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It seems nonprofit organizations, charities, and member-based organizations stand to prosper a great deal from social media. The potential to connect with countless people instead of being limited to the linear outreach models of the past pose a great possibility for these organizations. On the whole, charities and member-based organizations have very salient messages that are easily received by an average person, with just causes and activities leading others to share the story rather than a simple company advertisement. It’s more fun to talk about a charity and its activities than your vehicle, toothpaste, or the new detergent you use. It seems easy, but the question remains as to how organizations can respond to these new trends. What can organizations do to at least get a jump on some of these emerging communication methods?

First thing’s first though. We have to identify what these methods are. When I am speaking of social media for charities and member-based nonprofit organizations, I am talking about tools that will allow you to have conversations with really anyone out using these tools. We’re talking about countless people, some of which are already working with the organization, most that are not. These social media options, most being “free” of charge, actually do require the allocation of resources. Time by volunteers or staff to engage the community is essential for these methods to be successful. Nobody will want to visit a dead website. Nobody will care about a Facebook page if it hasn’t been updated in two months. Nobody will care about your tweets if they are sporadic and irrelevant. Both research and dedication will be required to be successful in social media methods for an organization’s benefit. However, if that investment is made, the potential that could be achieved in terms of member engagement, involvement, and financial assistance through donations and product/service sales would most likely cover any cost incurred many times over.

I’m a scout leader and currently deploying a plan very similar to one below to engage our older members (age 13-18) and scout leaders with very promising results. Actually, the degree of results that we’re seeing with even our initial phase is something we’ve never seen before. Members are able to share information, pictures, movies, stories, and other information in ways that have not been possible before on this scale. In addition, scouts are able to find scouts from other parts of the state and even country and connect.

We’re seeing tools that allow for the mass distribution of information, but thankfully, the information is not unidirectional and impersonal such as in advertising and outreach methods of the past. Bottom line: I think this is why social media is extremely effective in member-based organizations and charities. Individuals are able to take a personal role with the organization now; they can take ownership of a piece of the overall conversation. In the scout model above (with ample moderation and safety measures, of course), we’re seeing a level field of communication that removes the impersonal nature of traditional advertising and marketing alone. In other words, social media is being just that: social. We’re all equals (both the organization and the individuals) – we treat others the way we want to be treated and see results.

I am currently working on a more comprehensive report on this topic with more extensive background information. However, here’s an overview of my observations that work with nonprofits, charities, and member-based organizations. I hope to have a more extensive report of my research within the end of the month, so keep your eyes open for it! If you want to get a jump on it when I release it, join our weekly newsletter, The Millennial Associates Weekly. You’ll be notified when it is sent out!

8 unofficial steps to improving an organization’s social media presence:

1- Have a plan

The organization must identify why it is communicating, what its goals in online communicating are, and what actions it would like to see visitors take. When an organization forms social media channels, it is not a solve-all. It will not save an organization. Only through planned action will an organization be able to assess where they were before and after social media is implemented and also be able to somewhat manage the message. Having a jumbled, unorganized message from an organization where social media channels are mixed can sometimes be worse than no messaging at all (which is harmful, too!).

2- Where is your audience?

If your members aren’t on social media channels, it wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense to dedicate huge amounts of resources to develop an organization’s social media presence. An organization should do some research and find if its members are on social media channels. If they are, their direct presence should also be discovered (e.g. are they on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Myspace, etc?). Knowing this would help your planning and deployment strategies when it comes time to delivering messages and contributing to conversation.

This doesn’t mean, though, that an organization should not be on social media channels if a majority of its members are not participants. The Internet is the most amazing medium for outreach and an organization might be foolish to avoid social media and internet outreach altogether. As the Internet becomes the prominent form of research for individuals, an organization would be good to develop its image on the internet, including the use of social media channels.

And, you never know, if an organization develops social media channels it could encourage use by its non-social media participating members to join in the conversation through offline promotions. It’s another way to keep engaged.

3- What is your message?

The next thing an organization must determine is message. This is most likely already completed by most organizations for past or current marketing campaigns, but a review of an organization’s mission, goals, vision, values and talking points should be reviewed before being deployed on the social web. Questions like how an organization is perceived both on and offline should indicate parallels or divides between intended organizational perception. Current goals and promotions will help dictate the message that will be delivered to the web’s citizens.

An organization should take the time to determine what it’s online message (or messages) will be. They should also take care to ensure that they remain consistent across all mediums (social media, organization website, offline promotion and marketing, print materials).

4- What tools are the best for your message?

