Using Social Media to Meet Your Non-Profit Goals- What's Your Grade

8/3/2019 Using Social Media to Meet Your Non-Profit Goals- What's Your Grade

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Using Social Media to MeetNon-profit GoalsWhats Your Grade?

BBlueprint Creative Group

Blueprint Creative Group | BlueprintCreativeGroup.com| E: [email protected]| P: (305) 741-0378


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B Whattoexpect

Going social

Where does your non-profit fit in?

Facebook is king!

Posting is not engagement!

Whos on your team?

Understanding Social Audiences

Where does it hurt?

Rubbing the magic genie

Making the case for Twitter

Non-profits who get Twitter right

Do you look like this?

Ponder on this

Social Faceoff: Facebook vs Twitter

Who we are

Blueprint Creative Group | BlueprintCreativeGroup.com | E: [email protected] | P: (305) 741-0378 Page 2


3/19

So you have a social media plan, right? Well, if your non-profit organization is like the majority of others, your greatest

challenge probably has a lot to do with getting the most out of social media. More specifically, how do you use Facebook,

Twitter, and the various other social media platforms to build cause awareness? How can social media be used to fundraise

in support of your organizations development goals? Is the Return on Investment (ROI) substantial enough to make social

media worth the time? How can you extend your reach and connect with new audiences and create additional layers ofengagement for current supporters?

At the time of this writing, Facebook has recently implemented a few changes that will have a significant impact on how a

large majority of non-profits use Facebook for marketing and promotional purposes, and many other changes (or

improvements as Facebook calls it) are underway. So if Facebook has been the biggest awareness tool that your non-profit

has used, how will you adapt and adjust your current use?

With an estimated 177 to 190 million Tweets sent per day (yes, that many) and close to 500,000 new Twitter accounts

created every day, what chunk of the Twitter pie is your non-profit chewing on? As revealed in the results of the survey of

non-profit executives, that piece of the pie is pretty small and many are overlooking the opportunity to connect with newaudiences who can potentially become ambassadors and evangelists for your cause.

What about Google+ with more than 25 million users and the fastest social network to reach 10 million users in 16 days

(Twitter took 780 days and Facebook 852)? Is this even in your radar along with YouTube (with over 92 billion page views

per month) and the countless other social media networks available to your organization?

This whitepaper investigates how mid-size to large non-profits are currently using social media as an integrated component

of their overall marketing and cause awareness strategy. Through qualitative surveying conducted via phone with senior

level executives, marketing directors, and development officers, the study gathered insight on current level of engagement

and the result thereof and weighed that against how they thought they should actually be engaging social media audiences.

The findings of the survey offer insights on how non-profits can optimize their social media engagement so that it is

seamlessly integrated into their marketing strategy. The implications will hopefully drive non-profits from experimentation

to actual implementation.

GoingSocial



4/19

simply maintaining a profile and making periodic posts. The reason why? Most non-profits felt like Facebook allowed more

personal interaction with current and prospective supporters and was much easier to implement than say, Twitter.

According to the infographic on the following page, its quite obvious why non-profits prefer Facebook with the social

network laiming over 63 percent of the social media market share and 310 million daily unique visitors. Surprisingly, Twitter

only has about 1.15 percent of the social media market share, and thats probably because Twitter is still dominated by early

adopters.

Other interesting Facebook stats:

Facebook has over 500 million users

Facebook has added over 400 million users in less than 2 years

If Facebook were a country it would be the 3rd largest One in every nine people on Earth is on Facebook

People spend 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook

Each Facebook user spends on average 15 hours and 33 minutes a month on the site

30 billion pieces of content is shared on Facebook each month

The average Facebook user has 130 friends

California is huge on Facebook with over 15 million users (41% of the population)

70% of users live outside the USA

Women aged 55 and up are the fastest growing Facebook demographic in the USA

Australians spend more time per month on Facebook than any other country at over 7 hours on average

Wheredoesyournon-profitfitin?

