Social Media has become the nonprofit marketing strategy of the 21st Century. Done right it can be inexpensive and results oriented. It is important to determine the goals of Social Media use and how best to implement a strong strategy.
WHY SOCIAL MEDIA?
Nearly every generation uses Social Media including the Gen Z children, the young adult Millenials, the Gen X parents and the Baby Boomers. Below is a chart of these generations and the Social Media they often use:
| Generation | Age | Social Media |
| Gen Z | 2-19 | Parental Approval of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat |
| Gen Y (Millenials) | 20-37 | Instragram, Snapchat, limited Facebook and Pinterest, YouTube, Facebook Live, limited Twitter |
| Gen X (Parents) | 38-48 | Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Facebook Live, YouTube, Meetup, Nextdoor, Twitter |
| Boomers 2 | 49-59 | Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Limited Twitter |
| Baby Boomers | 60-69 | Facebook, YouTube, |
| Greatest Generation | 70+ | Limited Facebook |
Depending on who you want to target and why you want to target that group, you can consider varying campaign targets.
WHAT WILL YOU USE IT FOR?
PUBLIC AWARENESS
Social Media is best known for Public Awareness marketing. Setting up profiles on each of the platforms should be concentrated on who you want to reach and why. Campaigns with a limited and targeted marketing that is communicated across platforms can reach a broad audience. Likewise, if your desire is to target a certain group, you can keep it to fewer platforms. If you want to reach Millenials you may design a picture and add a statistic to it and post it to Snapchat and Instragram. Then add hashtags to reach specific audiences and watch your content be shared. This gets your organization better known. The more platforms you attach and send the content to, the more you reach. Learning what different respond to helps as well.
VOLUNTEER RECRUITMENT
Nonprofits find new volunteers by sharing their needs using Social Media. Facebook, SnapChat, LinkedIn and Instragram can reach various groups to help locate volunteers. Remember to stay specific with your volunteer need such as “Help walk our dogs. Join our team!” or “Love managing people? Be our new volunteer coordinator!” or “Volunteers drivers needed to deliver food to seniors in their homes.” Put these with a heart-tugging picture and grow your volunteer base!
FUNDRAISING
Social Media can be used for fundraising as well. The best known is using CrowdFunding websites and Apps like GoFundMe, CauseVox, Indiegogo, Causes and many others. Be aware that running a CrowdFunding option is like running any other kind of event that take preparation, research, and dialing interaction to get people to participate. Keep it simple by asking for a specific program and/or program item to funded.
I recently found a great company using an App during your Silent Auction called HandBid. The App is loaded onto your attendees phones and when they place a bid on an item it is added to receive updates. Every time someone else bids on that item, the other person is notified that they can bid higher if they want. The competitive nature of people using this (or other similar Apps) have significantly increased their Silent Auction revenues.
SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT APPS
One of the major challenges in Social Media is how much time and effort it can take Nonprofit Organizations to manage. Developing content, keeping the interaction going and learning the new Apps and uses can be time consuming. Hootsuite is an App that helps manage all your social media platforms. You can schedule your content throughout the month(s). Once you learn the ropes on this App, you can benefit from the time-saving features it can provide your nonprofit.
Social Media is a part of our daily lives and it is a great way to have instant contact with your future volunteers and donors.
