40 Social Media Tips for Nonprofit Organizations

Although social media marketing is just as important for nonprofit organizations as it is for traditional business, some of the tactics are slightly different. Below, we’ve compiled a list of some important social media tips for nonprofits to remember.

1. Remember: it’s about sharing and discussing, not broadcasting.
2. Integrate social sharing buttons into your website so that visitors can pass along your content with just one (or a few) clicks.
3. Make social media someone’s specific job. Assign responsibility to a person or group of people on your staff.
4. Deliver quality information via your social profiles. Users should feel that your tweets or Facebook posts are useful.
5. Research what organizations you admire are doing on social media.
6. Set up a Google Alert for your organization’s name to keep track of what people are saying.
7. Encourage employees to include your social media information in their email signatures.
8. Inspire people. Try to focus more on success stories than tales of tragedy, if possible.
9. Aim high, but stay realistic. Your social media campaign (probably) won’t be an overnight success story.
10. Check out Twitter’s hope140 program.
11. Participate in Follow Fridays (#FF) by highlighting people or organizations accomplishing social good.
12. Reply and retweet often.
13. Use Twitter hashtags relevant to your cause. If one doesn’t already exist, create a new one (but be absolutely sure one doesn’t already exist).
14. Publicize volunteer opportunities.
15. Share photos. If relevant, ask followers to share photos. For example, @ASPCA often asks their followers to share photos of their rescue animals.
16. Create a custom Twitter background.
17. Compile a Twitter List of your employees, volunteers, corporate partners, and supporters.
18. Consider including “please RT” at the end of very important tweets that you’d like people to share.
19. Create a customized Facebook landing page with an email capture form.
20. Use Facebook’s Questions feature to poll your fans for their opinions.
21. Hold a photo or video contest so fans can submit user-generated content relevant to your mission.
22. Include your page rules in your “about” section, so fans know what they can and cannot post.
23. Create a partnership campaign – for every specific number of likes, a business will donate a fixed amount of money to your cause.
24. Apply to set up your YouTube account through the site’s nonprofit program.
25. Encourage your organization’s supporters to upload responses to your videos.
26. Consider creating an internal social network for your employees.
27. Use QR codes to direct mobile users to unique content and information.
28. Monitor and update your organization’s Wikipedia entry as needed.
29. Create a company page for your organization.
30. Create a LinkedIn group for your supporters.
31. Check out the nonprofit section of the LinkedIn Learning Center.
32. If you have a physical location, “claim” it on Foursquare, Facebook Places, Google Places, and even Yelp.
33. Apply to create a Foursquare Partner Badge.
34. Submit organization photos to relevant Flickr groups.
35. Upload your photos to Flickr under the Creative Commons program to allow for broader sharing.
36. Launch a photo petition, like this example from the National Wildlife Fund.
37. Get familiar with Google+ Pages and their functionality.
38. Blog about the progress of your active projects, so donors can see where their money has gone.
39. Include a “call to action” at the end of your blogs, asking readers to comment or check out your other social media sites.
40. Read social media and tech blogs regularly to stay on top of the latest trends.

Is there anything you’d like to add? Drop us a line and let us know!

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