Social media has become one of the preeminent marketing tools for nonprofits looking to engage with donors and raise awareness about their cause as well as companies and social enterprises looking to incorporate a charitable component into their businesses.

It allows organizations to reach a large and diverse audience quickly and inexpensively. It can also be a way for organizations to connect with potential donors on a more personal level by sharing stories and updates about their work and community impact.

Philanthropy on social media helps those in need of donations to connect with a broader audience and raise awareness about their situation. And social media enables even more assistance, going beyond financial support to provide a way to mobilize volunteers and supporters.

However, it’s important to remember that social media can be a crowded and noisy space, and it can be difficult for nonprofits to stand out. Organizations need to develop a clear and consistent message. Companies and individuals can create powerful opportunities for charitable donations and acts of service by engaging with their audience in sincere and meaningful ways.

The effects of social media on philanthropy

The growth of social media has significantly impacted philanthropy for communities and those in need worldwide. Consider the effect of China’s “99 Giving Day,” which was the product of goodwill organizations and social media crowdfunding. Every September, Chinese companies donate millions to charity; their contributions are matched by the Chinese Internet company Tencent. Through this combination of social media marketing and philanthropy, millions have been raised for those needing medical treatment.

These viral social media campaigns have made it easier to learn about charitable causes, connecting philanthropists with organizations that align with their values. Social media campaigns have also enabled donors to share their philanthropic activities with their social networks, inspiring others to give. Remember the viral ALS Bucket Challenge in 2014? That social media campaign produced massive results for ALS research, netting more than $115 million and producing a life-changing new ALS drug.

The explosive growth of social media has also led to some challenges for philanthropy. Due to the large volume of social media posts and viral campaigns, it can be difficult for organizations to stand out in a crowded and noisy online space. It also presents a problem when measuring the impact of social media efforts on charitable giving. Additionally, the proliferation of online fundraising platforms has made it more difficult for donors to determine which organizations are reputable and which ones may not be using their contributions effectively.

Strategies to stand out from the crowd

For those seeking to bring social media into their philanthropic efforts, here are five strategies that can help organizations stand out from the crowd.

1. Develop a clear and consistent message: It’s crucial for nonprofit and social good organizations to have a clear and consistent message that reflects their mission and goals. Distinct messaging will help differentiate the organization from others and make it easier for potential donors to understand the mission statement and values.
2. Engage with your audience: Social media is a two-way conversation, so engaging actively with your audience is essential. Organizations and individuals should respond to comments and questions, share updates and stories about their work, and solicit feedback and ideas.
3. Use visually appealing content: Social media is a visual medium, so it’s important to use visually appealing content to capture your audience’s attention. This might include photos, videos, infographics, or other types of media that help to tell your organization’s story. Last year Project Angel Food partnered with the television network KTLA to create a successful telethon, raising over $1.1 million in an effort to combat food insecurity.
4. Use hashtags and tagging: Hashtags and tagging can increase the reach of your content and make it easier for people to discover your organization on social media. Use relevant hashtags and tag other organizations, influencers and individuals who may be interested in your work.
5. Partner with influencers: Influencer marketing can be an effective way to reach a larger audience on social media. Consider partnering with influencers who align with your mission and values and who have a large and engaged following. In 2019, I partnered with MIT for its Pi Day 24-Hour Challenge. We donated $15,000 to support the efforts of teams worldwide, all creating innovative new solutions for global problems.

By using social media effectively, organizations and philanthropists can connect with thousands of worthy charitable causes worldwide, bringing aid to millions of people (and animals) in need. The awe-inspiring power of bringing people together to assist one another is one of the most significant technological innovations of the century. Let’s use it to do some good.

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Post by Torrey Tayenaka

It’s no secret that we live in a digital world. So it’s no surprise that video marketing has become an efficient way to reach your target audience, whether you run campaigns for a nonprofit, cause organization or social enterprise.

As with any form of marketing, though, it’s important to know that you’re getting a favorable ROI for your efforts and that you can identify what’s working and what’s not. This is especially critical when working with donor funds and limited resources.

So, how do you measure your video marketing efforts? We’re going to show you exactly how to do that in just a few easy steps. By the end of this article, you’ll be able to gauge the effectiveness of your video strategy and plan for future campaigns.

First, let’s look at some numbers to show you why you should constantly improve your video marketing strategy. According to a report from Wyzowl, 78% of marketers agree that video marketing has produced a good ROI for their organizations. Also, marketers who used video marketing say they grew their revenue 49% faster than those that didn’t. 

Measuring your video marketing

To know how to measure the effectiveness of your video marketing, you must first decide what the goal of the marketing is so you know what you’re looking for. Your measurements should be based on three goals: engagement & conversion, awareness, and ROI. All of these goals can contribute to your nonprofit’s success, so understanding how to measure them is vital when it comes to optimizing your marketing budget. 

Measuring the engagement of your videos

When you’re producing video marketing in the hopes of increasing the engagement or conversion of your target audience, you’ll want to look at how your viewers are interacting or connecting with your content. Check to see how often they watch your video, if they follow your links, and if they comment on and share your video. 

Depending on the service you’re using to promote your video, you may be able to easily see these numbers, or you may have to do your own calculations. 

