Ready, Set, Post! Getting Your Nonprofit Started On Social Media

Last week we talked about Social Media Planning.  Which platforms to use, where to invest your time and resources.  After you have chosen the social media platforms you want to focus on, now it's time to get you started.  Here are a few back to basics that will help you get your nonprofit started on social.

6 Suggestions to Get Started

1. Create an email account for your nonprofit, such as socialmedia@yournonprofit.org. Using a general email account for your nonprofit allows you to have more flexibility in who can manage your accounts and passwords, if you have multiple people assisting with social media.
2. Create a Master Login Spreadsheet. You may have many people accessing your accounts, or your social media manager may need to take a day off every once in a while, so it is important that all your login information does not live with just one person.
3. To save time and energy, bookmark the social media sites your browser to simplify the management of multiple profiles. Take advantage of apps if your staff needs to make updates at events or on the go.
4. When possible, have more than one admin for your profiles. This will help multiple staff be able to contribute to your efforts. Although you want a united voice for your nonprofit, staff contributing different perspectives and adding their own creativity adds value to posts, especially if your nonprofit has a blog.
5. Consider creating a social media policy for your nonprofit. This is especially important if you have interns who are working on your social media accounts. It should provide guidelines around what’s okay to share and not share on social media related to work, professional projects, your brand, etc while still encouraging staff and empowering them to share your nonprofit’s mission.
6. Customize your profiles. Fill out your social media profiles. Create your cover photos, and your main image.

Choose a posting strategy 
Your posting strategy, frequency, content, tone, voice should compliment your overall marketing strategy and will depend on how much staff time you have to devote to social media.  Again, make sure you carefully consider how much time you have and what resources you want to invest. 

• Staff Time: Interns can definitely help with posting and managing social media, looking up content, and helping to engage with your supporters. If your nonprofit is large enough, you may have a full-time or part-time staff person for social media. Not to worry if you don’t! These tasks can be broken up to have multiple staff members help, or they can be scaled down so that one staff member can incorporate a couple of these tasks into their day or their week.
• Frequency: Make sure to set a schedule for when you will work on your social media channels.  Set a specific schedule for checking your social media channels, posting updates, and searching for content. Revisit your goals often and be clear on what you wish to achieve.
• Consider using a scheduling tool to help manage your posts.  

Measuring your efforts
A successful social media presence is as much an art as it is a science.  Many social media tools now have robust analytics that can help you understand how people are engaging with your profile. You can also evaluate see how conversations, likes, comments and posts are adding to (or taking away from) your organization's presence on social.
 
Come back next week when we'll go one step further and discuss tools and resources your nonprofit can use to help manage you and improve your social media presence including scheduling tools, social listening, analytics, and more.