Blueprint Creative Group | BlueprintCreativeGroup.com | E: [email protected] | P: (305) 741-0378

If Facebook were a

country it would bethe 3rd largest.

Facebook is still king!

For many non-profits, Facebook is like your favorite pair of shoes. You know there are

plenty of other choices available to you but you will wear this one out until you cant

anymore.

When asked which of the commonly used tools their organization was actively using-

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blog, video sharing sites, and/or photo sharing sites- an

overwhelming majority of respondents, more than 95 percent, said they were most active on

Facebook. In fact, most if not all of their social media efforts were heavily focused on Facebook.

Those who responded to being active on the other sites admitted to their activity being limited to

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Facebookisking!


*Search Engine Journal

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Perception is not reality!

When asked how well of a job their organization does at using the more commonly used social media platforms (Twitter,

Facebook, video/photo sharing sites) to 1) build cause awareness, 2) connect with new supporters, 3) solicit online

donations, and 4) cultivate supporter relationships, the common response was that their organization was doing aboveaverage except when it came to fundraising through social media, which many still struggle with.

Postingisnotengagement!


For the most part, many

non-profits are just

scratching the surface

and experimenting with

social media.

However, when asked to describe their level of activity and how they engage

their online community, many admitted that it was all 1-way with little

interaction with followers. As explained, their activity was limited to maybe 1-2

Facebook posts on an average day and maybe a handful of Tweets in a week if

that. As part of the research, we dug further and analyzed the Facebook pages

and Twitter profiles for each responding non-profit and the proof was definitely

in the pudding. Non-profits simply arent engaging their community enough, yetthey believe that posting is engagement. For the most part, many non-profits are

just scratching the surface and experimenting with social media.

Consider these stats

by KRG Research

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Sounds familiar?

Part of the survey was to uncover how non-profits were managing their social

media efforts to understand the level of strategy that went into planning and

execution. We also wanted to identify who within the organization wasleading social media- a specific business unit, a specialist, or completely

handled externally. What we found was no surprise but also still surprising

nonetheless.

For larger organizations with annual operating budgets of more than $10

million and a communications department, social media was obviously

managed internally by their communications department. However, thats

just the only difference between these larger organizations and smaller ones.

Whosonyourteam?


For the most part, many non-profits indicated that social media was managed within fund development. Can you believethat? What does fund development know about communications, and how in the world will they strategically position

messages and engage a diversity of audiences? Apparently, many of these same organizations are of the school of

thought that as long as one knows how to post messages in 140 characters then they are qualified to manage and direct

the organizations social media strategy. No wonder fundraising on social media has been a tough challenge.

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Who are you speaking to?

Now there are a few reasons why social media should be managed and directed by someone with deep understanding of

digital engagement, but well just mention the most important reason for now and elaborate later in this paper. What we

found while conducting this survey is that non-profits get in where they f it in. In other words, they jumped on the social

media bandwagon because it was almost necessary, assigned someone to do it, and sat back waiting for resultsand most

are still waiting. What this leads to is social media mass marketing. With todays complex marketing environment you

wouldnt dare think about mass marketing in the physical world. So why do it in the virtual world?

UnderstandingSocialAudiences


Did you know about the

different social media

audiences?

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So again, who are you speaking to?

Understand this. Facebook, Twitter, and the like is not a strategy- they are simply tools to connect with audiences.

However, these tools and how you use them do need to fit into your overall marketing and communications strategy, and I

would hope that there is an integrated approach with how social media fits in.

So again, who are you speaking to? You have a clear understanding (hopefully!) of your key audiences to be engaged and

outreached to as part of your marketing strategy. Im also certain that your communications approach is different

(hopefully!) for each key audience group whether its donors, volunteers, supporters, prospects, policy makers, partners,

industry, etc. So does your organization approach your social media communications in the same manner?

As an example, if you find that your Facebook community is dominated by Creators and Spectators while your Twitter

following is mostly Conversationalists, how is this reflected in your social media strategy? More specifically,

For Creators, how does your social media strategy empower them to create content specific to your cause?

