Social media has been proven to be effective in reaching out to numerous individuals. Thus, organizations such as NGOs have chosen to optimize this especially given the fact that there are no registration fees to start an account. Individuals especially teenagers and young adults usually have multiple social media accounts which they use on a regular basis. For NGOs to reach a wider audience, they should be present in the following social media channels:
Facebook is a channel widely used by everyone – from children to adults, individuals to organizations, startups to established businesses, and more. Facebook provides the widest reach of audience who usually enjoy long posts which have strong and deep meaning. People like to share your posts on Facebook given that you share insightful or inspiring content. Another feature Facebook has would be their groups. Joining nonprofit groups will create several networks while some groups will even post grant application programs which you might’ve missed in your searches. Likewise, fundraising events for nonprofits can also be announced in Facebook groups to entice more participants. Corporate fundraising event ideas may also come up in the said groups which will help you NGO come up with more creative ways to raise funds.
Twitter is commonly used to provide updates or have knowledge bites to keep people interested. Twitter is usually straight to the point given their 280 character limit. With Twitter, nonprofits can aim to connect with their followers and update them as much as possible. This is essentially important as public trust will inherently provide potential donors and repeat donors if they are satisfied with what they see. An additional benefit of Twitter is the opportunity it gives your NGO of going trending. Making use of suitable and strategic hashtags will allow your NGO to go trending and give you the ability to reach out to more donors.
Examples of popular hashtags for nonprofits would be the #GivingTuesdays hashtag which generated many donations. Apart from that is the ALS #IceBucketChallenge which for some time in 2014, took the interests of the world by storm. It was talked about by numerous people all over the world. Whether it be on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, time did not go by without you seeing a post about it. This initiative raised an average of USD 115 million which helped in
For individuals who enjoy taking pictures, Instagram is their go-to social networking site. And now with the additional feature of Instagram stories, users are now more and more inclined to check their accounts on a daily basis. For nonprofits, this can be a strategic way to update their audiences. Since people are already viewing stories anyway, they’ll probably be viewing yours too. You can even decide to go live for those viewers, especially your donors to know where their hard-earned donations have gone to.
Another strategic thing to do is to connect your NGOs Instagram account to Facebook for your Facebook followers to be updated as well.
Majority of active Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram users are teenagers and young adults, while LinkedIn is specifically for professionals. It’s basically a social networking site for people in the workforce to connect, learn, and find opportunities. NGOs presence in LinkedIn will significantly help the organization achieve goals and initiatives. Your target audience will come from LinkedIn users, and professionals are also the ones who have the capacity to be potential donors.
In this day and age, the use of social media will definitely improve your presence online. Having an NGO searchable on social media will make them more visible for other nonprofits, philanthropic foundations, and many more. Thus, having social media presence shouldn’t mean NGOs should stop meeting and networking with people face-to-face. Each time an innovation comes up, NGOs need to thrive and keep up, whilst maintaining old practices and create a balance to reach both new and existing networks.
