5 Standout Social Media Tips for Savvy Nonprofit Marketers
June 4, 2024
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According to an overwhelming 90% of social media marketers, creating and posting relevant content is no longer enough to produce a successful social media strategy. Organizations need to focus on building an active community online to use social media to its fullest potential.
It’s time to go beyond informative cause-related posts and work on the next iteration of your social media strategy that deeply engages your supporters and encourages them to further their involvement with your organization.
5 Standout Social Media Tips for Savvy Nonprofit Marketers
Here are tips to upgrade your social media marketing strategy and better represent your cause online.
1. Analyze your supporters.
Survey your donor database, and consider what supporter information should influence your posting habits. Data-driven social media marketing can elevate your strategy by helping you make informed decisions about what content to share.
To dive deeper into your supporter demographics and interests, consider enriching your database. Deep Sync defines data enrichment as “the process of supplementing your first-party data with third-party data to confirm you have the most accurate, reliable, and comprehensive database possible.”
The types of data you can enrich your database with include:
- Age
- Gender
- Education
- Marital status
- Home ownership and property data
- Presence of children in the home
- Income
- Net worth
- Lifestyle information
Then, you can use this information to better understand your supporters and shape your social media content and approach. For example, you may consider targeting your supporters by age, catering to older audience members using platforms like Facebook and engaging younger supporters through TikTok and Instagram.
If you’re stuck on how you can tailor your social media strategy to your audience, try using an artificial intelligence (AI) tool such as ChatGPT. Explain what information you have about your supporters, and ask the tool how to effectively use that data to target your audience on social media.
2. Identify lookalike audiences.
Once you understand your current audience well, you can move on to expanding your social media following by finding more people like them investing in ads. However, you’ll want to take a strategic approach to focus your ads on users who are most likely to become avid supporters of your cause.
With the help of a lookalike audience model, you can identify prospective supporters who are similar to those in your current supporter base. That way, you’ll focus on targeting social media users with the highest likelihood of converting—whether that’s by donating, volunteering, attending an event, or subscribing to your newsletter.
While you can use audience building tools on social media platforms like Meta and TikTok to build your lookalike audience, it’s best to work with a data provider with the expertise to create a precise, portable lookalike audience. They’ll help you customize your lookalike audience to match your current supporters’ demographics and interests and activate this same audience across multiple social media platforms, such as TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.
You may have experimented with audience building and targeting tools on social media platforms before, but with a portable lookalike audience, you can reach the same people across channels and maximize the likelihood of engagement and conversion.
3. Feature user-generated content.
To switch up your social media presence, encourage your supporters to share their own content for your organization to repost. Since this content comes directly from your audience, it benefits your organization in a number of ways:
1.Authenticity.
User-generated content features real people and their connections to your cause. This authentic content may resonate more strongly with other users and add a personal touch to your accounts.
2.Cost-effectiveness.
If your marketing budget is tight, sourcing user-generated content can help you preserve resources for other areas of your marketing strategy.
3.Community building.
When you share content created by your supporters, they’ll feel valued and connected to your organization. Thus, you’ll be able to build deeper relationships with them as they become loyal advocates of your cause.
4.Social proof.
Seeing user-generated content about your nonprofit can give potential supporters the boost they need to get involved. Use testimonials from real people who have donated to, volunteered with, or benefitted from your nonprofit’s work.
With 56% of marketers claiming short-form videos are the top trend they’re investing in for 2024, TikTok is one of the best platforms for sourcing user-generated content. Browse videos your supporters have created or tagged you in online, and ask for their permission to share them on your social media profiles.
If you’re struggling to find content, you can even run a user-generated content campaign and offer prizes for the best posts. Examples may include a day in the life of a volunteer, pictures from your latest event, or donor testimonials.
4. Collaborate with other organizations.
As you meet a variety of other professionals in the industry through conferences, webinars, or online networking, take advantage of these connections by working together to promote your causes online.
Partner with organizations that have similar values to yours to launch cause marketing campaigns that share educational content about important nonprofit topics. For example, an animal shelter and a wildlife conservation organization may team up to run a social media campaign called “No Animal Left Behind” that raises awareness for animal abuse, neglect, and extinction.
Additionally, you may work with your sponsors to showcase your organization on social media. Getting Attention explains that social media promotion is one of the top benefits nonprofits offer their corporate sponsors in return for their monetary support. See if they’d be interested in posting co-branded content that highlights your cause and their contributions so both parties can expand their reach.
5. Start a social media ambassador program.
Since 2019, the size of the global influencer market has more than tripled, representing the immense popularity and effectiveness of this marketing method. Develop your own influencer marketing campaign by starting a social media ambassador program.
Invite those who are passionate about your cause and have a significant social media following to promote your organization online. To get your program up and running, follow these steps:
- Determine your program requirements, such as how many followers the ideal candidate should have and what types of content they’ll need to create.
- Promote your ambassador application.
- Review all submissions with your team.
- Select your social media ambassadors, and notify those you’ve chosen.
- Host an orientation, or provide ambassadors with the appropriate training materials and resources.
Then, be ready to repost your ambassadors’ content! You may even feature ambassador bios on your social media accounts to introduce them to your supporters and welcome them to your organization.
A vast majority of nonprofits use social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. It’s up to you to make your organization stand out and offer an engaging online experience for your supporters. With these tips, you can enhance your current social media strategy and forge long-lasting relationships with donors, volunteers, and other stakeholders.
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Monica Maye Pitts
Monica is the creative force and founder of MayeCreate. She has a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture with an emphasis in Economics, Education and Plant Science from the University of Missouri. Monica possesses a rare combination of design savvy and technological know-how. Her clients know this quite well. Her passion for making friends and helping businesses grow gives her the skills she needs to make sure that each client, or friend, gets the attention and service he or she deserves.