Alternatively, for audiences more likely to consume media than create it (Spectators), why type of low-engagement

social media tactic are implemented to inspire activity within their comfort level and at least get them to respond to

your messages?

For Conversationalists on Twitter, are you doing more talking or listening? How are you engaging this audience

segment so that they stay engaged and you remain at the forefront of their conversations? Conversationalists are

important because of their potential level of influence and ability to become an evangelist for your non-profit.

UnderstandingSocialAudiences



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What communications strategy do you believe the majority of non-profits

struggle with the most?

Wheredoesithurt?


Many non-profits

struggle to find

their voice.

The overwhelming response to this question was the struggle to increaseawareness and visibility and improving donor relations. This is no surprise

considering how communications has implications for the strength of awareness,

visibility, fundraising, and donor relations campaigns. The truth is that many non-

profits are overburdened, understaffed, and underfunded resulting in team

members wearing multiple hats. At some point this does create gaps and

inconsistencies with the communications pipeline.

Furthermore, when asked to rate the quality of their organizations communications as it

relates to communications planning, media relations, development of marketing

materials, online communications, and communications evaluations/metrics, anoverwhelming majority of respondents rated evaluations/metrics and communications planning the lowest as being fair and

even poor. This is astonishing. If the communications plan is weak or isnt filling the gaps and if communications programs

arent being evaluated and measured against benchmarks, then how do you move forward with building cause awareness,

soliciting donors, engaging supporters, and cultivating new supporter relationships?

What are your organizations most pressing challenges related to PR?

Many non-profits struggle to find their voice. They have a general understanding of what their message is, but they havent

quite figured out how to summarize it so that it captures audiences instantly. Even when they do know their voice and what

makes them memorable, they dont know how to tell their stories in a compelling way nor do they know how to create their

own stories. Even when they do know their voice and story, they dont think media is interested either because their story

isnt hot enough or because they lack access to media.

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If social media could solve one thing for your non-profit, what would it

be?

The responses to this question were as plentiful as there are social networking platforms to choose from. Some of the morecommon responses are listed below followed by a case study on how social media is in fact helping non-profits achieve

their goals.

Help us connect with younger audiences

Recruit more volunteers

Increase awareness for our cause

Connect us with more donors

Stay in the know with what other similar organizations are doing

Help us promote our fundraising events

Help us get more media Improve our external communications

Raise more money

Connect with external audiences

Garner mass support for legislation, advocacy, etc.

Increase traffic to organizations website

Mobilizing people as advocates

Isnt social media already doing these very same things that non-profits said they would wantsocial media to solve for them?

RubbingtheMagicGenie



12/19

Facebook is good, but.theres more!

As mentioned earlier in this whitepaper, Facebook is still king among the majority of non-profits. No news here. The news is

that youre missing out on a huge opportunity to capture new audiences and to further extend your brand. Yes, Twitter is a

totally different beast. Its fast, theres a lot of clutter, and its coming at a hundred miles a minute. However, the activepeople on Twitter are usually Creators and once engaged theres an opportunity for them to help with your brands viral

ability.

Believe it or not, Twitter does have some advantages over Facebook. First, Facebook is more of a pull tool than it is a push

tool. Facebooks rules of engagement limits how much you can say. Say too much and you will easily be ignored or even

worse, unfriended. Generally speaking, one to three posts max per day is a safe level of activity for Facebook. Engagement

on Facebook comes when you responded to others postings. However, when youre a non-profit with a page, engaging

with followers isnt the same given that you can only comment on postings made to your page. So with pages, engagement

has to be more strategic.

At the time of this writing, Facebook has disabled the ability for group owners to send messages and has also changed how

events are promoted. For a large majority of non-profits, Facebooks event promotion feature was how attendees were

mobilized, but now Facebook has disabled message sending for events. News is that more changes are underway.

