Best practices for not-for-profits

• Content and community coordinator at Connecting Up

• Online communications specialist

• Social media, content creation, blogging, copy writing, community building, communications, e-newsletters, HTML & CSS, SEO, web design… and all that jazz…

• bt@connectingup.org

• @hellobenteoh

• What we’ll fly through:• Getting buy-in for social media use

• Using social media effectively and making every post count

• Using social media efficiently with time saving tips

• Growing your social media audience

• A quick look at “what’s next” in social media for not-for-profits

Getting buy-in for social media in your NFP

• Why should we be using social media?• “Because everyone else is”

• “If we don’t we’ll get left behind”

• “It’s free”

• “All the cool kids are doing it”

• Why should we be using social media?• “Because everyone else is”

• “If we don’t we’ll get left behind”

• “It’s free”

• “All the cool kids are doing it”

Let’s try that again!

Social media is just another tool to achieve your organisation’s outcomes.

How you use it is up to you.

• Online fundraising

• Community engagement

• Raise awareness

• Outreach

• Engage new demographics

• Advocacy

• Increase registrations

• Increase membership

• Listening to your audience

• Impact policy

• Contact influencers

• Gathering data for decision making

• Customer service

• SMART goals• Specific: What are we trying to achieve?

• Measurable: What can we use to measure IT?

• Achievable: Do we have the resources and skill?

• Relevant: Does it relate to our core purpose?

• Timely: What is an appropriate time frame?

“Increase traffic from social media to our online services by 5% in 3 months”

• Start at the top (board, CEO, COO)

• Involve other staff in the decision making process

• Equip those who will be involved/responsible

Stakeholders are on-board

Strategy is defined with clear SMART goals

Policies are in place for internal use

A good stockpile of cat photos

4 ways to use social media effectively

• Read the Terms and Conditions

• Every social media platform is different

• Know how you’re meant to use each ones

• Know where your community spends their time

• Don’t feel like you need to be everywhere

• Social media takes effort on your part

• If you build it, they probably won’t come – you need to go to them.

• Get out there and interact with other organisations, peak bodies, your community etc

• Interacting publically raises your visibility

• The more visible your social media channels, the more likely you will grow your audience

• Promote your social media channels everywhere

• Cross-promote your social channels

• Offer unique content on your social pages

• Give the community the content they’re looking for and they’ll share it.

Don’t create content for your organisation, create it for your community

• Content is king – create ‘shareables’

• What does it mean for them?

• What do they want to share with their friends?

• Photos and videos are strong performers

• Get the right balance

Volume Timing Tone

Content Themes

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Content Themes

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Content Themes

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Content Themes

Volume Timing Tone

Content Themes

Volume Timing Tone

Content Themes

Four time saving tips for using social media efficiently

• Be realistic

• Try themed days

• Find content ‘gold mines’

• Allow for the unexpected

• All things in moderation!

• Balance with interaction and timely posts

• Know what tools and platforms you want to use

• Create shortcuts

• Use apps

• Use a social media dashboard (e.g. HootSuite)

• Set up your notifications

• Filter your feeds

• Turn off unimportant notifications

• Prioritise your responses

3 hot topics for what’s coming next

• How does this impact our online presence?

• Who’s using mobile?

• What are people sharing?

• How can we use online tools to work better?

• How can we tap into larger networks (e.g. crowdfunding)?

• What can we do now that we couldn’t do before?

• How do we manage the data we have access to?

• How do we make sense of the data?

• How safe is our data?

Connecting UpConference 2013

• Beth Kanter

• Social media stream

www.connectingup.org/conference

Connecting UpLearning Centre

• Social media articles

• Recorded webinars

www.connectingup.org/learn