How To Manage Social Media Engagement For Nonprofits

May 25, 2021 12 min read

Unlike traditional media, social media is a two-way communication process, i.e., communication between the organization and your audience or stakeholders.

While most nonprofit organizations have a presence on social media, they often fail to engage with their audience.

The primary goals of nonprofits for using social media are for brand awareness, advocacy, creating a network with similar organizations or for fundraising.

Nonprofit organizations who proactively engage with audience on social media can effectively generate awareness for their organization & the cause they stand behind.

Apart from increasing the visibility of the organization's mission, social media for nonprofits also helps in improving goodwill.

However, many nonprofits fail when it comes to managing social media engagement.

They often face multiple challenges like less engagement, lack of resources to enhance social media presence, privacy issues, or posting content regularly.

If your organization is also facing such issues or not getting the desired engagement in your posts or if you are still wondering about the importance of social media for nonprofits, this article will help you with tips to effectively manage social media engagement for nonprofits.

You can directly jump to a section of your choice or keep scrolling.

Importance Of Social Media For Nonprofits

Social media can be a goldmine for nonprofits.

Social media for nonprofits is vastly helpful for fundraising, capacity building, campaign or event planning, and employee or volunteer recruitment. Here are a few reasons why social media is important for nonprofits in 2021.

1. Stakeholder Engagement

Social media can be a part of the broad communication strategy of the nonprofits to engage the stakeholders.

Though social media for nonprofits was a prolonged requirement in the public relations domain, targeted social media engagement to reach focused group has recently begun.

This is primarily because social media platforms help nonprofits quickly and efficiently reach the stakeholders and the target audience.

With social media, it is easier to build trust with the donors. And with proactive engagements, organizations can achieve desired goals.

It ensures to create more new opportunities as well as possibilities for the organization. Stakeholders can share their feedback quickly on any new ideas or events or information, or announcements.

2. Effective Information Dissemination

Social media for nonprofits ensures effective dialogue communication in a public arena. As part of their planning process for a broader communication strategy for the organization, important messages can be quickly shared with a larger group.

Social media allow you to be creative and present organizational policies in a unique manner. The team members can disseminate the brand message creatively through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Youtube.

It is especially crucial and vital during the time of crisis management.

Furthermore, well-constructed content can help the followers of the organization to get a walk-through on the policy changes.

The relation with the target audience or the communities the organization is working for can be understood through well-tailored content.

Effective Information Dissemination

Image Source: Polaris Facebook Page

3. Strengthen Relation And Generate Awareness

Another benefit of social media for nonprofits is that it helps to enhance the relationship with the existing stakeholders.

At the same time, it also allows the organizations to create and strengthen relations with new community members.

Furthermore, with the integration of the latest social media tools, nonprofits can develop their public relations activities. It makes the organization more resourceful and also augments the brand image.

Nonprofits using social media successfully can easily drive attention towards the cause or mission they are working for and generate awareness among the masses, making the people more sensitive toward it.

People become encouraged to participate in the cause for the greater good of society. The attention gradually transforms into action. Well-managed social media for nonprofits can turn into a significant creator of participatory democracy.

Strengthen relation and Generate awareness

Image Source: Nazdeek Instagram Account

4. Time & Cost Efficient

With an already limited fund, and most of it spent in providing services, nonprofits do not have much to spend on advertising.

Social media, hence, can be creatively used to do some publicity while also raising some funds for the provision of services.

Compared to traditional media, using social media can save a lot of time, effort and money while achieving even better results. Here the notable point is that it depends on the social media practices or the social media strategy of the respective organizations.

Suppose your organization requires you to make a donation announcement or network with your peer organization and partner organization. In that case, social media for nonprofits is an effective way to connect to them within a short period.

The best part here is that transparency and credibility are maintained publicly. Social media has proved this time and time again by boosting numerous businesses and nonprofits organizations to newer heights.

5. Enhance Credibility

Well-managed social media can ensure to enhance the credibility of your organization.

With frequent posting of necessary information and by transparent sharing of funds usage, makes your organization look more credible. It makes the road to achieve your aims and objectives easier.

Enhance Credibility

Image Source: Kiva Facebook Page

Are You Using Social Media For Nonprofits Effectively?

Social media for nonprofits is gradually becoming more relevant in the present scenario. A recent survey reveals that nonprofits are adopting social media for better outreach.

But before you jump on to the social media bandwagon its important to understanad how the algorithm works.

These algorithms determine what content should reach your organization's followers. Better the reach, more the number of engagements on your post.

Even more than the followers count, engagements are a significant factor to look upon if you are looking for effective social media use for your nonprofit organization.

