While watching my beloved NY Giants huddle up during their big playoff game last week, I was reminded of how few organizations take the time to set goals, strategies and tactics for their social media efforts. The result is often a scatter-shot, see-what-sticks-to-the-wall approach to communicating. And, guess what? It’s a waste of time.
You’ve turned the page on a new year, so start by creating a social media plan that will give you a clear road map to your goals. Ideally, you want your social media activities to be planned, intentional, and targeted. I’m amazed at how few nonprofits take the time to create a plan.
Answer these questions to get started:
1. Is your website current? Do you have an email system? If not, go no further with social media. Instead, clean up your website: remove out-of-date content, update your home page to reflect your current priorities, clean up the design so it’s easy on the eye, adjust the fonts so they are consistent, and cut way, way down on text and instead add a few photos. Your website is still your hub; there’s no point in using social media to drive lots of traffic to a website that’s awful.
And don’t even think that you don’t need a broadcast email system. Email remains the single best way for you to communicate with supporters. Outlook or Hotmail won’t cut it. If you have precious little time and resources, spend it on a decent website and a nonprofit-friendly broadcast email tool such as MailChimp, iContact, or Vertical Response. Then, use it to email your list at least twice a month.
2. How much time does your staff have to allocate to social media per week? Data from Idealware shows that nonprofits who spend less than 2 hours per week per social media tool don’t tend to see results.
3. Who is your target audience? Can your target audience be reached using social media? Youth organizations, for example, should not waste their time using Twitter to engage youth. Pew Internet reports that only 8% of online American teens ages 12-17 uses Twitter. Choose a different social media tool.
4. What action do you want your social media audience to take? Yep, ask yourself: When someone is blown away by my blog post on ending homelessness, what do I want them to get up and do? Write a check? Attend a rally? Volunteer? E-mail a legislator? If you can answer that, you have the makings of your goals. Now make a list. Do it now.
5. How will your measure your goals? Shape your goal so you can measure it–make it SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely). Unless you can measure it, you will never know it’s working. Beth Kanter has some super posts on her blog about measuring goals.
6. What social media tactics will you use to reach your goals? This is the tricky part, since you need to know what tools will best help you accomplish your goal. Do you want to position yourself as an opinion leader on a policy issue? Then blogging may be for you. Need to increase attendance at your annual conference? Facebook may be your starting point. Share stories? Video sharing is compelling.
7. How will you distribute your content, and when? Here’s where you will draw up your (short-term) social media campaigns for the year. A Google Calendar will come in handy, and you’ll need to work backward from your launch date to map out your posts, emails, and website actions leading up to your target event/activity.
8. Have you had professional training on social media tools? Get some training. Alas, your wonderful teenager can’t teach you this stuff, I’m afraid.
Idealware’s Nonprofit Social Media Decision Guide walks you through a few simple exercises to create a strategic social media plan. Download the guide here and use the worksheets in the back to get rolling. The guide will also introduce you to research-based social media best practices for nonprofits.
Here’s to a new year of winning campaigns for my nonprofit friends.
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Photo by Heath Brandon, 9/13/09, Flikr Creative Commons License- Attribution Share Alike 2.0 Generic
