Friday Five 035: Social Media Matters

What is the Friday Five?

Each Friday, we will be answering your most pressing questions from our Digital Marketing for Nonprofits Facebook group. If we don’t cover a challenge that you or your nonprofit colleagues are facing, drop us a comment below or tweet us @CommunityBoost and we’ll add it to the queue. 

Let’s dive in! 

Nonprofit Marketing Challenges

1) Your Biggest Marketing Challenge: “Customizing and being fresh and engaging on all platforms.” – Angela, NCTV17

Our Solution: Creating original content consistently can be challenging so re-purpose your core content that has proven to resonate with your key audiences. From there, adapt content for the various platforms and conversations as needed. It all comes down to rhythm, which takes time and patience. You’ll naturally see an uptick in engagement across all platforms across time.

2) Your Biggest Marketing Challenge: “Getting people to tell us their stories and then translating that into Digital Ads that would move people to either Join the Y or Give.”  – Patricia, Westport Weston Family YMCA

Our Solution: During an interview, make sure people feel safe and comfortable, possibly by exposing some of your own vulnerabilities. It’s important they know perfection isn’t expected or desired.  People want to share their time and stories, but in order to get heartfelt answers, you need to ask insightful questions. From there, test quantity. Once you start posting content, make data-driven decisions on what stories are resonating the most and then continue to produce successful content. Streamline processes and incentivize story sharing. For example, this might mean a free month membership at the YMCA. Be sure to check out our website for some great storytelling framework content.

3) Your Biggest Marketing Challenge: “Working with risk averse people who don’t always understand social media.”  – Carol, The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

Our Solution: This is a challenge for many nonprofits. First, you have to recognize that there is a difference between development efforts vs. marketing and branding efforts. When it comes to leading an organization through understanding the importance of social media, it takes consistency. At Community Boost, it’s not until I feel exhausted from sharing our vision with our team that the team is really just starting to get it. The same concept of principle applies to your organization. In the current world we live in, it’s paramount that your organization protects time to learn the skills, innovations and adaptations associated with these new technologies. You need to market where peoples’ attention is at, which is online and on mobile. Our phones are the remote control of our lives, we’re on it all the time. Invest the time and the budget and you’ll see the positive results.

4) Your Biggest Marketing Challenge: “Creating a digital marketing strategy.”  – Esharan, READWS

Our Solution: Indeed, this can be overwhelming. First, put a plan in place but start with your audience and your key personas. Analyze their wants, needs and desires. Then dive into why they care about your cause. What is your value proposition? Why do you stand out? Get real with these questions and be self-aware as to why people should care. From there, spend time and invest in both your resources and some budget to drive results. Have conversations and continuously get user feedback. Document the journey of your organization because it’s a process people can really resonate with. Don’t worry about every single piece of collateral, just be effective in your message. This is a great way to produce more content. Start with goals, focus on the ‘what’ and figure out the ‘how.’  

Cameron Ripley