To use social media for nonprofits effectively here are a few things you need to track :

Monitor Participation

Focusing on social media engagement is a must. More likes, shares, comments, retweets will lead to social media growth. If your content is getting high responses from audiences, it refers to the fact that you are posting captivating content.

Measure The Traffic

Referral traffic can help you understand how many visits you are getting to your site or campaign page or fundraising page from the links you posted on social media accounts. Referral traffic is essential for a good page rank & would help you in reaching your end goals.

Check For Impressions And Reach

To achieve your goals through social media campaigns, ensure to check for the impressions. Impressions here stand for the number of times your post appeared on someone's timelines or feed. And through reach analysis, you can get the metrics of the number of people who have seen you post, irrespective of whether they are following you or not.

Check for impressions and Reach

These metrics can measure the effectiveness of using social media to reach your organizational goal.

These insights can help you weave a productive and effective social media strategy for your nonprofit.

You'll be able to create appropriate content for Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, and you'll be able to get an idea of the best posting times as well, which inevitably will help you reach your organization's social media goals.

Tips To Increase Engagement On Social Media For Nonprofits

One of the significant aspects to take care of while using social media for nonprofits is engagement. You may use different social media channels for your organization, but your organization may lose out on the bigger picture if there is no proactive engagement.

Engagements refer to comments, likes, and views on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or other social media platforms.

We are here to talk about how you can get more engagement on social media for your nonprofit. So, let's get started.

1. Set Organizational Priorities Right

Before you start posting on social media, you need to plot out the basic plan of how you want to proceed with the whole process. First, you must know your priorities, i.e., what are you primarily aiming to achieve from using social media for your nonprofit.

You must know which social media platform you want to spend most of your time and effort. For that, you need to recognize your target audience.

You get your audience from your history of funds, volunteers, or general awareness.

Set Organizational Priorities Right

Image Source: Mental Health America Facebook Page

2. Account Setup

Most of the leading social media platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, let users create special nonprofit accounts. Nonprofit accounts can add a "donate" button on their pages and carry out fundraisers.

YouTube too has a vast array of features specifically designed to accommodate nonprofits.

Work on your profile. It would help if you regularly update your profile on the social site by periodically updating your bio, posting progress reports, photographs, and videos related to your work. You should make an attractive account, to begin with.

3. Make Sure To Post Before An Event

Schedule posts, and maintain a record about them. Being a nonprofit, you would have events and posts made on those days would get more attention. Plan social media content for such events and be prepared in advance to post at the perfect time.

Some social media platforms even allow you to schedule your posts, which essentially means that you can create & upload multiple posts today itself while scheduling them to be published on a specific date.

Then, the posts, even though uploaded today, wouldn't be visible till the specified time. Like this, you can be better prepared to make an enormous impact by taking the time to design the post. However, always be sure to maintain a good record of your scheduled posts; and your posting calendar in general.

Make Sure To Post On The Special Days

Image Source: Mental Health America Facebook Page

Here the social media marketing platforms for nonprofits come into the scenario. With Statusbrew, you can create a social media calendar and can schedule posts for months in advance. So that the consistency of the post is maintained and you don't miss out on posting on any event day.

4. Focus On Using Relevant Hashtags To Get Reach

Hashtags are a critical element to get limelight. Find & use the best suited hashtags that go with your post. Some hashtags can and must be used with any kinds of nonprofit posts, while there may be a specific hashtag that would go with a particular post. Keep an eye out for that.

Make-A-Wish foundation is creating it’s impact through the hashtag #MakeAWish. The objective of the foundation is to help the vulnerable and the ill children to fulfill their dreams. With the right use of hashtags the foundation’s objective is going viral and gradually the supporters are converting into donors.

Like Make-A-Wish foundation, WATERisLIFE organizations’s campaign goes viral with the hashtag #firstworldproblems. The anthem video created for the campaign was viewed and shared numerous times.

Make Sure To Post On The Special Days

Image Source: Make-A-Wish America Twitter Account

5. Keep Hosting Contests

To attract new audience, you have to garner the interest of social media users. To do that, the best way is to hold a contest. The prospect of winning something, or the mere thrill of competition, pulls people towards contests.

It is also necessary to choose the right prize for the said contest. Do not go for an out-of-the-way, expensive prize. Instead, go for an award that has some relevance to your nonprofit.

The reward should be appealing to the volunteers, donors, your well-wishers, and people who would willingly associate with the nonprofit throughout.

For example, to combat violence in and outside school, UNICEF, in association with Comics Uniting Nations, organized a comic contest. The young people and children have to draw their own comic characters to defeat the villain-Silence.

