4 Surprising Lessons I Learned About Social Media Marketing for Nonprofits - And You Should, Too!

Hello Friends!

Time has come to wrap up my blog that I have written for MKTG 370 - Social Media Marketing course at Columbia College. I'd like to thank my classmates for their valuable insights and Dr. Rahim for his wisdom and encouragement.

Here are the 4 lessons I learned about social media marketing for nonprofits from this class:

First: Social media marketing is not about technology, it's about relationships. If you chase after the latest social media technology to prove to the board of directors that your organization is on the leading edge; you're chasing the wrong metric. The metric we all should be chasing is all about how many individuals from out target group are we engaging with?

Second: Take the time to analyze your target audience and segment it also. You may have multiple audiences; perhaps your foundation donors can be found on LinkedIn, but your volunteers are on Facebook and your employees are on Pinterest. You need to know who your audience is and then target your approach to a message that will engage them.

Third: It takes a lot of time, patience and consistency to do social media marketing. Why? Because you are building a community. You must actually engage with your audiences; when you get a comment or a question, you must answer. That contact from your audience was the point of opportunity to communicate your message to your audience. Don't squander it!

Fourth: You got to be you! Let your authentic self shine through your communications. Speak with a human voice; like speaking to a friend. Be transparent, be honest. Your audience will respond to you if you ask your audience for feedback. So finish every post, pic, video or podcast with an open ended question that will stimulate feedback.

Fifth: The trends for the future. Device convergence; people will be viewing social media on all kinds of different devices, we must make sure that whatever we post, it delivers a great user experience on all platforms.

In addition, visual forms of communicating are becoming more and more important. For example, Facebook launched a live streaming service and at the same time changed their algorithm to prioritize video posts over all other posts. Here is a link to my video blog on the subject:
The Nonprofit Helper on Social Media Marketing

Now that I have told you what I learned this semester at school, what do you think were the most surprising lessons about social media that you have learned lately?

Thanks for reading and bye for now!
Lea

Test Video for Podcast

Hello Friends!

This is my test video for next week's podcast. Hopefully by then I will have figured out why the color on the video keeps changing/auto-adjusting (it's on manual, so it shouldn't). If anyone has any tips on that, I'd love to hear from you!

Thanks! 

Professional Social Media

Hello Friends!

A few thoughts about using social media for professional purposes. Dedicated business pages on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Snapchat are great marketing platforms for many companies and organizations, but for most people in the U.S. professional social media means LinkedIn.

While your organization should also have a page on LinkedIn, I'm going to focus on the personal LinkedIn profile today.

One of the first things you should do after joining is to find groups to join and participate in. The purpose for joining the groups is two-way-communication (social media is...social!). What that engagement will do for you is to start establishing your brand as someone with expertise in your field, while at the same time you are learning from others in your field. The LinkedIn groups you join could be of your peers or aspirational peers. While I follow a lot of different groups (because I'm just really curious about many different fields), the better strategy would be to limit your group participation, comments and posts to areas of your professional (or aspirational) expertise.

For nonprofit professionals, I'd like to suggest joining groups such as the Nonprofit Leadership group, which is a resource for nonprofit executives to share their experiences and find solutions in a safe, noncommercial forum. A group that is well matched to my pursuits is the Social Media for Nonprofits forum, where nonprofits participating in the groundswell of social media can go for support and ideas.

As nonprofit professionals we are in the unique intersection of business and doing good. What characterises most of us is a passion for our cause. That passion usually makes for a good story; tell your story on your LinkedIn page! Show your passion and personality; don't hide behind the corporately correct, straight-jacketed voice.

Like (someone's) grandma used to say: Don't hide your light under a bushel. (I double checked the quote and realized, that it is actually Matthew 5:15. Not granma).

I recently did a reboot of my LinkedIn profile after having followed the blog Human Workplace by CEO, Liz Ryan. Link to Liz Ryan's blog. I wanted to find my own voice and tell the story of who I am and how I got to where I am, as authentically as I could. In short, I wanted to use a human voice.

Why? When looking for an organization to work or to volunteer with, I am looking for a good fit above all; an organization that appreciates transparency and authenticity would be a good fit for me.

I'm a big proponent of the human voice, but I don't use it in my resume (yet); there the bullet points and search terms still rule. Why? In my opinion a resume is your quick and dirty brochure, which hopefully leads a decision maker to take a look at your LinkedIn profile and be interested enough to get you in for an interview. But that opinion may change.

