Camille McClane is a journalist and infographic designer from Southern California with an interest in nonprofit fundraising. She frequently contributes to the HostPapa.co.uk, a hub for all-things tech and social media. She hopes you enjoy this article and wishes you and your nonprofit immense success!
Social Media.
It’s the stuff of the Internet revolution: these days, almost everyone is hooked into at least one form of social media (how else are you going to send your octogenarian aunt requests on Candy Crush?).
So, how to best use it to your nonprofit’s advantage?
Read on for top tips:
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Organize — Functions like Facebook events and Google calendar can be a great way to keep your followers updated on what you’re up to.
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Blog it out — While truncated forms like Twitter and Instagram are all the rage right now, a good ol’ fashioned blog can be a great way to get the word out. If you happen to have a good writer on staff, a couple of well-placed posts can be quite engaging for your target audience. It’s a great way to get the word out on exactly what it is your nonprofit does.
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Update —While you can take care of the text side of event coverage on your blog, you should also be sure to update your Facebook, Tumblr, and Pinterest with images — photos can be a great tool to draw people in.
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Share and share alike — In addition to promoting your own non-profit, use your varied social media outlets to retweet and share similar organizations. In addition to helping them out, there’s an added benefit— they may want to return the favor, gaining you both new followers and a wider audience.
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Keep current — Social media trends are always changing — yesterday it was all about Facebook, and today it’s all about Vine and Snapchat.
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Find a known personality — Twitter has many virtues, one of which is the fact that it affords you contact with big name personalities. Getting a retweet from someone with thousands of followers about your nonprofit will most likely result in your webpage’s traffic soaring — so if you know someone that may be aligned with your cause, shoot them a tweet!
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Tumble away — Tumblr is another fun outlet, especially if you have a lot of images to share. Tumblr is also a very user-friendly way of setting up your own website, so it can also be great if you’re less tech-savvy.
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Fundraise — Social media will certainly come in handy when it comes to fundraising — create a Facebook event to remind your followers of your Kickstarter campaign, tweet shout-outs to your supporters — there are so many ways in which social media’s various outlets can help you draw support.
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Reach out — First and foremost, social media is a great tool for making connections. It allows for opportunities to be “shared” and “liked” and “re-posted,” thus spreading the word about your nonprofit far and wide. It further enhances the credibility you are most likely slowly establishing for your non-profit. A presence on social media channels, as well as a steady flow of interactivity with the folks interested in your organization will show that you not only care about the cause but the people both affected and involved.
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Personal connection — Social media also allows you an opportunity to communicate with your followers — you can get into a full-blown conversation over Facebook messenger. Functions like comments, reblogs, and tweets all make you more easily reachable. Twitter hashtags are especially useful in creating conversations that can even reach a global level, and again, bring widespread attention if used the right way.
The ways in which social media can help your nonprofit are almost limitless: these days, marketing is all about the Internet.