Metrics to measure for this interaction are based on several factors, including the following: 

• Viewing time is the estimated time in minutes that a viewer spends watching your video. If viewers aren’t watching your video until the end, you’ll know that you’re losing their attention. A low watch rate may mean that your content isn’t relevant or engaging enough, so you may need to reevaluate the video and content if you’re seeing this. This is an important metric to keep an eye on, especially if your video is spreading the word about your nonprofit’s mission, cause or fundraising campaign and your audience is missing key elements of your message.
• Shares are also a good indicator of engagement. If a viewer not only watches your video but also shares it, you know you’re on the right track. Look at this metric as your word-of-mouth referrals. By sharing your video, viewers are not only agreeing with or enjoying your content, they’re wanting other people to see it as well. 
• Comments and likes are some of the more visible interactions that your video will have. You should make a habit of reading through your comments to see how your audience is reacting. Comments often alert you to issues that you need to address and they improve your SEO ranking. It’s also a good idea to interact with your audience in the comments, when appropriate. This engagement helps build brand and customer loyalty. 
• Click-through rate is a metric that shows how often a viewer is attracted to a video and actually clicks on it. The CTR is calculated using the total number of video clicks and dividing it by the total number of views. This number will show you if your call to action is working or if it could use some tweaking. 
• Live video metrics are another thing to measure if you’re broadcasting your video live. If so, you should pay attention to when your peak live views occur in order to know if people are enjoying your video and if it’s too long. 

Measuring brand awareness

If the goal of your video marketing is to create a buzz about your nonprofit or a fundraising campaign and to increase the public’s general awareness of it, there are several key metrics you need to keep a close eye on. These metrics are focused on the groups of people that are watching your video and where they’re located. By critiquing these items, you’ll be able to determine if the people you’re reaching are actually in your target audience or if you need to adjust your efforts. 

Metrics to measure brand awareness include the following:

• Play rate measures the number of times that a viewer clicks the “play” button on your video. This number is found by dividing the total number of people who play your video by the number of visitors to your page. If your play rate is 70%, that means that 70% of the people who see your video press that button to play it. If this number is low, it may mean your video promotion needs to improve or that the audience isn’t finding it interesting enough to actually spend time watching it. 
• Viewer demographics will show you if the people who are playing your video are actually the people you’re trying to reach. These metrics will show you the people who are engaging with your content and will allow you to see their location, age and gender. If your demographics don’t show you the target audience you’re trying to reach, you may need to change your marketing strategy. 
• Impressions show you the number of times your video is actually being seen by the public, even if they’re not engaging with it. This is important to measure because it will show you if your ads or promotions are performing properly. If this level isn’t favorable, you can adjust your ad settings or raise your budget. Your ad settings may need to be widened to a broader area or age range to increase the number of people who see it on a daily basis.  

Measuring your return on investment

As with any marketing strategy, it’s important to know if you’re spending your budget wisely. This measurement may show you that you need to increase your budget or it may show you that the money you’re spending is simply not worth it. To know which way to go, you have to know how to measure your ROI first. 

ROI is calculated by dividing the sales from your video conversions by the money spent to produce them. In other words, did you make more money off of the video than you did making it?

Before you can accurately answer that question, you need to make sure that you’re adding up every expense you incurred to make and promote the video. This includes your equipment, time, advertising budget, etc. Next, you need to track how many leads and/or sales you got as a direct result of the video. This can be a more difficult number to arrive at and it may mean that you need to ask customers how they heard about you. 

If your ROI isn’t where you want it to be, here are some things to consider:

• Does your budget need to be adjusted? You may need to increase your daily dollars in order to reach more customers and increase your conversions. You can adjust your overall budget or your daily budget depending on the platform that your video is promoted on. 
• Is your video aggravating in any way? If the customer is clicking off of it because of distracting music or annoying visuals, you may need to adjust your video to be more pleasing to the eyes and ears. If the viewer isn’t watching your video long enough to get to your call to action, they may never convert. 
• Do you have a call to action? If your video isn’t clearly directing your customer to the next step, that may be the key to getting more people to convert. Don’t leave them guessing what to do next. Make it clear and obvious. Have a URL that they can click to follow or put your CTA in the video with text and/or voice. Depending on the length of your video, it may be smart to have more than one CTA. 

Measure your way to success

As with any goal that you set, to know if it’s a success or not you must be able to measure it. Measurements are only accurate when they’re quantifiable, which is why it’s important to know the metrics to look for with video marketing. 

Before you start gauging your success, set benchmarks throughout your year so you’re reminded to look back and track the metrics. Keep in mind that the metrics you should be measuring are based on the goal of your video marketing. 

Photo at top by Bill Rice (CC BY)

Whether the goal of your video marketing is increasing awareness of your nonprofit, building engagement and conversion, or having a favorable ROI, you now know the ways to measure the effectiveness of your efforts. With a little bit of dedication, a few dollars, and some time, your campaigns will be on their way to success. 

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Post by Alma Causey

With the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, nonprofits and social enterprises have had to rethink their marketing strategies. Nonprofits have been scrambling to develop appropriate communication strategies to approach their stakeholders during these trying times.

With contributors sticking close to home and social distancing in force, it’s harder than ever to conduct outreach for even the most worthy cause.

In this post, we will share some principles that you can incorporate into your social media marketing strategy to keep your user base intact.

Social media marketing during COVID-19

When times are tough, staying connected becomes all the more important. Underscoring the importance of social media, people are turning to these platforms to keep themselves connected, informed and engaged.

Instagram and Facebook saw a 40 percent increase in usage during the early stage of the coronavirus outbreak. But the rise in social media traffic and online activity does not indicate that online outreach is business as usual. You’ll need to adjust your messaging to adjust to the new realities.

Foster relationships

1If you’re concerned about the durability of your nonprofit during these challenging times, you’re not alone. With people retrenching and the economy contracting at a historic 33 percent annual rate in the previous quarter, it may be the right time to focus on relationship building rather than fundraising and revenue generation.

This is a good time to experiment, to host conversations about a variety of subjects of interest to your target audiences, and to create valuable evergreen content on your blog to enhance your organization’s SEO.

Engage with the audience and forge relationships to develop goodwill for your brand and strengthen your position for the long run. Engagement can be driven simply by offering information about your ongoing causes, sharing your plans through visuals or multimedia, and even humor.

