strategic social media marketing for non-profits

Table of Contents Strategic Social Media Marketing: Introduction……………………………………………….2

Social Media Marketing: Challenges…………………………………………………………………4

The Strategic Process - for implementing and managing a successful social media marketing plan in perfect harmony with your overall marketing plan……5

A Content Management Process……………………………………………………………………………………………5

A Strategic Method for Acquiring Followers and Donors……………………………………………………….6

Demonstrate Your Expertise, Mission & Impact, and Intentionally Develop a Following…………………….6

Prospecting for Donors Using Social Media -- Connect, Engage, Convert…………………………………………….7

An Infrastructure to Distribute and Collect Conversations………………………………..8

Using Social Media Effectively for Campaign Success………………………………………11

An ability to proactively follow through “to convert” your “business” objectives…………….....12

Building a Donor Conversion Funnel…………………………………………………………………………………………………12

Marketing Automation Logistics……………………………………………………………………………………………………….14

Marketing Technologies’ Impact on Fundraising……………………………………………………………………………….15

Social Media Analytics…………………………………………………………………………………….17

Website/Blogsite Analytics………………………………………………………………………………………………….17

Content Sharing…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..18

Mentions and Conversations……………………………………………………………………………………………….18

Engagement - Social Media Site/Media/Content Analytics…………………………………………………..19

Website/Blogsite and Landing Page Visitor Conversions and Campaign Return on Investment (ROI) / Return on Objective (ROO)……………………………………………………………………………………….20

About Big Dog Innovations………………………………………………………………………….....21

Recommended Next Steps………………………………………………………………………........21

Strategic Social Media Marketing for Non-Profits

© 2011 Big Dog Innovations www.bigdoginnovations.com Page 1

Strategic Social Media Marketing: Introduction

The “strategic use” of social media represents an opportunity for most non-profit organizations to further demonstrate their purpose, mission, and accomplishments to the worldwide community, develop followers, and in best practices have those followers virally generate additional followers. Furthermore, when strategically approached, there are increased “donor conversion” opportunities with “donor incubation” or “donor nurturing” tools and campaign workflows, which occur off the basis of donor and prospective donor feedback from the initial two-way social dialogue. There’s much to consider when developing a strategic organizational [business] plan “in front of” a social media marketing plan, including:

• Variables of objectives given different donor target markets • How you’d address different donor market segments differently • What your conversion of objective follow-through plans can be

Beyond those mentioned above, other considerations include:

• The content deployment plan (which can be optimized!) o Senior officers doing once-per-quarter “big content” downloads to service provision

models that manage and subsequently distribute time released content uploads (while still allowing for ad-hoc content distribution as needed)

• Marketing communication “lifestreams” both outbound (and subsequently) inbound communications

• Technical components of infrastructures and interconnectivities of multiple social media platforms

• Plans for donor acquisition • Establishment of audience “conversation opportunities” • Workflows for getting followers into conversion pipelines (where appropriate) • And healthy doses of analytics from several angles giving the marketer a clear sense on where

their refinement activities should be focused From our perspective, strategic planning is critical in order to maximize the opportunity of achieving returns on objectives. A short checklist of considerations (taken from the Big Dog Innovations social media webpage) would include:

Organizational [Business] Objectives

Your expertise, target markets, message strategy, strategic content plan, governance

requirements, audience acquisition strategy

Technological Workflow

Website optimization, content distribution lifestreams, conversation lifestreams,

metrics

Marketing Logistics

Content deployment, conversation management, lead generation and nurturing,

lead distribution

Marketing Maintenance

Conversion workflow, welcome cycles, retention/loyalty, analysis and strategic

refinement



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In addition, social media can be deployed with other cross-media formats such as direct, mobile, online, and mass advertising opportunities in such ways as to further enhance the likelihood of donor conversion.



Social Media Marketing: Challenges

The Social Media “Bowl of Spaghetti” -- Proliferation of social media platforms:

• Which ones do we use?

• What’s the right mix?

• How can it help us achieve ROO?

• What’s the “strategic marketing plan” to make this work?

• Where do we get started?

• What’s an integration plan for “converting donors”?

• Can I re-establish my strategy if we’re already online?

• What’s a “content plan” because I’m really busy?

