Social media is a powerful asset for nonprofit organizations and their leaders. According to Nonprofit Source, 55% of people who engage with organizations’ social media accounts end up taking some sort of action. For 59%, that means making a donation — often through giving tools built into the platform itself.
However, building and managing a high-quality social media presence can be challenging for many nonprofits, especially those with limited human and financial resources.
This calls for a bold, even outside-the-box approach to social media management, leveraging tactics that may not be appropriate for individuals or certain for-profit organizations.
If you’re in charge of or in a position to influence your organization’s social media operation, try these six underrated strategies to drive more engagement with your brand.
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Incorporate Perspectives Other Than Your Own
The most engaging social media accounts tend not to be myopic or even overly self-promotional. Rather, they are topic- and community-driven. They embrace conversation and controversy (though always with a polite shine). They welcome other users’ feedback and, after attracting a decent following, they lift up others’ perspectives.
Take David Miscavige’s Instagram account. The leader of the Scientology religion uses his platform to, among other things, share stories and testimonials from his congregants as well as from the general public. The result is a lively, engaging, and multifaceted presence that invites users to learn more about the organization he leads.
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Ease Off the Hashtags
Until recently, the hashtag was an important tool for organizing social media content and ensuring post visibility. But technology has moved on, and none other than the new CEO of X (formerly Twitter) has cast doubt on their utility moving forward.
“He has now criticised the use of the hashtag on the platform and called it unnecessary and ugly,” the Times of India said.
To be sure, there are still circumstances under which hashtags make sense to employ, such as in the context of discrete, time-limited social events or topics (like “Ask Me Anything” sessions or major sporting contests). It seems that their heyday has passed, however, and social media managers should adjust accordingly.
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Focus on Human Impact, Not Only Facts and Figures
Use your social media presence to share impactful stories that grab your audience’s attention and convince them to give you a few seconds of their time. Generally, these sorts of stories do not come across in dry, text-only posts.
For example, according to Sprout Social, 66% of social media users say short-form video is the most engaging post format. It’s not difficult to see why: Short videos convey more information than an equivalent amount of text can, even if overlaid on an image. Those sorts of static posts have their place, of course, but it’s important to give the audience what they want.
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Host Open-Invite “Ask Me Anything” Sessions
Another way to give the audience what they want — whether it incorporates video or not — is to host frequent, open-invite “ask me anything” sessions where members of the general public can pick your brain (or your organization’s) about the topics of the day.
An “ask me anything” event, or AMA, “can provide valuable insights into how your audience perceives your brand, products, or services,” according to Reddit, where the format originated.
Before hosting your first AMA, develop policies (or guardrails, if you prefer) to ensure that you personally and everyone else on your team involved in its production can control the narrative amid what may be a freewheeling exchange of ideas. Among other things, these policies should include limits on:
- The runtime of the AMA (30 or 60 minutes is usually sufficient)
- Topics for discussion (or any topics to avoid)
- The individuals entrusted with representing your organization via answers to user questions
- A process for collecting, acknowledging and answering user questions
- Protocols for following up with users who didn’t get a chance to ask questions or whose questions you weren’t able to answer satisfactorily during the allotted time
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Do a Monthly or Quarterly “Account Takeover”
This is another bold, even adventurous way to distinguish your organization from its more risk-averse peers and perhaps draw well-deserved attention to its mission.
The ideal “takeover partner” is a peer organization (for example, another nonprofit serving the same general purpose) or an individual or entity associated with it, such as a client, volunteer, or financial contributor.
Like an AMA, a social media takeover needs strong guardrails in place to avoid undue conflict or reputational damage. It goes without saying that you must fully trust the takeover partner; you may wish to have legal counsel involved beforehand to protect your interests.
However, if done well, this sort of outside-the-box initiative could be exactly what your social media presence needs.
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Build a Presence on “Nontraditional” (But Popular) Platforms
Finally, expand your organization’s presence on popular social media platforms that peer organizations nevertheless overlook.
Reddit and TikTok are good examples of such platforms; both are wildly popular with certain segments of the population but remain uncharted territory for much of the nonprofit sector.
Reddit offers the added benefit of potent SEO; Google pays the company more than $60 million annually to scrape user data, and the visibility of Reddit pages in Google’s organic search results has perhaps unsurprisingly increased over the past 12 to 18 months.
Reach New Followers Through Social Media
Our information environment fragments a bit more every year. Some media-watchers believe the trend is accelerating. Leaders must think strategically in this emerging “new normal” and embrace a more diverse range of brand-building tools than ever before.
One of the most powerful of these tools is social media. No longer a curiosity to experiment with or a “nice to have” for deep-pocketed marketing departments only, social media is now the dominant means of information exchange for millions of Americans and countless more individuals abroad.
One by one, familiar arguments against embracing social media — that it’s only for young people, or it’s not an effective channel for deep engagement, or it’s too much of an art and not enough of a science to manage — have fallen by the wayside.
It’s time to pay attention, if you’re not already.