Social Media for Nonprofits

© 2017 Sanford Institute of Philanthropy | 2
our aims and values
To help nonprofits significantly increase their fundraising capabilities and
the impact they have in their communities and society, through proven
contemporary curriculum presented by world-class nonprofit leaders, best
in class faculty and renowned philanthropists.
mis·sion state·ment

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Our classes have already empowered nearly
12,000 nonprofit leaders
Buzz from the Classroom…

Alex Coleman
Marketing Coordinator
Maricopa Corporate College/Sanford
Institute of Philanthropy
Experience:
• BA in Journalism – Public Relations,
MMC in Mass Communication
• Master’s Thesis: Social Media Usage
Among AZ Nonprofits
• Certificate in Nonprofit Leadership
and Management from ASU
• Manages Maricopa Corporate
College social media accounts

• Develop your social media strategy
• Determine purpose/goals
• Define your target audience
• Develop your voice
• Create content strategy
• Measure success
• Discuss social media trends and best practices
• Explore benefits and tips for each social media
platform
• (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn)
Agenda

• How does your social media play into your larger marketing,
fundraising and organizational goals?
• Every social media post should tie back to one of these goals
Example:
• Goal: To increase giving to 2018 holiday campaign by 20%
• Social Media Goal: To increase our following across all social media
platforms by 40% between January – October 2018
Determine purpose/goals

• There’s no such thing as the “general public”
• Take a look at the demographics of who you are already reaching:
• Volunteers, social media followers, donors
• Develop personas (http://www.makemypersona.com/)
• Be specific!
• Consider where these personas hang out online and develop your
social media strategy based on their social media usage
Define your target audience

• How do you want your organization to be
perceived?
• Knowledgeable? Fun? Playful? Innovative?
• Keep brand consistency across
platforms, but there may be some
variance based on audience
• Create a content style guide
• Ensures consistency in your messaging,
especially when relying on volunteers to
contribute to your social media
• Good example to get you started:
https://styleguide.mailchimp.com/
Develop your voice

• What does your audience want to
know? What kind of information
would benefit them?
• Seek to provide value to your
audience, not just to push information
out about your organization
• Keep in mind: Like all of fundraising,
it’s about
mutually beneficial relationships
• Great example (and resource for
you!): HubSpot blog
Create content strategy

• Develop SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Results-
Focused, Time-Bound) for your social media efforts
• Focus on key metrics
• Brand Awareness: Impressions, Reach, Page Likes/Followers
• Engagement: Likes, Comments, Shares, Retweets, Engagement Rate,
Video Views
• Consideration: Website Clicks, Form Submissions
• Conversion: Donations, Volunteer Applications
• Use native social media analytics tools, Google Analytics (free tool)
Measure success

Video
• Facebook videos receive 135%
more organic reach than Facebook
photos
• Videos are 6x more likely to be
retweeted than photos
• Live Video
• Facebook users comment 10x
more on live videos than they do
regular videos
• Video of a live event increases
brand favorability by 63%
• Tips for great live video here.
Video

• Method of fundraising/awareness that leverages your supporters to
fundraise/raise awareness on your behalf
• Focus on what motivates people, and make it easy for them to
participate
Peer to Peer Campaigns
Photo via: https://www.flickr.com/photos/121483302@N02/15038945225

• Inbound Marketing:
• “Inbound marketing is focused on attracting customers through relevant
and helpful content and adding value at every stage in your customer's
buying journey.” – HubSpot
• Create content that answers commonly asked questions
• Share others’ content that is relevant to your audience
Post content that adds value

• Keep in mind that social media,
by definition, is intended for
conversation
• Don’t just push information out
• Ask questions to encourage
conversation
• Be patient– it takes time to build a
community that interacts with your
posts
Two-way communication

• Be on the platforms where it makes sense to be.
• Does your organization provide a service or have retail component? You
should consider Yelp.
• Are your target audiences 40+?
You probably don’t need a Snapchat.
• Be consistent with how often you post.
• Post as often as you can do so consistently
• Best practice: Usually once per day on Facebook, LinkedIn and Snapchat,
more often on Twitter, less often on Instagram
• Develop a content calendar (Hootsuite has a free version, offers a 50%
discount for nonprofits on paid versions)
Post when and where it makes sense
for your organization

Facebook is becoming a
pay-to-play market.
But there’s good news!

There are still ways to generate organic reach.
1. Tag sponsors, partners, and other pages whenever possible
• Thanking sponsors and volunteers
• Sharing others’ content including
promoting their events
• Promoting your own events (as long
as you have an established
relationship with whoever you’re
tagging)

2. Simply ask your followers to engage with your posts
• “Tag a friend who…”
• “Share to help spread
the word”
• “Tag who you’d take
with you…”

2a. When you’re asking followers to donate, make it easy for them.
• Powerful image
• Great explanation
(including numbers)
• Amazon links
• Clear CTA with their
address

(Photo via Arizona Animal Welfare League & SPCA Facebook Page)
3 days later…

3. Take full advantage of the features of Facebook Events
• Add co-hosts
• Event will appear on the Facebook calendar for all pages that accept your co-host
invitation (possible co-hosts: sponsors, national chapters, partners)
• Post in the event before and after event day
• Higher (and more targeted) reach compared to posts on your Facebook page
• Encourage staff and others to mark themselves as “Going” or “Interested”
in your events
• We’ve all seen the posts on our news feed: “Name Here is interested in this event.”