Be empathetic

2The ongoing pandemic is affecting everyone in one way or another. People are experiencing lifestyle transitions; some are working from home; others have been laid off because of the economic slowdown.

People are also experiencing a wide variety of emotions during these times. So make sure you double your efforts to be empathetic toward your followers and take care in what you post. Show your human side and share a few experiences about how the pandemic is affecting the people you serve or work with. That builds a bond and gives readers a sense that you understand what they’re going through and that you care about them.

There’s no need to mention the crisis explicitly every time in your content, but take into consideration how your content could be interpreted by a person facing a different reality than yours.

Consider influencer marketing

3One form of marketing that might prove more productive than paid ads during and after the pandemic is influencer marketing. Influencers are people with a large following on social media and who carry considerable sway over consumers’ spending decisions. Influencer marketing has a human element that can promote organic growth and provide a higher ROI compared to ad spend.

However, do’nt get caught up in numbers when pursuing an influencer marketing strategy. Look for people who share your vision and are ready to give their 100% to help you achieve your goals. You can recruit them to become ambassadors for your cause. You can enlist them to attend virtual events.

Conduct research and use hashtags to find influencers in your niche. You can also use micro-influencer platforms like Fohr and Apexdrop to connect to influencers and bloggers and drive traffic to your social media channels.

Go global

4Although the coronavirus is a global pandemic, it’s affecting some regions worse than the others. For example, Taiwan, South Korea and New Zealand have done a better job in containing the virus.

The spread or slowdown of the virus in different regions will affect your social media traffic. So this may be a good time to diversify the regions you’re targeting to increase traffic from abroad.

Platforms like Facebook allow you to run targeted ads and put your product or services in front of new supporters. By targeting consumers in different geographic locations and markets, you can mitigate the risk and improve the returns.

Focus on the audience

5The pandemic has forced nonprofits, brands and businesses to reorient their priorities. Revenue generation has taken a back seat while consumer sentiment is now driving the marketing strategies.

Adding value to the lives of users through your content is now more important than ever as a marketing strategy. Any content that can inform, educate and motivate people is bound to gain traction during the pandemic. Look at what your nonprofit peers are doing — or not doing. Can you do it better or differently?

If you can offer solutions to some of the life problems faced by users, it will go a long way toward fostering goodwill and generating more engagement on your social media posts.

Conduct live streams

6Video content, especially live streams, is an effective tactic to connect with your supporters on social media. This is why it’s not surprising to see Facebook and Instagram Live views doubled in a single week during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Therefore, nonprofits should leverage this medium and allocate resources to YouTube, Facebook and Instagram Live, as well as webinars. Can you organize an online gathering of stakeholders or thought leaders in your sector? Perhaps host a weekly Zoom call or check-in. It can help you create content in a way that users are coming to expect.

Final thoughts

While the current crisis has impacted nonprofits on an unprecedented scale, we believe that organizations can weather this storm through smart social media marketing. Engage your users across a number of online and offline channels and use this time to build a community that will help you achieve long-term success for your cause.

The post How to do social media marketing during the pandemic appeared first on Socialbrite.

Editor’s note: Awario is offering 50% off its Pro and Enterprise plans to any nonprofit. Head over to awario.com and let the team know that Socialbrite sent you.

Post by Julia Miashkova
Social Data Analyst, Awario

Doing good requires goodwill — plus the right tools. Without either, doing good is not as good as it could be. This is especially true to the nature of nonprofit work. To mobilize the public and inspire change, nonprofits need the right tools, and this goes for social media marketing more than anything.

There’s enormous potential in making the most of social media’s potential. Social media is there to build bridges — to local communities, mass media, donors, volunteers, influencers and everyone involved in helping to spread the word your cause. Meanwhile, social media tools are there to help nonprofits with all of the above.

How nonprofits can use social listening

Social listening — tracking and analyzing mentions of any keyword online — is one of the biggest buzzwords in social media marketing. Listening in on social media conversations around a cause brings a slew of insights important for the success of nonprofit campaigns. Here’s what social listening tools can do for social good:

1. 1. Reputation management
   2. Community outreach
   3. Influencers and media outreach
   4. Fundraising
   5. Surveys, polls and research of any scope

The best part is, social media listening is automated to near perfection. All there is to do is pick one of the many social listening tools available today — the rest is pretty much left to the impressive technology behind them. Let’s see how it’s all done.

Reputation management

1Step 1 of social media listening is setting up a mentions monitoring alert. This usually takes as much as a keyword (a name, topic, hashtag, etc.) and preferences such as languages, regions and social networks to monitor. Once the alert is there, nonstop reputation monitoring is underway.

By looking at all mentions of a name or organization, as well as the sentiment behind them, nonprofits can get an instant and reliable assessment of their reputation. Over time, this translates into continuous reputation monitoring and clear insights into any fluctuations.

Social listening is all about real-time results. Whenever there’s a spike in negative mentions or just a negative mention against largely positive feedback, the tools are there to enable instant interaction with the user. This way, reputation management boils down to joining all relevant conversations as soon as they pop up online.

Community outreach

2Social media is the place to connect with communities. By knowing what drives engagement and inspires action across target audiences, nonprofits can better plan their messaging and activities with communities’ needs in mind.

What kinds of posts resonate best with local communities and beneficiaries? What are the biggest topics buzzing at any given moment? What social networks are most effective in spreading the word? With social media listening tools at hand, all of these insights, and then some, are available in a couple of clicks.

Social listening is how nonprofits get to know their communities. From there, it’s growing social media following, raising more and more awareness of the cause and getting people involved.

Influencers and media outreach

3One of social media listening’s many use cases is finding and monitoring niche-specific media outlets. Whether it’s staying in the know of what’s being done to help the cause globally or securing the support of relevant local mass media, social listening tools provide a comprehensive overview of the media landscape.

