How Non-Profits Can Use Social Media to Get Noticed
Social Media is a powerful tool to promote your organization.
As a non-profit, it is important to create a sustainable social media program that allows you to reach out to your community, and build awareness for your cause.
With all the social media tools at your disposal, sometimes getting started is the toughest part.
Below are six elements to focus on as you begin to build out your social media campaigns.
1.
Use Your Blog to Tell the Story Think of your blog as your very own virtual publisher.
Tell your story and share your cause through informational but authentic blog posts.
A blog is a beautiful way to use words, images and multimedia to introduce your initiatives to an extended audience, and show the impact you have on your community.
2.
Be Accessible Make it easy for visitors to find you and share your content.
Here are three tools we use.
• Embed the "Share This" function on content heavy pages like your blog, press release page, and events page.
• Showcase your social media "follow" buttons throughout every page of your site.
We suggest that you feature the "follow" buttons above the fold on each page.
•Provide your visitors the option to sign up for an RSS feed of your updates.
You can use a third-party RSS feed provider with RSS to email options like Feedburner or Feedblitz.
3.
Facebook is Your Friend 44% of online sharing occurs on Facebook.
Humans are creatures that feed off emotion, and as such they like to share content with their friends that evoke feelings.
No other infrastructure on the planet evokes more emotion then non-profits.
Non-profits MUST have a Facebook presence.
Spend 15 minutes a day updating your page and commenting on others pages.
This will help you show up more frequently in your fans news feed.
People might not be looking at your page daily, but they do see their news feed when they log into Facebook.
Creating a Facebook Group, Event or utilizing Facebook ads are also great ways to spread your message.
4.
Give Credit Where Credit is Due Take photos of events, fundraisers, etc, and post them to Facebook.
Tag volunteers, attendees, supporters, etc, thanking them for all of their hard work and help.
This will interest their friends in seeing their good work and draw attention to your cause.
5.
Where Are Your Tweeps At? Tweet daily.
If your tweet is an important one, end your tweet with "please RT!" but don't overuse it! In addition to tweeting also start conversations around hash tags.
Assign hash tags to each individual event or campaign.
When using a hash tag you will show up in Twitter searches and gain more exposure for your cause.
6.
Optimize Your Photo's with Flickr Flickr accounts are free and let you assign each image with keywords and links, and index to search engines as well.
As a non-profit, it is important to create a sustainable social media program that allows you to reach out to your community, and build awareness for your cause.
With all the social media tools at your disposal, sometimes getting started is the toughest part.
Below are six elements to focus on as you begin to build out your social media campaigns.
1.
Use Your Blog to Tell the Story Think of your blog as your very own virtual publisher.
Tell your story and share your cause through informational but authentic blog posts.
A blog is a beautiful way to use words, images and multimedia to introduce your initiatives to an extended audience, and show the impact you have on your community.
2.
Be Accessible Make it easy for visitors to find you and share your content.
Here are three tools we use.
• Embed the "Share This" function on content heavy pages like your blog, press release page, and events page.
• Showcase your social media "follow" buttons throughout every page of your site.
We suggest that you feature the "follow" buttons above the fold on each page.
•Provide your visitors the option to sign up for an RSS feed of your updates.
You can use a third-party RSS feed provider with RSS to email options like Feedburner or Feedblitz.
3.
Facebook is Your Friend 44% of online sharing occurs on Facebook.
Humans are creatures that feed off emotion, and as such they like to share content with their friends that evoke feelings.
No other infrastructure on the planet evokes more emotion then non-profits.
Non-profits MUST have a Facebook presence.
Spend 15 minutes a day updating your page and commenting on others pages.
This will help you show up more frequently in your fans news feed.
People might not be looking at your page daily, but they do see their news feed when they log into Facebook.
Creating a Facebook Group, Event or utilizing Facebook ads are also great ways to spread your message.
4.
Give Credit Where Credit is Due Take photos of events, fundraisers, etc, and post them to Facebook.
Tag volunteers, attendees, supporters, etc, thanking them for all of their hard work and help.
This will interest their friends in seeing their good work and draw attention to your cause.
5.
Where Are Your Tweeps At? Tweet daily.
If your tweet is an important one, end your tweet with "please RT!" but don't overuse it! In addition to tweeting also start conversations around hash tags.
Assign hash tags to each individual event or campaign.
When using a hash tag you will show up in Twitter searches and gain more exposure for your cause.
6.
Optimize Your Photo's with Flickr Flickr accounts are free and let you assign each image with keywords and links, and index to search engines as well.
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