by Susan Boerstling

The Chronicle of Philanthropy is a trusted source of information for the nonprofit world on philanthropic topics. They recently conducted a webinar on social media campaigns. A few of the many tips that I picked up include:

• Offer content to users, such as information that they will find useful. Do not just repeat your organization’s main messages or “market” to them.
• Use social networks to get subscribers to your organization’s website. Social networks pay off when you get them to your site; it’s the point at which the person is truly engaged with your organization.
• Give bloggers ideas for their blogs by sending them information about your organization’s cause.
• Leave a comment thanking the blogger for doing a story—the blogger appreciates it and it often leads to comments from other readers.
• Do social media all year, not just around an event or one-time activity.
• Look at strategy/audience/what you are trying to accomplish, and then select the most appropriate social media platform.
• Do one media platform really well before expanding to other platforms. This is much better than having numerous platforms semi-neglected.
• Staff the social media tools appropriately. Large organizations generally have several people working on social media, although may not be 100 percent of their job duties. For small organizations, the recommendation was roughly two hours a day should be spent on social media.

An example: a hospice in California decided to offer information for grieving families and give practical advice, etc. They did not market their organization. Their Facebook page became full of thank you comments from families. This is encouraging that these people will become champions for the organization and perhaps even potential donors. Impressive results—web traffic for their website is up 90 percent and they gained 3,500 new Twitter followers. This example also shows that even organizations with sensitive missions can be successful using social media.