Challenges for many non-profit organizations who have already engaged in social media marketing tend to fall into several key groups:

• Not enough consideration given to strategy in advance of deployment • Web developers and/or IT support teams that (might) fall shy of marketing cycle intelligence-

plenty of expertise on the platforms, but (sometimes) not enough on the “business” development and marketing opportunities side of the equation

• Lack of development processes (priorities, sequence, deployment, content support, marketing follow-through logistics optimization)

• Marketplace confusion given the abundance of platforms • Cumbersome content deployment plans (or lack of content plans at all) • Clunky cross-platform integration or lack of cross-platform integration entirely • And occasionally a rush to launch social sites without the full “marketing flight plan” in place

The good news is: If you’ve already started a social media infrastructure, amendments can be made to augment your efforts in the achievement of your business and marketing objectives.



The Strategic Process - for implementing and managing a successful social media marketing plan in perfect harmony with your overall marketing plan

In a well-rounded, strategic social media marketing plan for a non-profit organization – one that sets the stage for success in the way of returns on objective and returns on investment – there are key processes and deliverables that must be effectively implemented and managed. These are:

• A content management process

• A strategic method for acquiring followers and donors

• An infrastructure to distribute and collect conversations

• An ability to proactively follow through “to convert” your “business” objectives o Here’s where it’s so important to have the right suite of complimentary marketing automation

logistics tools and technologies in place to nurture and convert connections established from your social media marketing efforts

o These advanced marketing tools can provide a strong array of Boolean-based (“if-then-else” activities) to automate components of the follow through or donor “nurturing process.” Resource optimization is achievable- particularly salient for budgets, manpower, and multiple initiatives and activities that are stretched to the breaking point…

• You can test, measure, and tweak to maximize ROO

A Content Management Process

In the book “Outliers,” the author Malcolm Gladwell describes how your “10,000 hours” = a “level of expertise” and how your organization is comprised of a “collective intelligence”…

What is your mission? What makes your organization unique? What and who does your organization help? What impact is the organization having in carrying out its mission? What would it mean if “more people/businesses” knew of your collective intelligence, value, impact, stories, and testimonials?

The strategy then becomes to get this content out of the minds, computers and file drawers of your organization and into one aggregated file where it can then be organized and edited for its appropriate publication on social media (blog post, video, photo with description, Twitter post (tweet), Facebook or LinkedIn post, article, etc.); search engine optimized with relevant and effective keywords and meta tags; and organized into a complete schedule for production and deployment, segmented by social media type, and parsed (uploaded in pieces) over 90-day periods onto the appropriate social media platforms. Analytics tools to measure the success of your content can be put into place prior to uploading your content across the web – offering a full spectrum of analytics to measure content effectiveness so that you may continue to tweak your efforts accordingly. A handful of important content metrics include:

• Comments and mentions – on blog posts and social media sites • Content viewer sharing • Repurposed content



• Referring sites (the websites and specific URLs from where your visitors clicked to arrive at your content)

• Effective keywords • Call-to-action conversions (Web form/survey submissions; whitepaper, report, or other

downloads; product purchase; event registration; etc.)

A Strategic Method for Acquiring Followers and Donors

Demonstrate Your Expertise, Mission & Impact, and Intentionally Develop a Following

• Pre-existing raving fans o You have many people who have been a part of your organization’s mission, witnessed

its actions and impact, and are spreading the word about it. Effectively engaging in a well-rounded, strategic social media presence will allow you to connect with these influencers on different levels and through different channels while simultaneously acquiring followers from them who will be more likely to become donors, volunteers, or other contributors themselves.

• Peer testimonials o The bulk of your shared content should come in the form of peer testimonials because

of the instant “know, like and trust” factor such content creates in the viewer’s mind.

• “It takes a village” & they’re happy to help o Including, in your marketing efforts, channels and incentives for people to share news

about your organization, personal experiences with your organization, and other valuable information will allow you to significantly speed up and multiply the impact of your social media marketing efforts.

• The pundits, beneficiaries, and raving fans will help you get it viral – much more so than what you could hope to do on your own.

• Others that will find you (based on deployment of your strategic content plan)



Prospecting for Donors Using Social Media -- Connect, Engage, Convert Social media marketing success is not only accomplished through the consistent sharing of great content about your organization, its mission, and successes, but also through:

• Targeted social networking o Put a schedule in place to consistently read through blogs, forums, and social media site

conversation streams, and comment/engage where appropriate

• Monitoring of online conversations revolving around your organization, shared content, industry, or area of expertise, which will allow you to efficiently and effectively engage in those conversations to convert more followers and donors

You have an abundance of great content that you need to effectively deploy.