Finding and connecting with influencers is another basic application of social listening. By filtering all relevant online conversations by reach, it’s easy to see the biggest names that are already talking about the cause and could become advocates of specific nonprofits.

Interacting with influencers and transforming them into goodwill ambassadors doesn’t have to be a massive headache. Social listening tools allow for instant in-app engagement with the posts, which makes influencer marketing a tangible objective.

Fundraising

4Securing the funds might be one of the most time-consuming and stressful tasks all nonprofits need to do to keep their operation going. Luckily, social media listening is there to take lead on this one as well (and then, ironically, bring leads).

Leads are the people looking to contribute to the cause but lacking the guidance and resources to do so. Social listening tools have baked-in features meant to analyze the entirety of online conversations around a topic and detect potential givers.

In addition to identifying individuals willing to get involved in the good work, social listening can be employed to discover grant announcements and other sponsorship opportunities. As always, all that’s needed is a mentions monitoring alert with keywords specific to the nature of the grant.

Surveys, polls, and research of any scope

5Social media is the world’s biggest database of audience insights. Whatever there is to discuss, chances are somebody has already started a corresponding discussion online. Hence, in the age of social media listening tools, conducting a survey, a poll or research is only a matter of fetching the data that’s already there and applying inbuilt analytics to it.

The best part is, there’s virtually no limit to the research scope. Social listening tools process huge chunks of data in no time at all, which translates into effortless, reliable research with no additional resources needed.

The efforts put into tracking shifts in public opinion can be reduced to daily emails or instant notifications on Slack. Social media listening tools will be on duty 24/7, which ensures real-user feedback on any issue related to the cause.

Recap

Behind the overwhelming billions of social media posts are people who want to do good but don’t always know how. Social media monitoring and listening is the way to tap into all of the online conversations and guide nonprofits to their target audiences, opinion leaders, media outlets and potential givers.

By using social listening tools, nonprofits get access to all the goodness social media has to offer without hiring an entire social media marketing team. I hope this guide serves as an inspiration and how-to for transforming online conversations into valuable aids for doing good.

The post The complete guide to social media listening for nonprofits appeared first on Socialbrite.

Begin to master Twitter for your organization with these five steps

Post by Ashley Halsey

Interested in using Twitter on behalf of your nonprofit, social enterprise or cause? Great, that willingness to take the plunge is a big step all by itself. Before you forge ahead, make sure you do the necessary prep work.

How do you promote your mission or cause and engage with your followers while maintaining a healthy and respectful relationship with them? Every organization’s approach will vary somewhat, but here are several steps you need to take to have the largest impact and effect real-world change.

Master the basics

1There are some basic mechanics you’ll need to know about Twitter to help you create tweets that work well on the platform and follow the rules of the website. For example, all tweets need to be written within 280 characters, and although you can stack multiple tweets on top of each other for a kind of long-form content post, short and sweet tweets are the most effective.

You’ll want to vary your tweets, retweet some respected figures or thought leaders in your space and add images and links to your posts. If you want to track how many people are clicking on your links, use a site like bit.ly.

Optimize your Twitter bio

2“Before people start reading your Tweets and decide to follow you, they’re going to take a look at your profile to see if they want more of what you have to offer,” advises Sarah Turner, a social media marketer at Writinity.com and Researchpapersuk.com. “So you need to take time to set up your profile to make sure it has an impact and attracts the right followers.”

She suggests using a high-quality profile picture and a high-quality banner across the top. Try to avoid using generic photos but instead create custom imagery that displays information about your NPO, she adds.

For your bio section on your account page, you have 160 characters to sum up what you do and what kind of impact you’re trying to make on the world. Try to include one powerful hashtag here to increase your chances of being discovered, but keep it to one or two.

Also, make sure all your basic information is filled out, including your location and a link to your website.

Define your nonprofit’s Twitter voice

3Every organization has its own brand. Given that Twitter is an especially personal platform, you need to work on defining the voice of your brand and how you’re going to sound. There are several ways to approach this.

As a profit, you’ll want to choose your Twitter voice to resonate with your target markets emotionally. If you’re trying to market to young mothers, you’ll write a tweet differently than if you were targeting a 50-year-old male donor.

The most important thing to remember is that you need to come across as genuine and authentic. People can tell a mile off if you’re being fake and putting on an act. While you want to inject some personality into your tweets to stand out, it can pay to have one person in control of posting your tweets because then it’s easy to keep the voice consistent.

Make your tweets engaging

4“It’s important for people following you to want to interact with your tweets. You want engagement,” advises Linda Ferrinho, a nonprofit blogger at Draftbeyond.com and Lastminutewriting.com. “As an NPO, chances are you want your followers to take action on what you’re saying, to react emotionally to your message. You want to inspire and educate them.”

There are lots of ways to achieve this. Begin by adding a relevant image to your tweet, which boosts your retweet rate by about 35% on average. Note, you can attach up to four photos per tweet, so use these wisely.

You can also attach videos up to 140 seconds in length or attach a GIF either via a link or by using any of the GIFs from the Twitter database. Another handy feature you may want to use is a poll, which is great for getting people involved while hearing about their opinions on your NPO topic.

Use hashtags strategically

5Hashtags allow you to organize and share content under a specific subject — or to latch onto a trending topic. When someone searches for the topic or clicks a hashtag, your content will appear as part of the thread. While the concept is simple, it’s important to make sure you’re using the correct hashtags for the tweets you’re creating and that you post about trending topics to further boost your potential reach.

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How these nonprofits cracked the code with engaging campaigns that turned followers into donors

Post by Zoe Allen

Social media is proving to be the future of nonprofit outreach. No other platform offers the same huge global reach for promoting awareness of important issues that too often elude the public’s attention.

