Social Media 101
At Sanky, we work with a lot of nonprofits on their fundraising pitches — from direct mail to digital spaces, including social media. Through it all, one thing is certain: communicating with true clarity is tough! It’s even tougher if your audience isn’t really familiar with what you’re talking to them about. And the same goes for communications within an organization as well.
Case in point: Does your nonprofit’s board understand social media?
Unfortunately, there’s a pretty good chance that you’d side with Randy Jackson, right?
Explaining social media to your board of directors is CRUCIAL. Once they understand what it is, they’ll be so much more likely to understand the need to train staff in social media — and even more importantly, set budgets for advertising, campaigns and fan-building.
So here area a few simple “Social Media 101” talking points that you can use when communicating with your board about the subject:
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At its core, social media is technology that facilitates communication between people or entities as users.
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Examples of social media platforms include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and LinkedIn. They each have different audience demographics and different goals but the difference isn’t necessarily important for this basic level of information.
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Similarly to corporations and companies, nonprofit organizations can use social media to communicate to their audience about an ongoing campaign, an impressive accomplishment, recent staff changes, holiday hours, a government sanction that could affect their work — and anything that is relevant!
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Users to these social media platforms can select to hear updates from pages and people they are interested in.
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Users can also share your content with their friends (and followers) who may not know about your mission yet.
It may seem basic, but these fundamental points could go a long way in explaining social media to board members who are not as up to speed on the topic. Which could go a long way for your nonprofit too.
Because, after all, word of mouth arguably remains one of the most widely successful marketing tactics (ever) and that’s exactly what social media is — just online and with limitless reach potential.
Are you interested in talking to someone at Sanky about how we can help take your organization’s social media presence to the next level? Please reach out!
