Post by BVU Staff: Elizabeth Winter, Regional Vice President
I heard a great quote the other day: “Social media is free like a puppy is free.” If you’ve ever gotten a “free” puppy, you understand. No money changes hands up front, but the minute it’s yours, the bills start rolling in. The currency for social media is time, and of course, time is money.
Through my work at BVU: The Center for Nonprofit Excellence, I have many nonprofit organizations express an interest in using social media for marketing. Their interest wanes when they realize the cost – in time and effort.
Regardless of the cost, you can’t afford to ignore social media. It’s an essential component of your organization’s efforts to connect with the community, raise awareness about your mission and build a core of volunteers and donors to support your work.
Consider the following benefits of social media:
- It’s a great way to build relationships because it’s where you’ll find your community, regardless of age or other demographics.
- It allows you the opportunity to reach thousands of people quickly and it uses your friends and followers to help spread the word, which provides you with added credibility.
- It provides you with instant feedback and insight into your customer base.
- It gives you and your community a common forum to address and resolve issues.
Now consider the potential problems (challenges?) associated with social media:
- It’s time-consuming. To remain relevant and keep people involved you have to post frequently – ideally daily – and your posts have to be interesting and engaging, not just a sales pitch or recitation of facts about your organization. More importantly, you need to monitor social media daily so that you can respond promptly to any comments, concerns or questions.
- Per socialmediatoday.com, you could wait months or years to see a return on your investment (such as an increase in number of volunteers or fundraising dollars).
- This may be the most fearsome thought of all: people may post negative comments. However, this is an opportunity for you to shine by providing prompt and effective service recovery. Certainly, there will be those with “keyboard courage” who post nasty comments just because they can do so in relative anonymity. Don’t worry; others will recognize them for what they are and will recognize your good faith effort to resolve any issue.
- If you have more than one person posting, be careful that you don’t dilute your brand by different phrasing, tone, etc.
For organizations just dipping their toes into the social media pool, I suggest choosing one or two platforms and doing it really well. Set aside time each day to work on your social media efforts until it becomes routine. Then, if you choose to delve a little deeper, you’ll be better prepared to do so.
BVU: The Center for Nonprofit Excellence 