Some nonprofits are doing a stellar job in creating social media campaigns that are engaging, inspiring – and effective. Below are some outstanding examples of nonprofits that have run social media campaigns that moved the needle to further their cause.

Here are eight top cause campaigns to be inspired by … and to learn lessons from.

Make-A-Wish’s YouTube Channel

1The Make-A-Wish Foundation has become a household name in recent years with its unique goal of fulfilling the wishes of ill and vulnerable children, from visiting Disneyland to meeting celebrities. They have their solid social media presence to thank for their success, too.

Make-A-Wish is all about personal stories and experiences, which makes compelling content that people really want to know about. It’s also a major driver of converting supporters to donors. The organization uses YouTube videos to show the world these interesting stories, driving support for their cause. As a result of their inspiring content, they have grown into a household brand and can help thousands of children fulfill their wishes.

Explore Make-A-Wish’s YouTube channel.

This video by WATERisLIFE has garnered more than 7 million views.

WATERisLIFE: #firstworldproblems

2Here’s a great example of how you can use hashtags, images or ideas that are already popular across social media to further your nonprofit.

WATERisLIFE used the already viral hashtag #firstworldproblems to undergird an emotion-laden video. In the video, people in dire, life-threatening situations, such as having no access to clean water, repeat common “first world problems.” It highlighted the privilege of the hashtag users and the power to use social media to do true good.

The organization ensured that this popular hashtag, even after its campaign had ended, would continue to remind people that they could help others. In addition to using this hashtag, their First World Problems Anthems video was also shared and viewed thousands of times.

Project Life Jacket

3Project Life Jacket used a unique visual idea to catch their supporters’ attention. Three Swiss organizations (The Voice of Thousands, Borderfree and Schwizerchruz) interview nine refuges who had travelled across the Mediterranean, then beautifully illustrated their stories on used life jackets that had washed up on beaches.

The campaign reminded supporters that each refugee was a person with a past and a story — and more than their refugee status. When supporters understood the refugees’ stories, their empathetic response turned into action. Like Make-A-Wish, the approach shows how well supporters react to personal stories on social media and the power of visual content on these platforms.

Take a look at the Facebook page for Project Life Jacket.

truth: #BigTobaccoBeLike

4This campaign shows the power of social media for spreading awareness of important issues, rather than just for increasing donations. Using a popular Internet phrase (“be like”), truth aimed to show the issues with social smoking and dispel the myth that smoking was acceptable if it was irregular. It explained how even if you only smoke at parties, you are still supporting companies that profit off fueling illness and addiction.

Social media has the power to destroy myths and spread the truth.

truth also leveraged the power of YouTube influencers, working with popular faces to produce videos that played off the kind of short-form content that propelled the popularity of the now defunct platform Vine. They leveraged humorous content along with the millions-strong audiences of these famous faces.

Like WATERisLIFE’s campaign, truth showed that using the trends and audience that is already out there is very important in social media marketing. Take a look at truth’s Twitter page, which has 126,000 followers.

WaterAid: #giveashit

5WaterAid’s campaign aimed to make a serious issue more fun. They asked popular figures to personalize and share a poop emoji and created a free app so anyone could create a personalized poop emoji. It aimed to add a more lighthearted tone to raise awareness about a serious issue that affects millions of people’s lives worldwide.

This campaign shows the importance of creativity and participation to engage your supporters and encourage donations. If something is fun, humorous or interesting, people are much more likely to share it, spreading the reach of your message and growing your donor base.

Read more about the campaign or download the app.

World Wildlife Fund: #endangeredemoji

6After World Wildlife Fund discovered that 17 endangered animals had popular corresponding emojis, it sought to translate the popularity of the emojis into donations. WWF encouraged supporters to retweet an image on Twitter, which in turn signed them up to donate 10 pence (about 14 cents) every time they posted one of the endangered emojis.

Like WaterAid’s campaign, it shows how powerful the use of emojis can be to engage supporters. Again, this project harnessed innovation and creativity to make engaging with a nonprofit more interesting for their donors.

Visit WWF’s Twitter page, or read more on the WWF website.

National Trust: #NTchallenge

7National Trust taps into the passion of its supporters and their beautiful photography to spread the word about its beautiful sites. They regularly run weekly challenges urging supporters to upload images, tagged to #NTchallenge, that revolve around a theme, such as “places that transport you back in time.” They repost the images on their profiles and choose winners for each category.

Like many of the other campaigns here, the #NTchallenge aims to make spreading awareness about their cause fun and interesting for their supporters. By showing how beautiful these places are, they can encourage more visitors, earning more donations, which can then be spent on the upkeep of their sites.

National Trust leveraged the beauty of imagery on Instagram for this project — see their profile. Again, this shows how important it is to use the individual strengths of each platform.

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

8One of the most successful social media fundraising projects of all time, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge had thousands of participants, gained national press coverage and raised millions for the ALS Association.

Once again, this project focused on making fundraising fun, and engaging supporters in an interesting way. This challenge, spread across multiple social media platforms, dared supporters to throw a bucket of iced water over their heads and share the video online. As well as spreading awareness, the participants would then donate to the ALS Association and encourage friends to repeat the challenge and do the same. The prospect of humorous videos from friends allowed the campaign to spread quickly.

Read more on the ALS Association website.

Wrapping up

These campaigns show the importance of establishing a recognizable brand for your campaign. Try using hashtags to do this and to allow the campaign to spread quickly.

The list also shows the genius of using features already available or using a trend or hashtag that is already popular – such as in WaterIsLife’s #firstworldproblems campaign. You should also make sure you’re tapping into the possibilities of multiple channels with their different content types and audiences.

If you want to know more about social media for nonprofits, you can read our Ultimate Guide to Social Media for Nonprofits.

