Professional communicators working for nonprofit organizations and associations face numerous budget and staffing challenges not seen in the private sector. Social media can be the great equalizer in these situations, enabling communicators to open new avenues of outreach to organization members, donors, volunteers, partners and the media.
Danielle Brigida, senior manager of social media and integration at the National Wildlife Federation, shared some key social media tips for nonprofit communicators at PR News’ recent Social Media for Associations and Nonprofits Workshop in Washington, D.C.
- Listening is key. It helps you learn what is going on in your community and develop content that is relevant to it. Listening also enables you to form relationships with members and prospects.
- Use content creatively. Content can add context to your work. It can also engage your community and bring them into the conversation. Be proactive about repurposing, altering and crowdsourcing your content to make it go further across different media platforms. Don’t repeat content verbatim, although it is sometimes worth repeating content on Twitter because it is a continuous feed.
- Visuals are crucial to the social media ecosystem. Use powerful imagery to engage your community and familiarize yourself with Pinterest and Instagram.
- Measure your objectives. Pick relevant metrics to measure, and analyze them. Use this information to inform your social media strategy and make adjustments where necessary. There are several free tools available for monitoring your social media activity with Facebook, Twitter and Google.
Follow Danielle Brigida: @starfocus
Follow Richard Brownell: @RickBrownell
When I read the headline, I was really excited to share this article with a client who needs to improve their social media activation, but all four tips listed of five promoted in the headline were too vague and didn’t tell enough of a story or provide enough information to be useful to my client.