Social media is one of those things that almost everyone has, but very few use well. On today’s podcast, we invited Brock Warner, fundraiser and author of the book From the Ground Up: Digital Fundraising for Nonprofits, to walk us through how to build a consistent and effective social media strategy.
Myths that Brock wants us to leave behind
- All my followers will see every post I post, right? Only about 10% of your followers will see each of your organic posts. For your posts to make it to more people’s feeds, it needs to attract engagement (sharing and commenting)
- There is a secret for making viral posts. There are so many factors that will inspire people to share and different audience personalities behave differently. There is no one strategy that will work all the time other than consistently trying, testing, and understanding your audience.
Brock’s tips on increasing social media engagement
- Empathize with your audience and be intentional in your social media posts. Who is your donor base? What are they interested in? What is it that you would like your posts to do for your audience? Take time to come up with hypotheses for these questions and let the answers guide the way you craft your posts.
- Build loyalty consistently over time. Post consistently, be available and be transparent to your followers. When people interact with your posts and ask you questions, be there to socialize with them. Test out different kinds of content and see what works.
- Connect your social media strategy with your email marketing strategy. Email remains one of the most effective ways for storytelling and converting audiences to become donors. Plan for evergreen content on your social media with a call to action for them to subscribe to your email list.
Favourite quotes from this episode
Post your favourite quote on social to share with us!
“The golden rules apply now more than ever. In fundraising, people give to people telling good stories who they can relate on a very human level, being open and honest and transparent. These are the things that, no matter what the algorithm is, people like and are going to resonate with.”
“For a smaller organization, you can quickly come up with what 40% of your donor base tends to look like and sound like and be interested in. So if you start with putting yourself in that person’s shoes. What would that person want to see? Let that guide your decisions about the tone, the voice, the length you use in your social media posts.”
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Resources from this Episode
Brock’s book: From the Ground Up: Digital Fundraising for Nonprofits
