Tag: nonprofit

by Steve Peterson

Running a Committed, Social Media Savvy Nonprofit Means Getting in and Staying in the Game

The core symbiotic relationship between nonprofits and donor/members – shared vision coupled with financial and volunteer support – is what propels successful organizations forward. In the brave new digital world, staying on top of your social media strategy with a solid game plan will ensure that you continue to cultivate and foster those relationships. Our research reveals three dominant themes; 1. Get committed and start moving. 2. Experiment with a mix of different platforms and strategies. 3. Position your organization for the future.

Exploring these themes in a little more detail can help you go forward confidently. Here we go!

Get Committed With Your Social Media Vision and Plan of Attack

Beth Kanter and Allison Fine have co-written a solid book, The Networked Nonprofit, which aligns with our philosophy here at Steve Peterson & Associates; specifically, get in the game, be diligent and experiment with social media. Experimenting helps you identify what works and what doesn’t, which in turn allows you to fully explore different digital channels and make mid-course corrections that inform new strategies. With some judicious – and here’s the important part – persistent tinkering, you’ll hit on a handful of winning strategies that can drive successful social media campaigns and in the process both increase donor and member loyalty and help you garner new members.

The importance of commitment and persistence cannot be stressed enough. Spinning up a Facebook page or Twitter profile without both a committed strategic direction aligned to your organization’s goals coupled with a plan on how to execute and measure your efforts could result in a healthy dose of sand dumped directly into your donor engine. Creating an online presence just because everyone else is doing it, only to half-heartedly and inconsistently manage posts, replies or promoted events clearly signals to your constituents and potential donors a dearth of digital sophistication. This is an especially egregious oversight when factoring in the increasingly affluent, digitally skilled and socially cause-conscious Millennial and Gen-Xer populations, a combined 126-million strong.

The Future Is Here: Learn and Adapt

Changes in how and when donors engage with nonprofits are forcing organizations to rethink old strategies and quickly apply new ones.

An article published recently by Arjuna Solutions underscores the increasing importance of leveraging social media and technology strategies as they relate to fundraising and member engagement. Their five-point plan includes:

  1. Get online payment processing tools in place now.
  2. Position your organization for the future by focusing a portion of your efforts on capturing and fostering conversations with the burgeoning Millennial market, a group that on average donates $481 per year. The challenge is engaging them on their platforms of choice, all of which are digital.
  3. Leverage multiple online platforms that support your campaigns.
  4. The shift from annual giving to year-round efforts, further emphasizing the importance of a persistent, managed social media presence.
  5. Analytics and reporting, specifically predictive analytics that allow organizations to tailor precise donation ask amounts.

Getting your social media act together doesn’t mean everything has to get done at once. It does, however, mean that the journey should start now. Instead of being dragged kicking and screaming into the perceived digital abyss, lean into unknown digital spaces and your own discomfort, work with partners that can support and supplement your efforts and hire digital savvy associates whenever possible.

That whooshing sound you’re hearing is the digital revolution in full swing. Get in the game.

Click here to learn how to create a PayPal charitable donation button for your website.

by Steve Peterson

What’s The Score? Get Your Nonprofit Social Media Scorecard

In my previous post, Social Media Marketing a Must Do For Nonprofits, I referenced some solid work done by The Marketing Support Network and Dunham+Company that provides data and reveals the work that non-profits need to do get get a hold on their social media marketing efforts.

For those of you interested, the full report can be downloaded by clicking here.

Enjoy, learn and contact us to assist with your social media marketing efforts!

by Steve Peterson

Social Media Marketing A Must Do For Nonprofits

As we enter 2016 social media is all grown up or is at least past their pimply-faced teenage years and is fast-moving toward energetic young adulthood. While businesses have picked up and are running with that ball, non-profits appear to be somewhere between searching for the field and, once in the game, trying to put together a team that knows how to play.

The numbers don’t lie. Global social network ad spend was projected to reach $25.14 billion in 2015 (source emarketer.com) – or to put it into terms we can all understand, about 18 times greater than Wednesday’s Powerball lottery winnings. Businesses are not only tightly focused on investing in platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn but more importantly they are driving timely conversations with engaged customers from those channels, assisted by links from their websites.

For profit businesses on average responded 81% of the time to Twitter posts and 80% of the time to Facebook posts or questions.

Conversely nonprofit engagement, responsiveness and innovation on social media platforms is much lower. A recent survey of 161 non-profits by marketingsupportnetwork.com revealed some sobering insights:

  • 40-85% of organizations are not linking to their social media channels from their websites
  • 76% of nonprofits don’t let donors share their donation experience on social media
  • Although users on many of the most popular platforms like Facebook and Twitter said they expect responses within 30 minutes (32%), 60 minutes (42%) or same day (67%), surveyed non-profits didn’t respond at all to 49% of Facebook questions and 55% didn’t respond to Twitter questions.

Nonprofits similarly received low scores in post-donation comments and social sharing in general.

So what does this all mean?

  1. The market isn’t going to wait for nonprofits to catch up. Forward-thinking organizations should be assessing their positions, creating a social media marketing strategy, executing on the timely and relevant release of content based on the strategy, and monitoring their channels to measure performance.
  2. As younger donors who are highly conversant on social media platforms mature, they expect your organization to be there with them. If you’re lagging behind, engagement with them, rich conversations about your mission and services and resulting donations will continue to be moving targets on which you’re likely not capitalizing.

What can you do about it?

Change your thinking and change with the times. View your social media connections as the vital platforms they are; marketing channels that give you new ways to connect donors to your organization and engage them in conversation.

Put your money where your mouth is. Apportion a segment of your administrative budget to fund social media initiatives and follow through.

Steve Peterson & Associates can do that for your non-profit organization or next artistic pursuit; insightful assessment of your current social media platforms, partnership to craft a strategy tailored to your organization, content management/messaging and timely reporting and analytics that will measure your progress. Check us out at our website and give us a call when you’re ready to get a solid handle on your move to meet donors on their social media platforms of choice.