In a time when people spend an average of 10% of their day on social media, organizations must recognize the vital role this medium plays in their marketing strategy. The use of social media allows organizations to maximize visibility and brand recognition, which, in turn, will bolster sales or fundraising efforts, increase awareness and garner a larger audience for activating community support.
Social media is ever-growing and evolving to meet the current needs of target audiences. The benefit of this expansive collection is the ability to target niche and varying audiences through individual social platform strategies. It offers a vast and dynamic opportunity to showcase work, highlight partnerships and underscore the importance of the organization’s impact in its targeted areas.
In addition to conveying messaging and overarching brand, social media is a valuable leveraging agent when participating in events, building new partnerships, driving business and initiating an awareness or giving campaign. To gain the highest return on social media implementation, it is essential to utilize targeted and unique content in combination with tools that will elevate visibility and foster authentic and recurring engagement.
Developing Content and Driving Engagement
With the activation of unique online social identities, organizations should research trending and high-traffic hashtags relevant to their brand, content and audience. From these findings, organizations can incorporate active and trending hashtags, imagery and audio, allowing them to use platform algorithms to obtain higher visibility among new and existing audiences.
As organizations increase relevancy and expertise in the social space, unique brand-specific items, including hashtags, can be utilized to cultivate a collective “homebase” for their online community. Through this, engaged audiences can easily locate relevant posts and gain a better understanding of values, goals and messaging.
Following social media accounts parallel to the organization will build mutually engaged relationships. Accounts to consider include like-minded organizations, on-brand influencers, government officials and agencies, current and potential sponsors, media outlets, local venues and other audiences that can provide support, collaboration and message amplification. Creating authentic interactions and online relationships can translate into valuable support and help the organization stay informed of upcoming events, panels and roundtables it can participate in.
When generating organic content, organizations should first identify opportunities that create the content for them. For example, engagement and fundraising events the organization is participating in, hosting or sponsoring naturally provide unique and targeted visuals as well as stories, information and interactive topics.
Compelling Content Can Be Simple and Affordable
Social media does not call for expensive camera equipment, which is ideal for budget-conscious organizations. The enhancement of cell phone technology makes capturing photo, video and audio content easy and affordable. However, static photos and written posts alone are no longer sufficient when it comes to effectively using most social platforms. Video is key to portraying a diverse and relevant brand.
When content is captivating and entertaining, as video often can be, audiences have a higher likelihood of sharing to their personal digital community, which creates longer engagement and an amplified opportunity to deepen audience connections. When it comes to video, the longer it is, the less likely audiences are to view and share. A good rule of thumb is to keep videos under 55 seconds.
Real-time content is an additional opportunity to pull audiences in and give them diversified content. Unlike carefully curated content for feeds and highlights, stories and live feeds give a more authentic look into an organization and its work.
One prime time to utilize live content is during events. By posting short video clips, key talking points, event details such as attendance numbers, fundraised amounts and participating sponsors, online audiences can feel as if they are part of the event.
Post-event recaps that include participants, volunteers, collaborators and sponsor gratitude are valuable not only for the organization’s current online community, but they can also play a key role in promoting future events and soliciting return and new sponsors. Utilizing account tagging and hashtags to cross-promote collaborators demonstrates the value and appreciation an organization places on its community through mutual recognition and promotion. This paves the path to build long-term relationships and leave a positive, lasting impression on those involved at all levels.
Social media is a huge part of everyday lives but, with limited resources, organizations can easily dismiss its importance. However, with social media’s ability to provide high-impact marketing at no additional cost, organizations cannot afford to overlook it any longer.
Samantha McIntosh is the content manager at Valley of the Sun United Way. Valley of the Sun United Way is creating Mighty Change throughout Maricopa County. Information on the program and how to get involved is available on the website.
Did You Know: Engagement and fundraising events the organization is participating in, hosting or sponsoring naturally provide unique and targeted visuals as well as stories, information and interactive topics.
