Social media can be challenging to navigate. Specifically in the nonprofit world, it can be hard to reach the desired engagement or gain necessary traction. Social media is integral to nonprofits’ scope and audience, and having platforms that are performing poorly can be fatal to an organization’s potential. In working with TrailBlaze Creative clients, I have compiled social media insights to gauge what posts tend to do well and what posts tend to underperform in order to discover the perfect “formula” when it comes to posting and how to clearly communicate a nonprofit’s mission.
It is a common misconception that merely posting consistently is enough. However, there is a larger problem at hand. Organizations spend too much time posting and not enough time communicating. Without adequately communicating your mission through each post, users cannot determine what the organization’s goals, impact, and significance is to the audience. But, you can still rebuild your organization’s social media presence by following these helpful steps and questions that ensure effective message communication.
To begin, you should ask yourself if your post can answer any of the following questions:
- What happened?
- Who benefitted?
- Why does it matter?
- Why should I care?
If your post can answer any of these questions, you are providing context to users and allowing for an explanation of your organization’s mission, which will drive further engagement.
Not only is it important to create posts that clearly communicate your organization’s mission, but it is also important to be mindful of which content you are posting on which platform. Each social media platform serves a different purpose and has a different set of users. To determine which platform you should be posting on, you can ask a similar set of questions:
- Who do I want to reach?
- What do I want the tone to be?
- Is this a video post, a graphic post?
- How might this post be able to change on different platforms?
By being mindful of the different demographics that use each platform, and the social’s main purpose, you can target the correct audiences and allow for increased traction.
In asking yourself both of these sets of questions, you apply TBC’s Mission Filter. When you are ready to post, you can apply this “mission filter” to your post to determine if this post is clearly communicating your organization’s mission. Does your post prove something about your impact? Does it teach something about your organization? Would someone new understand this post? Could only your organization make this post? If your post can answer these, you are successfully communicating through your social media and building the necessary foundation for your organization.
The bottom line: Every post is branding. People don’t merely support organizations for understanding what they do, but because they understand WHY it matters and WHO it impacts.