Here is a link to my new and (partially) improved LinkedIn profile.
Lea's LinkedIn Profile
Why just partially improved? So that you could see the difference in a real life profile. You'll find the headline, summary and last three jobs described in a human voice and the bottom four remain as they were before.
Can you tell the difference? What do you think about it? Which do you prefer?

Thanks for reading!
Lea

PROJECT CURE 2016 VIDEO

Hello Friends, 

Today I'd like to share with you a YouTube video about a nonprofit close to my heart, Project C.U.R.E. I volunteer there, along with about 20,000 (yes 20 thousand!) other people. We have ten distribution centers all over the U.S., so perhaps there is one where you live and you can come help out! Project C.U.R.E. is the largest distributor of donated medical supplies in the world. Surplus medical supplies and equipment from the U.S. goes to help doctors and patients all over the developing world. 

Project C.U.R.E., Delivering Help, Delivering Hope.

My Favorite Nonprofit Marketing Vlogger

Hello friends!

Today I'm going to share with you my very favorite blogger/vlogger/social media marketing guru-person, John Haydon. For some time now, I've been following his The Hump Day Coffee Break vlog, which is a weekly half-hour training on social media marketing specifically for nonprofit organizations! Here is a link to one Hump Day Coffee Break video: "3 Tips to Growing a Passionate Online Community".

Having worked and volunteered in the nonprofit world for many years now, I can tell that he really gets it; our strengths, our biggest challenges and our passion for our causes. The best part about John's posts is that he is so real, and just tells it like it is. The posts are chock full of informative, usable content for any social media marketer (not just nonprofit folks).

In terms of channels or platforms; he posts across all the different platforms. His posts are on YouTube, on his own website, and all social media channels, as communities and as RSS feed.
This guy is worth following.

5 Blogs to Guide Your Social Media Strategy

Hello Friends!

There are a huge number of blogs relating to social media marketing, branding and strategy.
Here are 5 that I have found the most interesting, fun and helpful so far in my fledgeling social media marketing studies.

1. HubSpot marketing blog
HubSpot Link
I just love HubSpot! They are a company who have really taken the inbound marketing concept to the max. There are simply hundreds of helpful articles available for download. The is even a social media marketing class that you can take for free. All they want is some basic info about you and your company (if any).

2. The Blogger platform's own blogging blog
Buzzfeed Link
There are many interesting articles and tips about blogging, and plenty of links to other interesting blogs. It's important to read other blogs to find your own voice. Buzzfeed also tells you the latest on blogging on the Blogger platform.

3. Personally interesting to me is the Colorado Gives Day blog.
Colorado Gives Blog Link
It has information for the nonprofit professional and it is well designed and updated on a regular basis. It is important to network within your professional area, so I have left a comment (so far) on this blog and will continue to read it and comment regularly.

4. Another nonprofit specialist blog is the Nonprofit Marketing Guide.
Nonprofit Marketing Guide Link
 I follow this blog for excellent advice on social media marketing for nonprofits, but also on how to present your blog in a way that is ideal for inbound marketing. I don't want to, nor can I afford to, spend resources on disruptive marketing techniques, and this blog gives me lots of advice on how to serve my target audience (in the future) with content that is valuable for them.

5. This guy is a genius. Really.
Brian Solis Link
He is a futurist and a big picture thinker about marketing/social media/PR/communications as a whole. He has written several books on those topics and is a sought after lecturer. His posts are on a whole different level from anyone else I have ever read. Mind.Blown.

5 Step Strategy for the Blogosphere

Social media engagement requires a two-way conversation; it is based on building and maintaining relationships with your stakeholders. Consider these 5 factors when crafting your blogging strategy.

1.    Listen. Listen to the community to determine who your key audience is and what their key challenges are. Search for blogs and communities where conversations happen online. Listen to offline conversations about social media.

2.    Engage. Engage with the online/offline conversations. Leave comments on communities’ blogs/communities. Respond to comments left on your blog. Publicize your blog to your constituency in your newsletters, email communications and offline conversations.

3.    Solve problems. Target your blog posts to solve problems for your key audience. Educate, inform and add value with your posts.

4.    Be consistent. Post new, thoughtful content on a consistent schedule. 

5.    Be a good neighbor. Social media is about relationships, so insert links to the blogs you like to read in your blog posts, and hope for reciprocity!

More about social media strategy on http://coloradogivesblog.blogspot.com/2016/06/three-tips-for-how-to-answer-should-we.html

The ideas on this post have been synthesized from reading chapters 1-6 in our text: groundswell (Li & Bernoff, 2011).

Source:

Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2011). groundswell. Boston, MA: Harward Business School Publications.