Not all the tools out there may be the best for your message. What may be successful on Twitter for one organization might not pick up as well for another organization’s message. Facebook for the Boy Scouts may be more effective than Facebook for a church. While there is much research to be done still on the topic of what makes a message salient in social media channels and what makes message viral (and I mean a LOT of research to be done), your organization can select focuses based on some basic principles.

a. Keep it interesting. You want to make sure that your information is interesting and engages your visitors. If you aren’t sure if it is, ask a sampling of your membership if they like it and ask for feedback. See what they would like to see on the social media channels. If they aren’t sure or are indifferent, listen into a variety of conversations offline to see if these conversations can translate to online dialogue.

b. Trial and error. You’ll generally be successful if you try certain types of messages and see the results. If you’d like to try videos, see how well they are received by your audience. If they’re not well received or receive no traffic after promoting them, maybe it’s the type of video or program? Changing up the style might find success. Another example would be Facebook content – if the tone or style of your conversation and posts are not seeming to work, try changing it up. Just remember to do your best not to be hurtful, offensive or potentially harmful to anyone or anything. Keep it G rated.

c. Make a list of successful strategies. Make a list of social media tools out there and think of what, generally, would be successful methods for the organization. Some are no-brainers. Some organizations may never see use for webinars or podcasts, but could find good use in blogging or content sharing on Facebook and Myspace. Brainstorm ideas. In your brainstorming you just may figure out new styles of messages that could be successful on mediums you have yet to implement.

5- Have a good website that can be utilized

Your organization’s website is essential. If you don’t have one, there are many reasons why you should, which I won’t cover in depth here. Let’s just say if you don’t have a website today, you risk much credibility and also a lot of outreach potential by failing to engage possible visitors.

Anyway, assuming you have a website, your pages should be engaging and inviting. Content should be fresh and regularly updated with new features introduced. The content on the organization’s website should be encouraging use of the social media channels and your offline marketing efforts, and vice versa. In essence, an organization’s website would serve as a portal for visitors to find content and information, similar to a dashboard program on a computer. Direction to social media channels and dynamic content will encourage revisiting of the website, as well as offline marketing efforts that drive traffic to the site.

An organization’s website should be utilized to its furthest possible extent. While brochure websites are great, much more can be done through blogs, podcasts, webinars, surveys, contests, and social media than has ever been possible before. While having your organization’s brochure available 24 hours a day is a great thing, having dynamic content that engages the visitor is a hundred times better because they are likely to come back.

6- Deployment plan

Organizations must identify who will be delivering what content when. For example, a question you’d ask if you have an event or activity would be who is responsible for putting the photos, videos, commentary, and reviews up onto the social media streams and where will they be placed? How will visitors/members know they are there? How will you promote information? Another example would be who is responsible for carrying on discussion on Twitter, Facebook, Myspace and other channels? Who is responsible for updating content on the organization’s website?

These are all issues that can be and should be resolved in a loosely structured plan with dates/deadlines and goals. It keeps things semi-orderly and allows your visitors to have the regular feed of information and discussion that they desire. This does not mean, however, that the organization cannot publish outside of this plan if it is timely and relevant. Social media is one big discussion, after all, and would be a shame if companies and organizations simply followed their regular schedule like a robot. That wouldn’t be as interesting, would it?

7- Review results, try to find measurable options to survey effectiveness

Try to find ways to measure your results. You can define results as actions taken by members that they wouldn’t have taken if it wasn’t for the social media effort. These actions could be donations, registrations for events, and responses to online actions (quizzes, surveys, contests, email/newsletter subscriptions, other actions). While it is more difficult to measure with numbers the effectiveness of social media (because it is a conversational medium), the above are some ways you can compare actuals versus goals.

Much research is currently being conducted Internet-wide on return-on-investment metrics, benchmarking, and other ways to measure success. However, I feel that we are still quite a while away from solid measurables and must stick with the above methods to view our success. Also, you can generally (qualitatively) assess the success of your social media efforts by just discussing or overhearing discussions with members about general questions and responses regarding the organization’s social media efforts. There’s a great deal of the social web that will always be unmeasurable. I call that the intangible community component – the part that doesn’t want to be assigned a number (and the exciting part about social media!)

8- Replan

When an organization reaches the end of its initial plan, the chief content people should get together, review the results (see above) and replan for another set amount of time with new goals. A good strategy is to think of exciting new things that can be done to implement this new phase of the communication plan such as a new blog series, contest, survey, report, research or something new to engage visitors.

Categories: Community Development, Issue Advocacy Orgs, Nonprofit Organizations, Political Campaigns, Social Media and Web 2.0, Successful Messaging, Web Strategies

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