4. Encourage your staff and volunteers to engage with your posts
• Shares are best, but often
staff can be reluctant to share
to their personal page
• At the very least, LIKE!
• “Alex Coleman liked this post.”
• Sends signal to Facebook that
this post is worth putting in
others’ news feeds

Sometimes, though, you
might have to put some
money behind your posts.
But there’s more good news!

It’s fairly inexpensive and the targeting is incredible (and
kind of scary).

With all of your Facebook efforts,
measure your success and make
adjustments based on the
analytics!

• Unpaid (organic) posts – Use “Insights” tab
• Gather demographic data such as age, gender, location of followers
• See which posts are most successful and try to find commonalities
• Boost posts that are performing well organically
• Most important metrics: likes, comments and shares (aka engagement)
• Paid posts – Use Facebook ads manager
• See which ads performed best (use A/B testing) and adjust
• Most important metrics: depends on your goals– website clicks,
engagement, video views
Analytics

This is a great
platform if your
organization
naturally has great
visual content.

• If your organization serves vulnerable populations, for example,
there is still a lot of opportunity for you to use Instagram.
Some post ideas:
• Photos at fundraising events
• Photos of donors and volunteers
• Photos of staff
• Photos of in-kind donations
• Infographics with powerful quotes or statistics
• Canva.com is a great free tool for this!
It’s still a great platform for the rest of us, too,
we just have to be creative.

1. Similar to Facebook, tag other users when appropriate
• Sponsors and other partners will
appreciate the recognition
• Tag both in the caption and
in the photo itself to increase reach
• Tagging others in the photo will add
it to their profile

2. Make use of hashtags (but hide them)
.
.
.
.
.
#hashtags #help #you #get #found
#but #too #many #of #them
#look #ugly #in #your #caption
• Think of hashtags as a way
for people to find you–what
might someone search to find
your post?
• Research hashtags within the
Instagram app (search icon)
• Add hashtags to caption or as
a comment

3. Vary your content– video, multiple photos, infographics
• Instagram has grown the include
photos of all sizes, videos, posts
with multiple photos, and
Instagram Stories –so use them!

4. Always have a link in your bio
• You can’t put links in your photo captions and comments, but you can put
one in your bio
• If you’re promoting a specific campaign or event, put the link to a specific
page on your site (remember to change it back to your home page
whenever the campaign/event is over)
• Use bitly.com to shorten the link before adding to your bio

Analytics
• Instagram Insights – limited to
business accounts, offers similar
data to Facebook Insights
including:
• Audience Demographics: Age, gender,
city, and days/times when these users
are most active

Here’s the deal with Twitter:
The lifespan of a tweet is
about this big.
The trick is to extend your tweets’ lives.

1. Use a few relevant hashtags when appropriate
• Like with Instagram, hashtags help you
get found
• Think: Who would be interested in my tweet?
And what topics might they follow/search?
• Limit to 2-4 hashtags, using more than
that comes off as spam
• Use Twitter search to get a general
temperature of how often it is used
(the more the better)
• Use free tools like Hashtagify to dig in
deeper and find similar hashtags

2. Tag other users (partners, sponsors, etc.)
• With the short lifespan of a tweet, tagging is even more important on Twitter
than both Facebook and Instagram
• It ensures the some of the most important people
see the post (be strategic about who you tag)
• It encourages those people to retweet
• Create interactive experiences that provide an opportunity to tag others

3. Keep up with what’s trending and join in when appropriate and
relevant to your organization

4. Encourage your employees and volunteers to add your
organization’s Twitter handle into their Twitter bio
• Increases the likelihood of someone finding your account and viewing your
tweets

• Gather demographic data
such as age, gender,
location, and interests of
followers
• See which posts are most
successful and try to find
commonalities
• Export data from Twitter
Analytics into Excel
• Most important metrics:
engagement rate, link clicks,
retweets, likes, and replies
Twitter Analytics

LinkedIn is a professional
network of people looking for
professional opportunities.
So how should you use it?

1. Use it as a platform to attract potential volunteers and board
members
• Post content that demonstrates your
organization’s mission and culture
• Showcase your organization’s successes
• Do advanced searches to prospect board
members and possibly donors
• Keep in mind, with the free version of
LinkedIn, users can see when you view
their profile
• LinkedIn Sales Navigator allows you to
view privately and gives more search
features (free 30-day trial)

2. Thank, interact with, and keep up with corporate sponsors
• Tag sponsors in posts to thank them for their support
• Connect with sponsors and donors from your personal account (when
appropriate) and interact with them regularly
• Check company LinkedIn pages to stay up to date
• Remember: Meet your audience where they are. This is where business
professionals are.

Geofilters
https://www.snapchat.com/geofilters
•Relatively cheap brand awareness
opportunity
•Use at fundraising events and encourage
attendees to use the filter
•If you have a lot of volunteers at your
location on a regular basis, consider creating
a geofilter for your location
1 day

Questions?
Ask away!

Upcoming
Events
• November 14: Workshop
“Major Gifts and Nonprofits”
• December 12: Workshop
“Donor Stewardship”
• 2018 Fundraising Academy

Social Media for Nonprofits

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