On Twitter, how you use it is wide open. You can be a chatter box if you like, post as much content as you want, and engage

with your followers as often as you like. Of course, there are rules of engagement, but the barriers are definitely much

smaller compared to Facebook. What I like most about Twitter is its list feature. Users are often organized into lists, which

makes it easier to identify how the Twitter community views and identifies them. For example, if your non-profit is listed a

few times in lists related to food banks then its safe to say that awareness is spreading for what your non-profit does. I alsolike that I can organize followers into lists and can follow other peoples lists without having to actually follow the people on

my own profile.

For non-profits, you should love that Twitter allows you to more quickly distribute short bursts of information and trigger a

higher response if executed strategically. I love that Twitter allows you to keep up with what other likeminded

organizations are doing, which can be useful for your own strategies. Twitter also has a high sharing ability.

MakingtheCaseforTwitter



13/19

Non-profitswhogetTwitterright


Notice how Goodwill uses

Twitter lists to identify

partners and volunteers,

monitor key bloggers/media,

and stay connected to other

Goodwill locations. This

allows them to quickly scan

activity among theirstakeholders and add value

to the conversations. Also

notice how many lists

Goodwill is listed on, which

is a good measure of

awareness.

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Charity: water is a

textbook case study of

how to do Twitter right

using global Twestivals to

raise $250,000.

Charity: water shows donors the

specific impact of their

contributions. Transparency is

monumental to their success.

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The goal: Raise $10,000 in 48

hours

Tactics:

Asked twitterers to tweet

their gratitude using the

hashtag #tweetsgiving

Multiple initiation points

enlisted top Twitters,

bloggers, and their existing

community

Recognized those who

donated over $100 with Top

Turkey designation Twitter campaign personally

connected community to the

theme of gratitude

Went where supporters were

Results:

3,000 gratitude messages

tweeted

1,337 new twitter followers

Tweetsgiving top trending for

48 hours

15,830 page views from 7,563

visitors in 101 countries on

website

107 press and blog mentions




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These are your tools.

Doyoulooklikethis?



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Questions to ask of your non-profits social media strategy

How are you measuring the results of your digital engagement strategy against your non-profits communications

goals? What key metrics are you using to measure engagement, awareness, fundraising, etc?

How are you integrating your organizations social media efforts into your overall marketing strategy?

Where, if at all, have you leveraged social media in support of the organizations fundraising goals?

Is your current level of social media efforts building your inner circle i.e. donors, supporters, advocates, etc?

Do you know who youre targeting online and have you activated them to action? What type of audience segments

are even following your non-profit on your social network profiles?

Are you leveraging social media in support of your traditional media tactics?

Ponderonthis


S ff


18/19

The discoveries of this survey have led us to further explore non-profits use ofFacebook as opposed to Twitter. Part 2 of

this survey will result in a whitepaper that explores the following questions:

SocialFaceoff:FacebookvsTwitter


Are non-profit organizations marketing laggards and

choosing to opt for more mainstream tried and truemarketing and communications approaches?

What type of success have non-profits really had with

Facebook in terms of ROI and fundraising?

What are the characteristics of non-profits who avidly use

Twitter as opposed to Facebook?

Comparison of non-profits on Twitter vs Facebook and

their following and traction.

Who generates more traffic to your organizations

website: Facebook or Twitter?

Wh


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Blueprint Creative Group

For brands and non-profit organizations who want to improve their internal/external communications, have challenges

reaching new audiences, want to refresh their brand, and/or enter new markets, we refine their go-to-market strategies by

developing integrated communications programs that execute smart brand positioning, engage audiences more effectively,cleverly shape audience perceptions and move them into action, use digital influence to drive online interactivity, and

strengthen visibility to drive bottom line sales and revenue goals.

Contact Us

(305) 741-0378 | [email protected] | www.BlueprintCreativeGroup.com | @blueprintcg_pr

Whoweare

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Using Social Media to Meet Your Non-Profit Goals- What's Your Grade

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