Let’s face it, there are a ton of resources online that claim to have the answers to your social media woes.
Often times this requires shifting through many useless articles in the hopes you’ll find one that will make an impact on your organization.
That’s why we’ve taken the guesswork out of the equation by curating only the best strategic marketing resources for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, and Pinterest.
Whether you need help planning a social media strategy, conducting a social media audit, or drafting reports to prove results to leadership, we’ve got you covered.
Our curated list of industry-leading templates is guaranteed to help with your next social media campaign.
Software development has exploded in the last 10 years giving way to an overwhelming number of free and paid social media tools.
Admittedly most tools are a waste of time and money, however, we’ve managed to track down a few exceptions to this rule and provide a brief overview of how nonprofits can leverage them to get results.
What is your number one social media tip for nonprofits that want to grow and retain their audience online? That’s the question we asked social media and fundraising experts.
Of course, we didn’t ask just anyone. We asked influencers who have built a successful online brand by leveraging social media to grow their audience in the tens of thousands.
Nonprofits need to understand that “social media” is not just a marketing tool that needs to be leveraged for their benefit. These powerful platforms have completely revolutionized and changed the way that humans consume information as well as the way in which they interact with each other.
Your traditional fundraising, marketing, and outreach materials cannot just be cut and pasted into these channels. You cannot put a square peg in a round hole. Social media content needs to be carefully, creatively crafted for the specific channel, ALWAYS with the audience in mind. Before posting, ask: What do they want to know more about? What kinds of stories are they craving? How can we get their attention and make a deeper connection?
When you tell emotional, inspiring stories about your impact, your nonprofit will deepen relationships with current donors, entice more people to join your cause, and raise the visibility of your work. I train nonprofits on the most effective ways to use storytelling and social media to accomplish their goals and to achieve the kind of growth that they desire and that they deserve. Using storytelling and digital tools, my nonprofit clients reach more supporters, engage more donors, and build their movements! Email me to explore working together.
Forbes Contributor, keynote speaker, and champion of social good writes:
Have a strategy for social media. Just posting a lot isn’t a strategy. You want to know what your goal for social media is. Your goal for Twitter should be different from your goal for Instagram. You can use a Facebook page in very different ways from a Facebook group. Have a strategy for using all of these tools (yes, the platforms are tools) for building relationships you can use to build your nonprofit.
Devin is a journalist, author and educator. He calls himself a champion of social good. He travels extensively as a volunteer doing service, as a journalist finding heroes and as a speaker sharing what he’s learned. As a Forbes Contributor he covers social entrepreneurship and impact investing, reaching an audience of over 1 million people. He’s produced over 900 episodes of his Your Mark on the World show featuring luminary change agents.
A bestselling author, his books—read over 1 million times—help people use money for good. He has helped nonprofits raise millions of dollars via crowdfunding. To tell stories, he draws on his entrepreneurial finance experience as an investment banker, CFO, treasurer, and mortgage broker. Previously he worked on the U.S. Senate Banking committee staff and earned an MBA at Cornell.
Like what Devin has to say? Want to learn more? You can! Learn social media in this beginners course!
Grantmaker, fundraiser, consultant, and serial entrepreneur writes:
Put Away The Megaphone! There are two fundamentals to all good fundraising. The first is to build relationships around the needs and interests of the donor. The second is to ask the right person at the right time for the right thing. This is made possible, of course, by having listened carefully and engaged actively with your supporters.
Unfortunately, many organizations just broadcast their needs and expect people to respond rather than engaging actively with current and prospective donors. But social networks are ideal for real interactive communication that can lead naturally expanded constituencies and growing revenues. On these platforms, we can identify kindred spirits, learn more about what motivates them, invite them to participate in activities of interest to them, and then, after building a relationship of trust, ask for their financial support of those activities.
That last step—the request for support—can and should be personal, just as all the gratitude we show must be real, immediate, and individual. The days of just hoping people will give to something that is important to our organizations are long gone. The rise of social networks has raised expectations for authentic, interactive, and responsive communications.
So, let’s make the focus to every communication the interests of our audience. Similarly, our crisis in donor retention can be addressed in large part by having substantial and authentic interactions with donors in their preferred environments. The rise of AI will help us in doing many of these things on a massive scale, of course, but it will never fully replace shaking hands, picking up the phone to say “thank you,” or sending a short video acknowledging a donor by name directly through Messenger, LinkedIn, or Twitter.