The post 8 top nonprofit online campaigns that rocked social media appeared first on Socialbrite.

If you’re working on behalf of a nonprofit, foundation, NGO, university or cause organization, you know that you don’t move the needle unless you have a marketing plan in place that propels people to take action on your organization’s behalf. And today a big part of your marketing toolset involves social media.

Because most people participate in at least one social media platform, nonprofits now have an easier and less expensive way to target and reach your stakeholders and constituents.

But before you jump in, make sure you have a concrete plan on how to get the message across to your target audience. If you’re planning to jump-start your social media presence for your organization, here are 15 tips you might find useful.

Set goals

1Before you start tweeting or Facebooking away, you need to identify your goals. What are you trying to achieve, and how do you measure success? If you’re trying to increase your organization’s engagement rate on Instagram, say, you should first set out a goal that’s specific (50 IG interactions), realistic (is it really possible?) and timely (in a month?). Once you establish a goal, you should track how you’re doing and adjust your processes to improve your results.  

Know your audience

2One of the most important steps in boosting your social media presence is knowing your audience. If you know who they are, you would know what their interests are and what type of content you need to share to reel them into your social media pages and your website. You’ll be better positioned to effectively engage them if you know what their proclivities are.

Know the platforms

3Knowing the audience gives you an idea what social media networks they spend time on. If, for example, your audience members are the “visual” types, you’re going to be more effective in engaging them through Pinterest or Instagram.

Photo courtesy of rawpixels.com via Pexels

Be consistent with your content

4Post content regularly to build your social media presence. You don’t need to devote a full-time staffer to this, but your updates should be regular and not sporadic. Also, make sure your content is consistent with the services you offer so that your audience won’t get confused with what your organization is offering. Your social media team members need to be on message with your nonprofit’s mission and goals.

Create targeted content

5By “targeted content,” we mean posts that your target audience would find interesting. As the saying goes: content reigns supreme. That holds true with social media marketing as well. Make sure you’re not regurgitating boilerplate mission statements — you need to find human stories that represent what your organization is trying to achieve!

Repurpose top content

6Yes, recycling or repurposing content is not a bad idea — especially if the content garners a lot of attention the first time you posted it. If a blog or a video gets a lot of attention from one social media platform, you can use it to get more mileage in another platform that is not doing as well.

Make sure it’s not all about you

7As long as you stay consistent with your updates, you can increase your social media engagement if you share external posts that your audience might find useful or interesting. In other words, it shouldn’t be all about you. Post about your sector or interesting things happening in your world, not just about official organization business.

Influencing via influencers

8“Influencers” are experts or public figures who have large social media followings. Wooing them to promote your services would help in making your cause, fundraising appeal or big event known to a wider audience. Does anyone on your team know any figures with large followings? Ask them!

Photo courtesy of picjumbo.com via Pexels

Engage your audience regularly

9Take time to reply to queries or solicit suggestions posted by the public to your Facebook page or other social media comment sections. Your followers should know that you spend time there and care about what they have to say.

Create a social media calendar

10There are lots of tools on the Internet that will help you manage your social media accounts more easily. (See Socialbrite’s Tools section.) This will also help in making sure you post updates on a regular basis.

Connect with other marketers

11Building relationships with other social media marketers can help foster a virtuous circle. This also makes it easier for you to get more ideas on how you can boost your social media presence.

Put more effort on visuals

12People are visual animals, which means that more people will likely check out your content if it looks great. So make sure to put more effort on the images you’re posting to attract your target audience.

Use hashtags

13Hashtags are a useful tool to make your content easier to find. This will also help with your branding. Did you now that Socialbrite has a free downloadable flyer on the subject?: 45 hashtags for social change (PDF).

Join communities

14Joining communities that are in the same niche as yours will make it easier for people to find your content, as communities usually allow their members to share posts on community walls. Also, you’ll be able to get the latest trends and news in communities.

Measure the results

15Last but crucially: Constantly check to see if you’re on track to achieving your goals. Are your efforts paying off or are they falling short? Only by measuring can you adjust course to be more in sync with what your audience wants and needs. The number of followers, likes, shares, comments, clicks and/or leads should be able to tell you if you’re achieving your goals or not.

There’s no denying social media is now a part of the modern landscape. Whether you work at or with a nonprofit, foundation, university, NGO or social enterprise, you should take advantage of this fact and use the free tools available to you. Over time, if used properly, social media can help advance your organization’s mission, and that’s the bottom line, isn’t it?

The post 15 social media habits to boost your nonprofit’s marketing appeared first on Socialbrite.

Well, we all knew this day was coming.

Facebook has finally decided to pull the plug on almost all types of public content from pages.

Why?

Because Mark Zuckerberg wants to make a better Facebook. One with less clickbait, engagement bait, and hopefully less fake news.

The News Feed’s goal is shifting from “helping you find relevant content to helping you have more meaningful social interactions.”

How is the News Feed changing?

To inspire meaningful conversations, the News Feed ranking will now prioritize:

1. Posts from friends that spark back-and-forth conversations.
2. Videos and news articles that spark back-and-forth discussion.
3. Posts from friends and family over posts from Pages.
4. Posts with longer comments over posts with shorter comments.

Facebook will continue to reduce click bait, engagement bait, and other types of passive content.

Less Buzzfeed quizzes and more posts from mom needing help with Facebook.

Why did Facebook make this change?

First of all, this change shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. Pages that don’t engage have had diminished exposure in the News Feed for years.

The bottom line is that without happy users, Facebook can’t sell ads. If your posts don’t inspire, Facebook won’t put them in the News Feed.

What does this Facebook News Feed change mean for your nonprofit?

First of all, don’t freak out.

Nonprofits have a clear advantage over consumer brands and businesses. People talk more about the causes they care about more than the clothes they wear.

