff are likely occupied with their own personal holiday celebrations as well. Just because the season is coming to an end, however, isn't an excuse to avoid planning your nonprofit's fundraising efforts for the next year.

Now is the time to reflect on your nonprofit's results for the year, and learn from any mistakes that were made during your fundraising campaigns. The following steps can help you to gain insight into what does and does not work for your nonprofit so that you can revise and refine your strategies and be set to start the New Year off right!

Review Results of 2016 Fundraising Campaigns - What Did and Did Not Work?

Before you start making plans for your 2017 fundraising campaigns, take time to reflect on what did and did not work well this year. Go back and look at the metrics for the messages that you sent out during your various fundraising campaigns; did you effectively target your audience and reach your fundraising goals? Were there steps that you could have taken, such as using additional measures to segment your donors list to further tailor your messaging to specific target audiences, which would have improved your results? What specific additional resources do you need to increase your fundraising results in 2017?

Refine Messages and Targeting to Build and Increase Donor Base

Ideally, you should segment your donor lists so that you can ensure that you can tailor your fundraising efforts to match the demographics of your target audience. You should begin by segmenting your list into current and repeat donors and prospective donors, as your approach to reach each of these audiences should be different.

There are other ways to segment your donor list to improve your results and grow your donor base. For example, we know that certain audiences respond well to certain types of messaging and fundraising campaigns, so you should segment your donor list and group them into target audiences to ensure that you are reaching out to donors via their preferred method of interaction, such as email, social media posts, telephone calls and face to face contact.

Once you have segmented your donor lists, and identified their preferred means of contact and interaction with your nonprofit, you can then tailor your message to match preferences that are determined by such demographics as gender, age, location, shared interests and so forth.

Improve Communication and Storytelling to Increase Results

Improving your nonprofit's communication is really a continuation of refining your messaging and targeting. Review the ways that you communicated with your donors and other supporters throughout the year. What sorts of stories did you tell about your nonprofit and the good work that it does in your community? What methods did you use to communicate your nonprofit's stories?

Look for ways to keep your nonprofit's messaging in line with your nonprofit's mission and goals. Make it easier to build connections and increase support for your cause by expanding the ways that you communicate with supporters. In addition to using visual images that carry human interest and convey emotion, consider adding short "micro-videos," that can help demonstrate just what it is that your nonprofit does and how it makes a difference and helps others in your community.

Don't forget to test the messages that you send through 2017, and adjust them to improve your results. This includes the emails that you send about fundraising events and donation requests as well as the other messages and updates that you send to supporters throughout the year.

Use Creative Twists to Update and Market Popular Fundraising Events

Annual events are a great way to encourage repeat donations, but you must be careful to not allow fundraisers such as galas, awards ceremonies, auctions, raffles and other events to become stale and boring. Don't be afraid to use creative twists to keep things fresh, and interesting, at your nonprofit's fundraising events.  

Consider hosting events in a new locations, shake up routines by varying the presenters and line-up and look for ways to inject fun and excitement into your nonprofit's events to encourage donors to want to come to your nonprofit's next event.

Test and Overhaul Your Website and Revamp Social Media Efforts

Just as you want your nonprofit's fundraisers to be exciting so that they continue to draw repeat donors and encourage new supporters to attend, you also need to take the time to update your nonprofit's website on a regular basis. Make certain that your posts are fresh, interesting and helpful, both on your nonprofit's main website, as well as on social media posts.

Take time to make certain that all of your site's pages load quickly, and can be viewed on both mobile and stationary platforms. Make certain that posts are easy to share across all of your nonprofit's social media profiles, and make it easy for others to like and share your content as well.

Continue to test messaging, and make certain that all of your posts are in keeping with your nonprofit's mission and goals and will make the impression that you want while also getting your message across.

Above all, make certain that your site's main donation page and donation buttons work well so that it's easy for supporters to donate as well as be able to learn more about your cause.  

Are You Seeking Professionals?

If you are a non-profit, governmental agency, or other institution, it can be difficult to find volunteers for your organisation, especially if you need a volunteer with a highly specialised skill set, such as that of a treasurer, secretary, or other professional.  According to a study by The Australian Society for Association Professionals, the members of many organisations are increasingly turning to their associations as their leading source for news and information about their industry, and these same members expect their groups to be a source of authority, a voice for influence within their profession. So now, more than ever, the professional qualifications and abilities of the person that your organisation selects counts more than ever.

How can you find great candidates to fill your group’s volunteer positions?  The answer may be as close as your next Tweet or targeted Facebook ad.

Today’s busy professionals are increasingly turning to social media to stay connected with the persons, places, things and even products and businesses that they care about.  Why should the associations and organisations that they are involved with be any different?  Social Media can be an incredibly efficient, low cost way of advertising a product or a position.  To be effective, you will want to keep the following tips in mind when you are using social media to locate your next recruit and get them to commit.

Have A Clear Online Presence Before You Advertise Your Position

Before you tell the world that you are seeking volunteers for your organisation, make certain that your association already has a website that clearly states its goals and mission and provides information about the sort of work that your group does.  Having a link on your group’s site that lists the benefits of volunteering with you, as well as contact information for potential recruits, can be very helpful to your efforts to find qualified volunteers.

Utilise Social Media Tools To Your Best Advantage

Facebook and other social media outlets often have tools to help you find out what members and other individuals are already saying about your group.  Oftentimes you can find a qualified volunteer simply by looking at those individuals who frequently like and comment on the status updates of your organisation, and Facebook offers you the ability to target your help wanted ads to those individuals so that you can ensure that you are controlling your ad costs and only targeting those with an interest in your cause.  Other social media tools, such as Google Search, can help you find individuals who are already interested in your group’s mission but who may not yet be affiliated with your association.

You can discover more helpful tips about how to use social media to find your next treasurer or other volunteer professional in this recent article at the online magazine, Third Sector.

Social Media Strategy For Non Profits

Social media for non profit organisations can be extremely beneficial particularly in terms of fundraising and creating an awareness of new projects or plans.  Whether you use Facebook, Twitter or some other method the key is to interact and engage with the followers on the page to ensure that the information is being circulated to the widest audience as possible.  A multi-channel campaign – ie a campaign that involves many avenues for awareness and fundraising is the best bet for non-profit organisations as you have more chance of your information being seen and acted upon.

Often just starting out in social media can be the most difficult so you want to ensure that your staff, volunteers, friends and family support the work that you are doing.  Get them to spread the word about your campaign in the first instance so your information has a chance to be noticed.

 

Another great tip is to link up all your social media profiles with your website and include them in your newsletter and emails and other marketing avenues you have working for you.  You don’t want to waste any opportunity when it comes to letting people know that you are active online.

As part of your social media strategy, once you have it up and running, you will need to allocate a person or persons to post on and monitor the social media accounts daily to maximise the benefits and answer any questions that your supporters may have.

While getting donations may be important to your cause, social media has many other great benefits as well.  You will find that once you have a solid support network up and running through your social media avenues, it will be easier to get new campaigns off the ground and recruit volunteers for your next project as your fans are already supportive to your cause and will be keen to help in any way possible.