Social Media

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Many advocates claim that in order to further your association’s cause, using social media is a must. But with any important decision, consider the benefits and the challenges of having a social media presence. There are many positive reasons to pursue using social media to expand your association’s messaging. The biggest deterrent organizations face is how much time and resources they use on their social media presence when in reality, they could be seeing much bigger growth and impact by placing their efforts elsewhere.

Benefits of using social media

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Engage your existing community

Social media platforms allow you to connect with your members and volunteers multiple times a day through updates you can draft in a matter of minutes, as long as you plan beforehand.

Posting updates on social media also allows for the opportunity for two-way communication between your association and your supporters. People can respond by liking your posts, commenting and sharing. They can also answer polls and give suggestions and feedback. Engaged supporters can quickly become ambassadors of your organization by showing with their social media networks that they stand behind your cause and encourage others to join in.

Expand your reach and spread the word about your mission

If your posts are consistently compelling, they will more likely be shared across your followers’ networks where you can reach more people around the world than you ever thought was possible. Social media platforms help put your content in what would otherwise be a stranger’s path. There is also the option to pay to promote and advertise your content, which also expands the audience you reach.

Attract new sponsors and event attendees

Grow your network of partners and volunteers

Engage in large-scale conversations about your work

Reasons to not be on social media

Now that we’ve considered all the work involved in managing a social media presence for your nonprofit, let’s look at some reasons why all this effort might not actually be worth it for you.

You don’t have the resources to manage your social media presence
For social media to be effective, time needs to be spent engaging with your audience. If you don’t, you won’t see much benefit from being on social media. For many associations, the challenge is they don’t have enough team members to dedicate time and effort to social media management. It’s also possible that your audience may best be served if your team focuses on just one platform instead of several.

Your target audience is not on social media
Be realistic about who your audience is and what interests them. Your existing community is going to help boost your social media presence, so if they’re not online, you’re going to have a hard time growing your audience.

Your mission is tied to a specific geographic location
The most basic benefit of social media is it helps expand your reach and attract new audiences without regard to geographic location. This works well for national and international organizations because their pool of potential donors is as wide as the range of people they serve. But if your association’s mission is purely local, it may not make sense to spend too many resources growing your social media following to tens of thousands of followers who don’t live in your area. In this case, it may be best to limit your focus on social media.

Must-use social media platforms

Choosing to use social media doesn’t mean you have to use all of the available social media platforms. Knowing your audience will make it easier to choose which platform to use. Here’s a summary of the most common platforms.

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Facebook

Facebook is widely used, is great for all types of content and there is no limit to how long posts can be. Photos and videos tend to have the highest engagement rates. Facebook is very well suited for organizations that have events because you can create and share upcoming events and attendees can mark themselves as planning to attend or being at the event. Facebook also has fundraising capabilities built into donate buttons, which you and your followers can share.

Twitter

Instagram

YouTube

YouTube is the world’s largest platform for video content. It is meant for high quality, well-produced videos of any length, but typically 1-10 minutes long. Growing on YouTube as an organization can be difficult because of oversaturation of content and the platform’s ever-changing algorithm, so it’s best suited for housing content that’s shared elsewhere — on other social media platforms, your website, email newsletter, etc.

TikTok

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