Devise your Strategic Social Media Plan
What’s the Goal?
Organizations typically have similar end goals when it comes to social media which we outlined in our previous post Get Social! The Ins + Outs of Social Media – Part 2.0.
Here are the top 8 things nonprofits regularly communicate to their supporters:
- Educate – teach readers about who you are, what you do, why you’re different. Demonstrate your impact on your service recipients and community.
- Entertain – makes readers feel something; amused, sad, grateful, enraged…
- Celebrate Success – tell stories about goals you’ve reached, awards won, projects completed, crises resolved…
- Communicate Change – introduce new staff, goals, value props, locations, partners, products, services. Tell more stories about everyday life for your org – redesigning your offices, new positions added due to growth; the possibilities are endless.
- Convince – emphasize why folks should switch to you, support your mission, attend your event, give generously, buy your product, believe what you believe, etc.
- Awareness+Reach – further brand, event and/or mission awareness and increase your reach
- Engage – polls, surveys, questions, solicit sharing…
- Thank – shine the light on those you love: employees, partners, volunteers, key donors, foundations and champion your biggest supporters right back
Social Media, Website + Digital Marketing Strategy – the Collaboration Trifecta
Will you use social to drive traffic to your website? Do you expect conversions or simply increased brand awareness? Whatever your desired outcome, think it through and devise all your plans to support it.
Create the Content
Check out our post on creating engaging content here.
Create a Social Media Content Calendar
Enter the content you plan to post into an online calendar like Google calendar (that can be shared among contributors/editors) or similar. Share this with your social media specialist and any other content contributors. Align your content with important days including national observances, holidays and seasons. Take advantage of national/regional observances that you can use to promote your own mission (ie.: a breast cancer group running a promotion during breast cancer awareness month, week, day). Determine which days and times are heavily trafficked by your demographic. That’s when you want to post.
Execute. And go!
Post religiously and adhere to your scheduled days, times and promotions as closely as possible. Use scheduled posts. Consider software to boost post frequency and remain consistent across platforms.
Be Consistent
Whatever you do, POST. Your supporters will become accustomed to hearing from you at certain times with a rhythm uniquely yours. Delight them with regular, quality content.
Course Correction
Social media changes daily. Trends develop overnight. Sometimes it is necessary to reevaluate the best of plans and make smart edits immediately. Stay responsive to what is happening and always steer yourself toward success.
Now What?
Keep on posting away. We’ll keep on sharing our plan and our clients’ secrets to social success. All you have to do is keep on reading!
Ready to raise the fundraising bar with us? Let’s develop your Strategic Social Media Master Plan today. Let’s go change the world together!