SPURspectives

If your nonprofit is just getting started with social media, or is ready to ramp up to a new level of engagement with social media tools, here are four guidelines to help ensure your success.

1) Always be prepared to leverage your message.

Think of social media as a feedback loop that amplifies your messages. To get more mileage from your messages, you have to a) have social media tools in place, and b) have the plan and processes in place to utilize those tools at the right time and in the right way.

A great example of this is Sasha Bruce YouthWork in Washington, DC. Last week, on MLK Day, then President-elect Obama visited the Sasha Bruce emergency shelter as part of his day of service.

Because Sasha Bruce has a blog-driven home page on their website, they were able to immediately capitalize on this incredible opportunity, featuring a video and linking to press coverage of this exciting visit by our incoming president.

Yes, this event would have received plenty of press coverage, regardless. But social media allowed Sasha Bruce to be part of the conversation and to leverage it. They weren’t just a mention in some AP news stories – the news was immediately integrated into their online voice and will be something they can draw on for weeks and months to come. They took ownership of the visit through the power of social media.

They were able to do this because they had social media tools in place and they had a plan and the processes in place to utilize those tools quickly. When I learned last Monday (through a Facebook posting by a friend on Capitol Hill) that Obama had visited the Sasha Bruce shelter, I checked their website – and just an hour after his visit, they had already posted the video and links to online coverage of the visit.

Sasha Bruce Youthwork also had one more very important thing: this high-performing nonprofit already had great messages before Obama put it on the front page. Through social media, the staff at Sasha Bruce weren’t just saying “we were the lucky ones who got to meet Obama” – they were saying: we have a strong, effective nonprofit that’s making a difference for youth in DC, and Obama came here because of who we are and what we do.

On the flip side, if your core messages are unclear or ineffective, social media isn’t going to save you, no matter who comes to visit. Social media needs to be part of a strong marketing communications plan – and your organization’s mission and core messages should drive that plan, not vice versa.

2) Don’t play hide and seek with your social media channels.

Is your blog feeding into your Facebook page? Are your YouTube videos showing up on your blog? Can people read your blog and follow you on Twitter from your website’s homepage?

Wherever someone encounters your organization in the social media stream, you want to provide easy access to information and other places they can find you online. You can maximize impact (and increase efficiency) by making sure your social media tools are “talking” to each other – sharing information and creating cross-pollination of people and ideas.

You also need to integrate your social media efforts with all your traditional marketing and communications efforts. Don’t put social media in a silo and expect it to work. Your social media strategy has to be part of an overall game plan.

3) Choose the right person to lead your social media strategy.

Since social media is part of your larger marketing strategy, your marketing and development staff should be overseeing implementation to ensure consistency and coordination.

But who is in charge?

You need a point person who is truly empowered – with adequate amounts of time and money – to implement your social media strategy. You want someone who has the authority and vision to realize ground rules 1 and 2: leveraging your messages and ensuring your social media efforts are visible and fully integrated.

Here’s some good advice from the book Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. This passage is aimed at corporate marketers, but it makes the important point that social media is game changing. As a result, you need someone in charge who can provide clear leadership.

“Put somebody important in charge of it. You’re about to transform your relationship with your customers. Is this a job for some mid-level IT or marketing person? The ultimate responsibility for this plan should rest with an executive who reports up quite high in the organization. Which one depends on your goals—if you’re listening, it might be the head of research, for example; if you’re talking, the CMO would be a better choice. In many companies the CIO or other high-level IT staff are key advisors based on their technology knowledge. But in the end whoever is in charge of the plan must regularly brief the CEO on how it is transforming the way the company does business with customers. Groundswell projects routinely stir up people well above the part of the organization where they started.” — Groundswell, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff (pp. 72-73)

Finally, whomever you put in charge should also be someone who can involve and motivate your entire team – which leads to ground rule 4:

4) Get the entire team involved.

Once you have a point person in place to lead your social media efforts, you need to involve the entire team. After all, the most engaging stories and insights about any nonprofit come from the hearts and minds of those doing front-line work.

Staff and volunteer involvement can evolve in many ways, depending on the size or your organization and the type of work you do. You may want to create several blogs related to specific programs or areas of expertise. Perhaps you can identify frontline workers who are willing to post to Twitter a few times a day, or just on certain days of the week. Also, if you have staff and volunteers with technical skills, tap into that knowledge to support your multimedia efforts (including photography, video, audio, podcasting – and editing of all the above).

Given limited time and resources, you have to balance what you are asking of your staff with their other duties. But just a few minutes a day from a handful of experienced, dedicated staff members and volunteers will add incredible value to your social media efforts.

So think creatively. Once you have an integrated suite of social media tools up and running, never stop exploring new ways to involve your staff and volunteers. If they are reluctant writers, perhaps you can interview them (internally or using some outside help) to create Q&A blog posts and gather behind-the-scenes tidbits for Twittering. Or try giving a staff member or volunteer a camera to capture a “day in the life” or document their point of view at a special event.

When you use social media to show your mission in action on a daily basis – something social media tools allow you to do with ease and immediacy – your messages will have greater reach and lasting impact.

–Amy Southerland

Follow Amy on Twitter