Let’s put energy into having real conversations. Let’s be willing to invite participation and financial support. Let’s be quick, enthusiastic, and generous in our public and private praise for those who make our work possible. And let’s remember that social networks are not a direct response tool but a place where human beings have chosen to live out a part of their personal lives. So, let’s put away the megaphone!
Over his thirty years as a grantmaker, fundraiser, consultant, and serial entrepreneur, Jay Frost has worked with thousands of organizations to identify and pursue billions in fundraising opportunities for thousands of charitable organizations around the world. Jay has been recognized as one of America’s Top 10 Fundraising Experts by Philanthropy Media, one of the Top Experts in Fundraising by Klout, one of the Top Eight Fundraising Influencers by Elevation Media, and one of the Top Thirteen Excellent Fundraising Consultants by Double the Donation. Jay is a consultant to nonprofits and an advisor to companies serving the philanthropic marketplace.
He currently serves as Senior Partner at Jerold Panas, Linzy & Partners, an Advisor to DonorSearch, a Senior Consultant at Brian Lacy and Associates, and an Associate for the Resource Alliance. A popular speaker and trainer, Jay has addressed hundreds of meetings in the US, UK, Canada, Asia, and the Middle East.
Host of Women Speakers Associations #SpeakerChat and social media strategist writes:
If you want to grow and retain your audience online you need to determine what they are looking for, find the right keywords that will attract their attention, and use them within your social media posts on their own or as hashtags. Not only will these keywords and hashtags help you grow your audience, they will also enable your audience to filter out information that is relevant to them.
Tracey Ehman, an Online Presence and Social Media Strategist, is the go-to person for enhancing your online presence, ensuring that you not only get “found” by your target audience, but that your website and social media efforts increase your revenues.
Tracey is also part of the Women Speakers Association (WSA) Executive Team, and host of the once a month WSA #SpeakerChat on Facebook LIVE.
Like what Tracey has to say? Check out her free report, which shares keyword marketing secrets that can help you be found online.
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING STATISTICS
Online giving to charitable organizations has continued to rise year over year, with an estimated $31 billion given in 2017, up from $28 billion in 2016.
Driving much of this growth is social media.
In fact, 55% of people who engage with nonprofits on social media end up taking an action, while 59% of those people make an online donation.
The statistics are more compelling when you dig into them by platform.
Facebook Statistics For Nonprofits
Nonprofits share an average of 1.2 Facebook updates per day.
In an average peer-to-peer fundraising campaign, 15-18% of donations are referred directly from Facebook.
84% of Facebook users share to show their support for a cause and highlight issues that are important to them.
Facebook refers 29.4% of traffic to donation pages on #GivingTuesday.
$45 million was raised by nonprofits through Facebook fundraisers on Giving Tuesday.
Leading the distribution of information for many nonprofits is social media.
According to one study from the University of Massachusetts’s Center for Marketing Research, 71% of charities and nonprofits say social media is useful for driving online donations.
However, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the hundreds of strategies, guides, tricks, and tips online.
We’ve taken the guesswork out of the equation by aggregating only the best social media marketing resources available online.
These resources are perfect for beginners and veterans wanting to learn and develop their social media skills.
Botletter – connect with your audience on Facebook by sending newsletters, growing subscribers, and altering members of updates through Facebook messenger.
Facebook Advertising
Charity: Water is leveraging Facebook advertising in a big way by using storytelling to raise awareness of the global water crisis and inspire people to give.
By creating a video to share the team showed how bringing clean water to people in need impacts both those who give and those who are served by the water projects.
The Result?
They raised $470,000.00 in annual recurring revenues, which is enough to provide 15,666 people with clean water for a year.
Get your next Facebook campaign launched using the resources below:
Facebook Ads – Setting up the basics:
Facebook Pixel – a Facebook pixel placed on your site will collect data in Facebook’s ad manager. With this information, you serve Facebook ads to people who visit your site. You can also leverage the data to optimize your audience to tailor your message to that group.
Custom Facebook Audiences – email lists are not one dimensional. You don’t just have to send newsletters, or witty headlines to get your message across. Simply upload your list and a custom audience will be created to match. This creates another touch point to get in front of your donors.