You have target markets, which you can identify.

You know or need to determine which social media sites they are using.

You have determined where they are speaking and commenting online and engaging in conversations (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Care2, etc.)

You have an admin (in-house or outsourced) to engage in conversations with them.

You are effectively using social media to drive traffic to your website/blogsite, or even a landing page with a specific call-to-action, in order to convert visitors based on your particular objective (e.g. email list sign-up, donation, event registration, product purchase, PDF download, etc.)



An Infrastructure to Distribute and Collect Conversations

An effective social media marketing infrastructure to distribute and collect conversations includes:

• A blog (built on a highly customizable blogging platform, like WordPress) as the hub of your content

• A well-rounded, multi-media, fully-optimized social media site presence outside of your blog (on social media platforms such as: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Flickr)

• Tools, applications, and blogsite plug-ins and widgets that will make the interconnectivity of your social media marketing platforms a streamless, easy-to-manage, highly-automated effort with the bonus of instant multiplication of content, searchable keywords, and reachable audiences of potential followers and donors

Your social media [content] “lifestream” is two-fold:

1. You have content going out from your blog – the hub of all of your social media marketing. Ideally you want your blog connected to your website, which will not only allow you to “own” your content, but also to increase your search engine optimization (SEO), as search engine algorithms favor websites with consistently updated content. While social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin may never go away, you still don’t “own” the content there. Therefore, such social media platforms should be used as tools to nurture existing follower and donor relationships and also to attract visitors/followers/connections to your blogsite, or other webpage, where you can then automatically convert them into blog subscribers, email list subscribers, donors, event registrants, or whatever your conversion objective(s) may be. Below is an illustration of a highly effective social media lifestream with content being aggregated and syndicated from your blog, out into the online social media world:



2. There will also be content that originates outside of your blog. For example: taking advantage of popular social media sharing platforms such as YouTube (for videos) and Flickr (for photos) will allow you to increase your social media reach and therefore the ability to target more people and convert more followers and donors. Because your blogsite should always act as the hub of your social media content, everything that originates outside of your blog can be automated into the blog as a post, sidebar feed, or simply as an icon for visitors to click on and reach your extended web presence on another site.

Below is an illustration of a highly effective social media lifestream, with content originating outside of your blog and subsequently fed into your blog by the different means mentioned above:

The two social media lifestream illustrations (shown above) are an overview of the mechanics of an effective social media infrastructure. Not shown: More in-depth interconnectivity takes place for each content media type and on each social sharing platform.



The two illustrations below show many of the different places online where your content could reside – in a robust social media marketing program – to attract and drive visitors to your website/blogsite or a specific landing page where you can achieve conversions based on your specific call-to-action(s) (donation, e-newsletter sign-up, event registration, document download, product purchase, etc.). No matter what your conversion objective is, there should be a system in place to capture one’s contact data (and any other potential marketing data) and automate it into your centralized database/automated marketing system for subsequent follow-through and “donor nurturing” efforts.



Using Social Media Effectively for Campaign Success

Based on your desired objective(s) for your campaign (pledges, donations, event registrations, email list sign-ups, etc.), a landing page can be created along with unique, shortened, and trackable URLs for each social media site or channel (i.e. Twitter, email). When visitors arrive at your landing page, they are provided with a specific call-to-action (“Schedule an appointment,” “Complete our survey,” “Donate,” “Purchase,”“Register for the event”). The call-to-action activity can be recorded by a social media analytics platform in order to accurately track the return on investment (ROI) and return on objective (ROO) of your campaign, as it pertains to its success on social media. Furthermore, the use of a web form on your landing page allows valuable contact and preference data – from donors, prospective donors, and others – to be automatically routed to your contact database (or email marketing) system, allowing for relevant follow-through communication and marketing efforts.



An ability to proactively follow through “to convert” your “business” objectives

Building a Donor Conversion Funnel

It makes it easy to visualize the donor conversion process as a funnel – with your integrated cross-media marketing (ICMM) (direct, mobile, online, and mass opportunities) and social media marketing (SMM) efforts attracting and driving visitors to your content; conversations building off of that content, as well as from your social media engagement or networking efforts; and automated marketing systems driving visitors to become social media site followers, email list and/or blog subscribers, event registrants, donors, etc.

