5 Ways Your Nonprofit Can Boost Social Media Engagement

By: Sekinah Brodie, Hopeworks Content Creation Specialist

In today’s world there is no denying that social media has completely taken over our phones, our businesses, our entertainment, and in some cases our minds. It’s rare that you see any person within a certain age range without their phone glued to their hand at all times. With this in mind, businesses all over the world have had to pivot and adapt to the ever changing social landscape. 

Nonprofit organizations, many of which have had a stigma of being behind the times have also found themselves adapting. By engaging in social media promotion, nonprofits are finding ways to raise awareness, gain donations, and grow their network. Here are 5 easy ways your organization can boost social media engagement.

1. Create A Content Calendar and Post Consistently

Being intentional about the content you create and post is what separates the social media giants from the amateurs these days. With a content calendar you have the ability to plan and strategize what you will post, why you are posting it and where you will post it. By having your content created and planned in advance, you can spend time doing other things during the day. You also now have the ability to post more consistently which only helps grow your audience and brings more eyes to your cause.

2. Paying Attention to The Correct Data

Depending on the goals of your organization, certain data metrics may be more important than others in your long term plans. Likes, comments, and retweets are often great indicators of awareness, but they may not convert into partnerships, donors, etc.

According to classy.org there are actionable metrics that you can focus on that will likely be more helpful in sustaining your long term engagement strategy. Here’s what you should pay close attention to:

• Engagement: Shows how often your audience interacts with your account. High engagement normally equals a responsive audience and engaging content.
• Awareness: This metric can also be known as impressions which track how often your posts show up on a person’s timeline and how many followers and non- followers were reached.
• Referral Traffic: Measures how much social media traffic converts to website clicks.
  

3. Be Careful With Usage Of Hashtags

Using hashtags has been defined by some as a now useless engagement tactic, however there are still ways to make them work. This will take a bit of research on your part along with some experimentation. 

Check out what other influencers and organizations in your industry are using for their hashtags and begin to incorporate them as you see fit. Also, making sure that the hashtags you use regularly are active is incredibly important. Non relevant hashtags do absolutely nothing to grow the reach of your post so be mindful of that. Lastly, making your hashtags as niche as possible is best for reach. The more people that use the tag, the easier it is for your post to get lost in the crowd. Make sure you stand out as much as you can!

4. Tell Stories

For the most part, the intrigue of nonprofit organizations are the causes they support and their overall missions. People are drawn in by wanting to help change the world in their own little way and they admire those who dedicate their lives to doing so. With this in mind, your social media platform is the best way to capture the attention of your audience with storytelling. 

For example, here at Hopeworks we help young people in underserved communities advance their education and build professional careers in tech. Our social media displays the stories of those young people, struggles they’ve overcome, and the way the program has changed their lives and future. This not only engages our current audience, it draws in new supporters, donors, and youth who are eager to make the same changes. 

5. Build A Relationship With Your Audience

The best part about social media for any business is the ability to put a face to a name for your customers, clients, supporters, donors, etc. This allows you to build with them on a human level in a way that wasn’t as possible in the past. You can easily have conversations with your supporters through your social media channels and have the power to keep the conversation going. It’s important to engage as much as you can on your posts by  - following up on messages and comments in a timely manner, replying to tags or mentions, and sharing stories related to the topic of the post.

With all of these methods combined, you will be well on your way to boosting your nonprofit’s social media engagement. Stay as consistent as possible and just watch your presence continue to rise daily, weekly and monthly. Keep track of your vanity and actionable metrics to gauge what is working and what is not working. And as always, have fun communicating with your audience as you never know where that like, comment, or follow will lead!