In honor of National Philanthropy Day, here are the top 55 things every nonprofit needs to know this holiday season…
- Mobile is a must—half of your donors look for you on mobile
- Social drives donor discovery
- The “whether we should” conversation is pushing up daisies
- “Living” communication dominates our society
- Know your goals—awareness, engagement, fundraising
- Know where your audience hangs out
- Facebook is still #1 nonprofit platform—yes, even for those with no wrinkles
- Meet audience expectations—3-4 profiles to be seen as relevant
- Hashtags are important—Twitter, Instagram, Facebook
- 1-3 hashtags per post—#donatenow #volunteer #NationalPhilanthrophyDay
- Don’t forget tweetchats—use Tweetchat
- Watch your insights and adapt—Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram insights. Tweriod too!
- Generally—Facebook: 3x-5x week; Twitter: 4x day; Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest and others: 3x week
- 10:30, 12:30 & 3:00pm are great
- Know and use the brand voice
- Storytell and story make
- Create an experience with every post
- Use quality photos—Shutterstock, DollarPhotoClub, and free sites like Pixabay and Morguefile
- Use photos/videos on Twitter
- Video turns viewers into donors
- Captions—keep them short and pithy
- Add personality and two sentences max
- Use CTA—what do you want them to do with your post? Spread the word? Share a thought?
- Link to website for the details
- Shorten links—Hootsuite or bitly
- Don’t use internal language
- Vary your types of story—nostalgia, mythbuster, question, quote
- Militant can be a powerful instigator, but not the high road
- Positive begets positive, especially in social sharing
- Whoever has the best content wins—original content over curation
- The point is always the share—DIYs, memes, inspirational articles
- Use muse spreadsheet
- Social is not your soapbox
- 5/1—5 posts for others to every 1 post about you
- Be “home” to mitigate risk—spam
- Respond with heart
- Only truly “social” behavior succeeds
- Seed your logo—comment on other pages
- Like and follow only a few is old school
- Outreach—15-30 minutes 2x day
- Don’t strive for a donation, strive for a smile
- Pin your ask-of-the-month to the top of the page
- Apply for Facebook’s donate button
- Campaigns—ask can only be as big as your prize
- Connect your giveaway to your brand—Shortstack
- Social is pay to play—be on the winning side of the algorithms
- Social ads: avg $200-300 / mo
- Use split testing for targeted ads
- Boost: $10 1-2x week
- No ad spend, no visibility—organic engagement is no longer enough
- Use a content calendar—be clear who is in charge of posting what, where, and when
- Metrics matter
- Hire for results
- Outsource gives you a toolbox of expertise, lifts the burden from staff
- Outsource social media management *wink wink*
If your posts represent the heart and soul of your nonprofit, your responses are you walking the talk… and the point! So as we approach the holiday giving season, is it time to rethink your content strategy?
We’ll start it off with a gift of inspiration for you! Download our Nonprofit Muse Spreadsheet
Upcoming Class
If you want to learn more about the lure of social media and why campaigns go viral; how to succeed by showing up; the power of the “social” relationship; what constitutes a perfect post; storytelling over pitch; creating cool captions and positive spin; the do’s and don’ts of asking for money; organic vs paid visibility; and what metrics you should be watching and why, join me Saturday, March 14, 2014, for Social Media for Nonprofits at Pacific New Media, UH Manoa. See you there!
Resources
Where Nonprofits Spend Their Time With Social Media Marketing [New Data] | Hootsuite
Download slides: http://bit.ly/AFPSocial