This funnel continues to repeat itself with your existing followers and donors, thus building and strengthening your relationships with them -- resulting in increased donor conversions, increased giving per donor, increased donor loyalty (repeat donations), and increased referrals and positive exposure on social media and other sites -- resulting in more followers and more donors.



Recent large scale examples of these self-perpetuating loops include:

• The Barack Obama presidential campaign drive o Obama connected with millions of people via blogs, social networks, videos, and a

variety of other places where people gathered socially online. Obama’s team ultimately created the content for the campaign, but the real power behind the social media success of the campaign came from how he empowered, encouraged, and inspired people to use and share what was put out.

• National Wildlife Federation’s (NWF) social media efforts following the mainstream news hit of the Gulf oil disaster

o It was NWF’s web and social media presences that helped disseminate news and information to keep people up-to-date in real-time with their work on the ground. Twitter was the most useful for connecting with individuals, and for that event, Facebook Causes helped them raise the most money they’ve ever raised on social media. They were able to get more than a million fans and raise more than $100,000 on their oil spill cause. Furthermore, they believe they would have not had these successes had they not had an established presence on both networks (Twitter and Facebook).



Marketing Automation Logistics

On the basis of “dialogue achieved” marketing officers have the ability to pre-program a series of “Boolean based” or “if-then-else” responses. The range of responses can include aspects such as:

• Immediate online customized response • Distribution to a fundraising director for immediate or subsequent follow-through (and they’d

know the donor prospects’/donors’ responses or hot buttons prior to following through) • Distributed to regional management (on the basis of increased weighting of response) • Customized kit fulfillment response (the “dual-touch” of relevant hard copy and voice follow

through dramatically out-delivers just the phone follow-through alone) • Storage for future “trigger based” (timed or event) marketing distribution • Distribution to marketing for subsequent reuse of new proprietary data that’s been captured

(future data segmented messaging) • Or as in the illustration below, placed into an “incubation or nurturing cycle” until such time as

the donor prospect or lead (or existing donor) is warmed up to the next stage in the conversion cycle



Marketing Technologies’ Impact on Fundraising There are four key areas of impact: 1. Donor marketing cycles; 2. Ease of donor message segmentation; 3. Optimizing your ability to achieve ROO from social media; 4. Resource optimization for campaign development and follow through

1. Donor marketing cycles

• Donor acquisition

• Donor welcome cycles

• Donor retention

• Pledge conversion

• Lapsed donors

• Donor preferences o Social media can be used effectively to gain insight into your prospective and

existing donors. This can be accomplished using compelling content that includes links to a landing page and online survey. Responses can then be used to segment donors and potential donors into different groups for your most effective follow-up marketing efforts

• Peer testimonials o These are huge for building that “know, like and trust” factor for your

organization and should therefore make up the highest percentage of your social media content

2. Ease of donor message segmentation

• Providing an effective way to rank donors (i.e. platinum, gold, and silver donors)

• Advanced marketing CRM systems exist to make it easier to collect, store, append, and segment data for subsequent use (or reuse)

• Resources to move donors up in rank and create different messages for different segments because of the ability to automate the process of gaining donor preferences and using that data in follow-through marketing to them

3. Social media marketing’s impact on achievement of objectives

• Peer-to-Peer Marketing o The stories of your beneficiaries are your assets; therefore, gearing your

“marketing” towards them in an effort to solicit testimonials and stories, to share on social media, has the potential to produce the highest returns on objective for your organization

• Building a community of followers

• Content deployment

• Business strategic of ROO

• Growing virally



4. Resource optimization for campaign development and follow-through

• Rules-based, data-segmented campaigns: scalable “if-then-else” “next steps”

• “Donor-Centric Marketing” – your ability to be relevant in your follow-through – can dramatically impact donor conversion rates!

o It’s not just “flipping a switch;” there’s a strategy behind it, a sequence of development and deployment and a progression to “donor conversion” – all of which needs to be appropriately addressed

o The good news is individuals and organizations have become much more interactive (or engaged) in the early stages of the marketing cycle – especially with the advent and rapidly increasing popularity of social media

o Some donor segments and media platforms will work better than others; thus, it’s important to test, measure, and refine your donor-centric efforts

• Integrated Cross-Media Marketing (ICMM) deployment o Integrating other marketing channels into your social media marketing allows

you to fully optimize your social media marketing efforts and impact. Social media marketing is used to attract; the conversion and follow-through often occurs through the use of marketing automation technologies. It is important to have all of the pieces to the marketing puzzle in place in order to consistently achieve high returns on objectives and investments.