All these changes to the News Feed require a shift in your nonprofit’s Facebook strategy.

Here are just a few recommendations:

1. Stop posting passive content: Stop posting content that doesn’t engage. For example, links to your latest blog post, event announcements, or pics from your board retreat (yawn).
2. Inspire meaningful conversations: Posts that ask followers to share their advice and recommendations will naturally spark more meaningful conversations than that link to your latest blog post. Keep in mind, your followers are waiting to share their own stories, their journey. For example, diabetes organizations should publish more posts that encourage followers to share their own diabetes experiences and tips.
3. Focus more on Facebook Groups: Be helpful, put the members first, and create meaningful conversations between members. And if your Group is public, make sure it’s connected to your Facebook Page.
4. Put your Page first: Make sure supporters who want to see your posts see them first in the News Feed. Especially core supporters who might worry about missing posts from your Page.
5. Mix email and Facebook: If you have an email newsletter, you’re ahead of the game. On a regular basic, feature your most engaging post from the previous week. Invite subscribers to join the conversation by commenting on that specific post. Also a great way to grow your fanbase.
6. Use Facebook Live to generate massive engagement: Facebook Live video is the #1 type of content on Facebook, getting 6X more reach and engagement than videos and pictures. During your live broadcast, get people commenting by asking for their tips, stories, advice. Read this post for more on getting started with Facebook Live.
7. Invest in Facebook ads: If you don’t have a Facebook ad budget, you’re really not serious about Facebook. Start investing more in Facebook ads to give your most conversational posts more exposure.
8. Create content designed to make your fans look awesome: People share content on Facebook, whether it’s a video from your Page or a blog post from your website, because they want to appear entertaining, informed, connected, etc. to their friends. Creating content that helps your supporters achieve this goal leads to more engagement and organic reach.
9. Share news your people are already talking about. Create meaningful conversations around trending news your community might already be talking about. It’s much easier to join a conversation than it is to start one.

Facebook will always put friends and family first when it comes to the News Feed. The more you adopt the same mindset with your strategy, the more successful you’ll be with Facebook.

The post Facebook news feed overhaul – how your nonprofit can prepare appeared first on Socialbrite.

By Jessica Scadron
Social Harmony

As communications professionals, we need to be agile and forward-thinking to stay competitive. We’ve come to accept that the future is unpredictable—and that we need to prepare ourselves for the unexpected.

With technological advances, fake news and virtual reality, we started to see accelerated change in 2017. We can expect that 2018 is going to move even faster. So limber up, expand your periphery, and take a look at what I predict will be the trends to prepare for in the coming year.

Activist CEOs

I am happy to report that CEOs are coming out of their corner offices with important social messages. What a breath of fresh air to see Tim Cook and Elon Musk speak out against injustices, and hundreds of CEOs resign from Trump’s business advisory board in protest. This makes my activist heart glow.

The time is here: Customers and investors now insist that companies engender a social sense of purpose that goes beyond delivering profits to shareholders. It’s a popular trend, and one that resonates with a much wider audience. According to the Edelman Trust Barometer: “Three out of four general population respondents agree that a company can take actions that both increase profits and improve the social and economic conditions of the community where it operates.”

You’ll see growing corporate pressure in 2018. With it, keep your eyes open for CEOs taking public positions on social issues—stepping in where policymakers are failing. It will be the communicator’s job to advise these business leaders on how to build trust and confidence with their stakeholders.

Integrating communications with business functions

Throughout my career, communications has traditionally stood on its own as a service to other departments within a company or organization, which are often seen as “clients.” For example, a comms team will be called when a sales department needs to promote a specific product or a program manager wants to run a campaign for maternal health. Historically, communications has responded by providing the needed content and design to implement these initiatives. I’ve seen this slowly change over time. In 2018, we’ll see that paradigm shift dramatically.

Organizations and businesses are catching on that communications is most functional when integrated across the company—with marketing, sales, finance and programming. Look out for the consolidation of positions like “Digital Communications Manager” and “Financial Communications Account Executive.” Companies will create new positions like these to more closely associate people with the work they do. We’ll need to work closely with our colleagues in each department and understand their functions so we can effectively communicate and elevate their work internally and externally.

Data

I’ve seen time and again how important it is to make data-informed decisions. But what is a data-informed decision?

Organizations need employees trained in data analysis, such as programming, visualization and statistics, to understand their audiences, cut costs, improve customer service and reach the right funders. Companies in the wireless, healthcare and software industries are using big data in this way, and nonprofits can similarly reap huge benefits from big data. The Foundation Center manages a grand database for nonprofits to find out what and where donors are funding, and how to use data to advance their missions.

As data becomes more integral to operations, communicators must work side-by-side with data analysts to simplify the language so everyone across the organization understands the meaning, and uses it to make better decisions, like personalizing content.

We also need to be honest about data. It doesn’t lie, but how it gets translated can skew meaning. And, if you’re measuring likes, clicks and shares, understand exactly why you are using those metrics. Will they help you get closer to your goals?

Augmented reality

As a social do-gooder, I’m skeptical about our ability to control our technology impulses. Frankly, it gives me mild anxiety. But augmented reality (AR) is here to stay, with the promise of making our lives easier. According to International Data Corporation, “AR revenues will surge ahead [of virtual reality], hitting critical mass in healthcare delivery and product design and management-related use cases.”

AR has come a long way since being invented in 1968, and it will continue to evolve (check out the full history). Existing museum, decorating and travel apps are already creating convenient and fantastical experiences for the citizenry.

What does this mean for communicators? We need to think differently about how we create and deliver content, from a 2D reality to 3D, and using voice, face and object recognition. Think back to how we changed our approach to writing for websites when the Internet took off or how we learned to create for mobile. AR is going to be our next big content challenge.

