Engaging Your Community on Social Media
The Wisdom of WOC is a weekly advice column where the WOC Community can submit its questions about fundraising and philanthropy, and have them answered by our founder, Yolanda F. Johnson, and special guest editors from the WOC community.
From Our Mailbag
Q: How can organizations improve their engagement with audiences on social media?
—Anonymous
A: Social media is an ever-changing and evolving medium. There are more than 4.5 billion social media users around the world. By 2023, the number of social media users in the United States is forecasted to increase to approximately 257 million. Social media has had a major impact on nonprofit organizations, allowing organizations to share their stories to a much broader audience; building a community, engaging supporters in meaningful conversations, turning them into followers and clients; increasing, promoting awareness, and inspiring action.
These are all wonderful things but keep in mind several pointers about social media as listed by Seth Godin (modern marketing expert):
Social media is a one-to-one very micro-based medium, not a mass medium.
Social media is not your source of light, the creator of your success but the evidence of your success.
You can’t be seen until you learn to see, so to bring the work you care about to the people eager to see it, you need to be fully engaged.
Eagerly pay attention to people who mention you online and engage with them in a way that they prefer to be engaged.
Don’t sell but educate.
It’s truly an art to engage with your audience. But before you begin improving your engagement with your audience, you will need to set up nonprofit social media tools for success; ensure effective content marketing and a social media strategy.
There are many tips, but here are just a few insights from various experts, I’ve picked up along the way:
You have to be Social – ignite conversations!
Listen, be responsive and share.
Highlight special followers/clients.
Be consistent and have an authentic voice.
Share stories about people and your communities.
Be transparent.
Create valuable original, shareable, short-form content with strong visuals to maximize engagement. Strong visuals: (photos; use videos to post interviews and share behind-the-scenes content, ex. Instagram Takeovers). Strong calls to action and motivational quotes; infographics.
Stay up to date and comment on current events and trends that tie into your brand.
As we move forward with improving our engagement with our audiences, here are a few top trends for the upcoming years:
TikTok will become even bigger.
Instagram and Twitter will remain popular.
Social commerce will continue to expand.
Video content and live streaming will become a key focus.
Social Audio will become more popular.
Inclusivity will be key.
Trust and authenticity are the new way to sell on social media.
Proliferation of short-form video content.
Shorter attention spans result in more bite-sized content.
Most social media marketing experts state that a good engagement rate is between 1% to 5%. Although there are often challenges with staffing and budget for nonprofits, success can still be achieved by following best social media practices - creating valuable, sharable content, and engaging your audience, as well as having a dedicated staff and volunteers to keep up with your posts and interactions.
Resources
Statista. “Social media usage in the United States - Statistics & Facts”
Data Reportal. “Global Social Media Stats October 2021”
Statista. “Social media usage in the United States - Statistics & Facts”
Data Reportal. “Global Social Media Stats October 2021”
https://nonprofitssource.com/online-giving-statistics/social-media/
https://asana.com/pl/resources/marketing-trends
https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-for-nonprofits
https://buffer.com/library/social-media-non-profits
https://www.business.com/articles/5-steps-to-engage-your-audience-on-social-media/
https://explodingtopics.com/blog/social-media-trends
https://datareportal.com/social-media-users
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/social-media.asp
https://www.statista.com/topics/3196/social-media-usage-in-the-united-states/#topicHeader__wrapper
https://buffer.com/library/social-media-engagement/
https://www.nonprofitpro.com/post/art-engaging-donors-social-media/
https://www.business.com/articles/5-steps-to-engage-your-audience-on-social-media/
This Week’s Expert
Linda Ortiz
Capital Campaign Coordinator
Office of Mission Advancement for The Paulist Fathers
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