Getting started with social media for not for profits

Today we recap Shai Coggins’ presentation from the Connecting Up 2011 conference on growing your not for profit organisation’s social media strategy. The conference focused on assisting not for profit organisations navigate technology related issues.

Converse, recruit volunteers, raise funds

Shai noted that there are almost ten million Australians using social media platforms and that social networking can help not for profits engage with stakeholders, recruit volunteers and raise funds. Importantly, it can let you be part of the conversations that are happening already on these platforms.

Start small and you can run before you know it

Drawing on Beth Kanter’s work, Shai described fives stages of social media growth: sitting, crawling, walking running and flying. Most of the audience said they were still at the sitting, crawling or walking stages. From the show of hands in the crowd, I think only Briony Walker from Headspace (the National Youth Mental Health Foundation) said her organisation was at the flying stage, with over 4000 Twitter followers, Youtube upload views and Facebook likes.

Plan, execute, reflect, repeat

According to Shai, becoming more proficient with social media means moving through several stages:

• identifying opportunities to engage
• listening to conversations already taking place
• getting started with using social media, with small steps initially
• getting support from senior people in your organisation to make social media core to how you communicate
• moving to conversation mode, rather than simply broadcasting one way conversations;
• facilitating community, which means your clients or social media followers having conversations with each other as well as with you
• using analytics to measure performance, evaluate your efforts and inform future directions

She said that the key steps to a successful social media strategy are planning, executing, measuring and analysing, and then repeating the process and learning as you go.

Are you using social media for your organisation? What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learnt since you started? What advice would you share with people who are just getting started? Make a comment below to share your thoughts.

Learn more about social media for not for profits

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Get started with our summary of guides to popular social media sites

View the slides from Shai’s presentation

By Reid, DBCDE