Video

“If a picture is worth a thousand words, video is worth a million.” – Miranda King, digital media strategist

I couldn’t agree more. Video has been the most shared form of digital content for years, and you can expect it to explode in 2018. Around the world, people collectively spend a billion hours a day on YouTube. In addition to the well-researched fact that people are drawn to video over text, video gets better search results: “Social media algorithms prefer video content because it generates higher engagement and more click-throughs than traditional static content,” according to Stern Strategy Group.

Virtual reality, raw footage, 360 video, and live streaming will boom in 2018 as people not only want to watch video, but be completely immersed in the experience. And as Facebook becomes more mobile and video metrics more available, there’s greater reason to invest in this medium.

As a communicator, you’ll want to figure out what types of video will be the most useful for your organization, and the right platforms to showcase them. Then decide how to shape your content into the most compelling video people will want to share.

Video will increasingly become a necessary communications tool. With strong communications direction, it’ll be exciting to see how video producers use new technologies to deliver fresh video experiences.

I’m exhilarated about what 2018 has in store for us communicators. It’s a new frontier to develop new skills and tell our organizations’ stories in new ways.

What are your communication trends predictions for 2018? Tweet me your ideas!

Jessica Scadron founded Social Harmony, a social impact firm that provides communications strategy and implementation to organizations changing the world. Find her on LinkedIn, Twitter and email.

The post The 2018 communications trends to watch appeared first on Socialbrite.

You already know that Facebook Live lets any nonprofit live-stream fundraising events, breaking news, impact stories, and more, directly from their Facebook Page.

But did you know that Facebook lets nonprofits add a donate button to their Facebook Live broadcast?

How to Use Facebook Live to Raise Money

If your nonprofit is based in the US, and your Facebook Page is verified, you can fundraise within a Facebook Live broadcast.

For example, in this screenshot from Facebook, Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals adds the donate button feature to their Live broadcast.

Two things to remember about fundraising with Facebook Live:

1. Your Page needs to be verified. This feature is still gradually rolling out on iOS to admins of verified Pages in the US.
2. Your nonprofit must be approved to accept Facebook payments. You can apply here.

To add the donate button, click on more options at the bottom of the screen (“…”). Next, select your nonprofit from the options (as shown above).

Viewers can donate to your cause during the live broadcast, and supporters who missed the live broadcast can always donate from the broadcast recording.

But is just having a donate button enough? Of course not! Fundraising is about building trust, sharing stories of impact, and growing a community of supporters.

Here are a few pointers as you fold Facebook Live into your fundraising plans.

Use Facebook Live to tell donors about the impact THEY made

More often than not, donors hear about impact second-hand (through your newsletter, website, etc). Rarely do they get to witness, first-hand, the impact of their support.

Facebook Live is a super effective way to bring the impact to your supporters.

For example, Best Friends Animal Society introduces their cutest residents to supporters from all over the world. Without Facebook live (and other live broadcasting tools), supporters would have to travel all the way to Utah to witness, first-hand, BFAS’s impact.

Make donors the heroes

If you want your donors to give over and over again, you need to tell them the truth: that for your nonprofit, they are the true heroes.

Feature donor stories in your broadcast. Tell your viewers the impact that one donor made. Recognize and praise this donor sincerely. Viewers will no doubt want the same praise and recognition.

For example, Stand Up To Cancer broadcasted news about a high school raised money during a “Sports Day For Charity”.

Don’t ask people to “Donate”

This one sounds a bit unintuitive, but let’s face it, asking people to donate money to your nonprofit is a buzzkill.

The reason why is that the word “donate” doesn’t place the donor in the role of the hero.

Instead, ask viewers to make an impact that’s meaningful. For example, ask them to “Give clean water”, “Feed hungry children”, “Stop human trafficking, etc. Each of these asks is associated with a problem that donors ultimately want to solve.

Tell donors when you’re going live

Facebook live isn’t that exciting if no one shows up. Make sure your core supporters show up when you go live.

• Post an update on your page the week before and the day before
• Send an email to your email list
• Share your broadcast date / time in your email newsletter
• Tweet about it immediately before you go live
• Facebook Live Tip #6: Make an outline for your broadcast

Call out commenters by name

The cool thing about Facebook live is that you can see comments as they’re posted real time during your broadcast. Engaging commenters real-time increases engagement even further, creating massive reach for your broadcast.

• Call out commenters by name
• Read their comment
• Reply to their comment
• Say thank you

Ask for action

As your broadcast reaches more users, your viewer count will increase. This is your captured audience. Seize the moment to ask for action!

• Ask participants to follow
• Ask supporters to support an issue
• Ask supporters to sign a petition

Share the recording with your supporters

You’ve put a lot of time and effort into your first Facebook a live broadcast. Congratulations! Make sure this investment goes further by sharing it with your supporters.

• Send a follow-up email to subscribers
• Link to your recent broadcast in your newsletter
• Reshare the broadcast on other social channels
• Embed the broadcast in a blog post

Remember, if you have added the donate button to your broadcast, it will exist in the broadcast recording. As you continue to broadcast stories of impact, you’ll accumulate a whole series of fundraising videos on your Facebook Page.

Repurpose the recording

When you finish a live broadcast, save it to your mobile device. Then open the file in your favorite video editing software and create several videos to be used on other social networks.

Select key moments that are less than 60 seconds but still convey a powerful story. These short videos can be used on Instagram (which requires videos to be less than 1 minute), YouTube, Facebook, etc.

Get inspired by these creative ideas for Facebook Live

If you’re not sure what topics or events you should broadcast, check out this list of 35 Facebook Live ideas for museums, animal shelters, youth organizations, and more.

The post How to use Facebook Live to raise money for your nonprofit appeared first on Socialbrite.