Lookalike Audience – leveraging someone else’s audience in a related industry is the perfect way to increase your brands reach. When you start a Facebook campaign you can choose this option to reach people who have donated to a nonprofit organization in the past.
AdEspresso – optimize your Facebook ads for impact while lowering your costs using data. Comes with a free 14-day trial.
Twitter For Nonprofits
With over 313 million users, especially younger generations, Twitter is the perfect social platform for creating meaningful relationships.
According to Adweek, 86% of charities and nonprofits use Twitter to share content, promote events, and interact with their audience.
CARE, an international nonprofit that fights against poverty by empowering girls and women, does a great job at sharing compelling stories and information that make a real impact.
CARE has manages to create engagement opportunities and even inspire action through the use of short videos on Twitter:
One of my favorite Twitter strategies to grow your followership is to follow your audience.
I know it sounds simple, but it works.
Here’s how:
To get started go to search.twitter.com and enter keywords or hashtags related to your industry, the services you provide, or the name of your audience.
For my Twitter account I used nonprofit + marketing along with several variations:
Then filter the search to people or accounts:
Here you can choose to narrow the search further by selecting specific keywords in the account description by doing a simple control + f search in the web browser.
For example, my search might include nonprofit + marketing in addition to accounts that also have the word fundraising in their profile.
I recommend following 10-20 new accounts per day and keeping a detailed list of your interactions with each account in an Excel or Google spreadsheet.
One thing to avoid while building these relationships is invading your follower’s DMs (direct messages) unless you have something of absolute value to offer.
Messages should be custom and tailored specifically to the individual you’re reaching out to otherwise, you risk fracturing the relationship before it’s even begun.
Note: This Twitter strategy is not intended to be a “quick win” that will skyrocket your followership, engagement, or revenue.
The goal here is to naturally build a following of people in your niche who are most likely to engage with your content and that takes time.
Over the next 3 – 6 months focus on developing content that addresses or answers your audience’s pain points, knowledge gaps, or curiosity.
Twitter Chats
Twitter chats are a great way to connect with your audience while establishing yourself as an industry influencer.
A while back I joined #npchat, which is a question and answer chat focused on nonprofit marketing.
One of the questions asked us to share our favorite marketing tool for blog posts.
While there may not be direct fundraising capabilities – yet, Snapchat’s users have higher rates of engagement when compared to other social platforms.
When it comes to sharable content Pinterest is KING.
According to one study, Pinterest pins are 100 times more spreadable than a tweet.
Operation Smile, a nonprofit providing safe and free cleft lip and cleft palate repair surgery to children around the world, is taking advantage of Pinterest to grow awareness to their cause.
Its Pinterest page includes patient stories, creative fundraising and displays of their impact.
Their New Smiles! Before & After Surgery board features before and after photos of children who have received surgeries through operation smile.
If you’re looking for an inexpensive way to create marketing videos than look no further than Promo.
Here’s how it works:
Select a templatized video from Promo’s library.
Add your text and logo.
Kick back and relax, because you’re done!
At $45.00 per video, Promo may seem pricey.
However, these short videos are perfect for driving traffic and engagement from Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat.
The alternative is to outsource production for several hundreds of dollars or attempt it in-house.
AboutJason Firch
I help nonprofits and associations realize the value in their digital marketing. I'm also the CEO of PurpleSec, a cyber security company. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter.
Glad you enjoyed and thanks for sharing the great advice!
ClearView CRM
May 23, 2018
This post is full of great info for nonprofits of all sizes (especially for the small-to-mid sizers out there that handle their marketing completely in house)!
From talking with our nonprofit clients & friends, it seems having a clear strategy with defined goals beforehand is the best place to start. But being agile enough to adapt when needed is just as important.
Our advice is to simply tell your story in the most interesting way you can. Since, who doesn’t love a good heart-warming story from an organization that’s changing the world!
Glad you enjoyed and thanks for sharing the great advice!
This post is full of great info for nonprofits of all sizes (especially for the small-to-mid sizers out there that handle their marketing completely in house)!
From talking with our nonprofit clients & friends, it seems having a clear strategy with defined goals beforehand is the best place to start. But being agile enough to adapt when needed is just as important.
Our advice is to simply tell your story in the most interesting way you can. Since, who doesn’t love a good heart-warming story from an organization that’s changing the world!