by Stephanie Quick
There is no question about it, social media is a force to be reckoned with. In the words of Eric Qualman, author of Socialnomics, “We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media. The choice is how well we do it.” He estimates that the usage of social media has now overtaken pornography as the number one activity online. If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest country in the world, behind China and India. The Pew Research Center estimates that as of January 2014, 74 % of all adults use social media.
What does that mean for nonprofits? Social media can be an incredible tool for nonprofits to connect with supporters, potential volunteers, and potential clients when leveraged correctly. It is also very easy to get lost in the chaos of social media if you’re not careful. Aaron Keller in an article in Entrepreneur magazine calls poorly managed social media “a bombardment of billions of tiny cannons.” This webinar will help you to wisely navigate Facebook and social media in order to create awareness of your brand and to cultivate community with your key audiences.
The objectives of this webinar are to give nonprofits an overview of social media, to provide an introduction to content and communication strategy, and to give a focused look at how to optimize Facebook as a nonprofit. Some of the topics covered are:
1. Identify 6 major social media networks and hundreds of smaller niche sites. Each site has a slightly different purpose and focus. It is more important to choose one site and develop a good content strategy than to be on every site.
2. To be effective on social media, you have to build your brand online through great content.
- – Know your audience.
- – Know yourself.
- – Remember that social media is a conversation.
- – Social media relies on community and collaboration.
3. Facebook is the largest social network and offers a great platform for nonprofits.
- – Create engaging status updates and posts.
- – Maintain an editorial calendar so that your campaigns aren’t overlooked or forgotten.
- – Use Facebook Page Insights or other analytics to see what is working.
- – Create a vanity URL for your Facebook page.
- – Remember that your profile photo represents your brand.
- – Facebook limits the reach of Facebook business posts, but by optimizing your posts, you increase the reach of each post.
- – Reach is not always the best indicator of effectiveness.
If you want people to know about your organization, your organization has to go where the people are. These days, the people are on social media, especially Facebook. If you’d like to learn more about how to maximize the effectiveness of your organization on Facebook, check out the complete webinar at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syd9_AoXtlg.
Stephanie Quick has over 10 years experience working with nonprofits on communications strategies and events. She is currently pursuing a Masters in Professional Studies in Public Relations and Corporate Communications at Georgetown University’s School of Continuing Studies. Yu can follow her at @stephanielquick or connect with her via LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stephanielquick.