• Marketing Automation o Having the right systems in place to automate the process of conversion and

follow-through will allow you to focus your time and other resources on your organization’s mission and the development of great content to share with your online communities.

• Measurement o Implementing quality analytics tools into your marketing efforts will allow you

to appropriately analyze the results of your integrated cross-media/social media marketing efforts and in turn both refine your strategies for subsequent marketing efforts and repeat marketing efforts with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.



Social Media Analytics

• Website/Blogsite Analytics o These analytics include the sites and specific URLs from which traffic is coming to your

content, what keywords your site visitors are using to reach your content, how long visitors stay on a given page (bounce rate), what links they click on, all the inbound links that appear on the web driving traffic to your content, and visitor conversions (email list subscribers, blog subscribers, etc.).



• Content Sharing o Every blog post needs to allow users an easy way to share your content on their social

media platform(s) of choice. Behind the scenes, you need an analytics platform that will measure not only your content that’s being shared, plus the social media platforms its being shared on, but also who those influencers are sharing and/or mentioning your content.

• Mentions and Conversations

o These are mentions and conversations about your organization and content across different social media networks, blogs, forums, and other websites. This will allow you to efficiently engage in conversations to attract and convert more donors, volunteers, etc. and create and increase donor (and other contributor) relationships and loyalty.



• Engagement - Social Media Site/Media/Content Analytics o Valuable analytics are provided by specific social media sites, including Facebook,

Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Flickr; however, also utilizing a sophisticated social media analytics platform that can aggregate all of your different social media involvement into one dashboard will allow you to most efficiently and effectively manage and optimize your social media efforts. Activity can easily be compared across different social networks.



o Furthermore, specific media (e.g. videos and photos) can be measured separately to not only determine the success of the media format, but also the specific content. Here is a list of metrics used to measure the success of video content across various video sharing sites: Referring sites to video link Length of views Where viewers left video Incoming traffic to website/blogsite from specific video sharing sites (Where applicable) Trackable links to specific offers to measure conversions

from videos and specific video site channels



• Website/Blogsite and Landing Page Visitor Conversions and Campaign Return on Investment (ROI) / Return on Objective (ROO)

o Your organization’s presence out there on the web (i.e. your website/blogsite, social media pages, landing pages, etc.) should be optimized with a sign-up box or otherwise a link to a web form/survey in order to capture data, from visitors, into your email marketing / marketing automation system of choice – for ongoing, relevant communications designed for relationship-building, donor conversions, increased donor giving, and other objectives. Tracking these conversions is essential, especially in regards to which offers and content are leading to the highest conversion rates and which sites and people are referring the most valuable donors.

o Specific campaigns, whether ongoing (like an e-newsletter list sign-up – using a sign-up box on your website or a special landing page) or temporary (like a fundraising event – using a landing page and web form/survey to collect registrations, pledges, and donor preferences), can be implemented, tracked, and measured so that you may accurately calculate ROI/ROO and determine the effectiveness of your promotional and other

content that you put out on social media. [See Using Social Media Effectively for Campaign Success on Page 11]

Metrics such as the ones listed in this Social Media Analytics section will allow you to effectively

measure the success of your social media marketing efforts so that you may in turn refine your efforts appropriately.



About Big Dog Innovations

Big Dog Innovations is a strategic new media firm specializing in integrated cross-media marketing: social media marketing, data-driven marketing, voice-of-customer/voice-of-donor marketing, synchronized marketing communications, and marketing measurement, analytics, and strategic refinement. We’ve built up an exceptionally high level of expertise on the combination of strategy, implementation, and management of new media/social media/cross-media marketing as it pertains to the specific needs for success in the non-profit world.

Below is a diagram, which illustrates our philosophy of a non-profit organization’s strategic social media marketing lifecycle – intertwined in an overall integrated cross-media marketing lifecycle.

Recommended Next Steps

1. For further information or discussion on how these opportunities may impact you, contact our Director of Marketing Jackie Crino at [email protected] or (845) 629-4504.

2. Ask us about our Pilot Project Programs and our Performance-Based Agreements!

3. Connect with us on social media:

Big Dog Innovations

Integrated Cross-Media Marketing www.bigdoginnovations.com

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strategic social media marketing for non-profits

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