Make Sure To Post On The Special Days

Image Source: Ann Frank Trust Twitter Account

Recently another charity organization Ann Frank Trust announced a marathon challenge to free the world from prejudices. The organization invites people on Twitter to take part in the contest either virtually or in real life.

Content like this draws the attention of a wide group of audience and institutions and motivates them to work for a cause together. In the process, it also boosts the engagement of the nonprofits.

6. Post Interactive Content

Posting interactive content on social media helps to boost engagement. Nonprofits using social media successfully usually post content where audience or followers interaction is required.

To improve audience interaction, you can post a Facebook survey or run a poll on Twitter or post-Q/A on Instagram. You can also ask your audience to share a story on those posts.

Make Sure To Post On The Special Days

Image Source: UNICEF India Facebook Page

7. Make Sure To Reply

One of the most important ways to attract more attention and make dedicated fans and supporters for your nonprofit is to keep a close, personal relationship with the users.

Make it a habit to check who comments on your posts, and respond to them as soon as possible. Make them feel important by thanking them in public and appreciating them for their effort and support.

Further, tell them about your success stories and visions in return. Always be entertaining for your fans by occasionally cracking jokes, telling humorous stories and experiences.

And memes are the new way entertaining your fans and to keep them engaged.

8. Regularly Analyze Your Strategies

It is imperative for you to keep track of the effectiveness of your social media strategies. You may be using all the social media techniques available at hand, but you may still not get the desired results.

This could be a result of your inability to analyze if you are on the right track or not.

For this, you should regularly assess your strategies. You should keep track of where your nonprofit is going after you have taken to social media. This will give you an insight into the effectiveness of the strategy that you are taking into effect.

Most social media platforms have an analytics option that gives you an overview of user engagement on your account and posts. Use it to make your assessments.

Benefits Of Following A Social Media Strategy For Nonprofits

Following a specific strategy for social media for nonprofits can boost your engagement level. If you plan it well, these strategies can satisfy your organization requirements.

Nonprofits using social media successfully usually ensure to channelize their efforts to achieve their goals.

Easy Brand Establishment

The way an organization shares information and strategic decisions impact the brand image. Stakeholders looking for helpful information and often the usefulness of the data rely on how the information is shared.

Nonprofits following social media strategy enables the authority of the organizations to review and crosscheck the information to be shared so that no irrelevant content is published.

Social media marketing platforms ensure the organization is sharing it at the right time on the right platform. Furthermore, platforms like Statusbrew also helps you to set up a publishing calender.

Hence, it is always advisable to focus on following a proper blueprint for social media for nonprofits for a chaos-free establishment of brand image.

Make Sure To Post On The Special Days

Give You An Insight To Define Audience

Social media is a quite large platform with numerous users. And to achieve your goals it is vital to define your audience properly. A good social media strategy for nonprofits directs you to connect to the stakeholders or donors or the target audience who have similar values and visions like your organization.

Furthermore, when you define your target groups it becomes easier for your organization to understand the exact platform to reach them.

As part of the strategic plan you can decide the audience demography such as age group, location, gender, occupation etc.

Besides, it also helps you to understand the best time for nonprofits to post on social media so that the organization can reach a wider audience.

Monitor Team Performance

In nonprofits, the team members work in different regions, and they are engaged in multiple roles and responsibilities. A good plan can help to strategically streamline your team workflow.

The organization authority can structure the workflow to manage your social media account or campaign or fundraising activities or planning of new recruitment.

In that way, there are no worries of miscommunication or lack of tasks in team members' hands. Besides, the consistency of the posting also remains. Nonprofits need to build the audience's trust and update stakeholders about the organization's performance.

Consolidate Your Marketing Efforts For Nonprofits With Statusbrew

Start using Statusbrew to boost your nonprofit's social media strategy across all the crucial steps of publishing, engaging the audience and creating customized reports on everything that is important to be tracked -- from post performance to engagement.

You can create, schedule, and publish multiple social media posts across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Google My Business at once.

Easily manage comments by manually or automatically deleting, hiding, or marking them as spam. Build a community by leveraging social listening & proactively engaging with your follower & donor base.

Statusbrew offers 50% discount to eligible nonprofits

Book a free demo with Statusbrew to understand how it can work for your organization.

Try Statusbrew Today!

Statusbrew is an all-in-one social media management tool that supports Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Linkedin, and even Google My Business.!

Rajashree Goswami

Rajashree is a content creator & researcher at Statusbrew. She loves to create content that is expressive & communicative.

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