As a nonprofit organization, it is important to get the word out about your cause. This helps to increase donations, keep your charity afloat and do the most good. However, you’re probably also working with a very limited marketing budget that doesn’t include billboards, television commercials, fancy brochures and pamphlets or website retargeting.
The world of social media is vast, new and scary—but it is also free and one of the most effective marketing tools you can use to raise awareness for your cause.
Wait, so there’s more to social media than just “liking” and “poking” and “tweeting” and “snapping”? You can use it for more than just “creeping” on ex-boyfriends, old high school classmates and, in some cases, your teenagers?
Absolutely!
NTEN Nonprofit Technology Network outlines some of the ways that your nonprofit can utilize social media to increase donor and volunteer activity, thus bringing awareness to your campaign. Alec Stern of Constant Contact suggests in his blog post “Engage, Inform, Recruit: How Nonprofits can use Social Media to Recruit Donors and Volunteers” that using social media to engage people can benefit nonprofits. His recommendations:
- Engage your audience with compelling content—multimedia, inspirational quotes and photos, humor, asking engaging questions
- Keep potential donors or volunteers informed— share news (accomplishments, awards, events, etc.), educate the audience, promote events
- Recruit new donors or volunteers—link to volunteer opportunities, talk about your industry, use statistics, use professional networking sites like LinkedIn
With so much of today’s society engaging on social media, getting the word out on Facebook and Twitter can be extremely beneficial to your nonprofit. Keeping up with the latest trends and participating in popular campaigns, such as popular hashtags or contests, attracts more eyes to your page. It also provides easy access to your nonprofit’s website. Simply post a link to it on your social media platforms and it can bring audience members straight to your donate page.
And, here’s the best part: It’s free!
Setting up a Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn profile comes at no cost to you. If you do find a little wiggle-room in your marketing budget, it is easy to pay to advertise to a broader audience on any one of these platforms using their ad managers.
Social media gives nonprofits a variety of creative ways to spread their message to the public without breaking the bank. This is one bandwagon you definitely want to jump on!
By the way -- have you checked out our social media?
