We know that in this economy one area that has been hit hard is the nonprofit organizations. The good news is that social media marketing seems to be working wonders for those organizations. A recent report that was released showed that nearly 85% of nonprofit organizations have implemented some type of social media marketing. That’s not even the outstanding part nearly 45% percent of these organizations have found that social media marketing plays a very important role in their fundraising. Implementing a social media marketing policy and strategy for your non profit organization doesn’t have to be difficult. As a matter of fact I’m going to show you the core components that will help you get started and on your way to marketing with social media tools that are available to you. Learn more about Social Media Marketing and how to use it in your Non Profit Organization visit: Just real marketing.

11 Tips for Nonprofits on Getting Started with Social Media:

1. Pick the right social networks – Don’t just pick sites based on the size of the network. Other communities may be smaller but more effective for your organization. It may pay to start small, with one to three social networks, rather than trying to take the entire virtual world by storm all at once.
2. Find an ‘expert’ to help you – Look around your organization or community for someone who has experience with social networking. It might be a young staffer, an intern, a volunteer. Get that person involved so you won’t be starting from ‘scratch.’
3. Extend your reach – Select a social network and then use a ‘scattershot’ approach. That is, don’t just set up a profile. Create a group as well and attract more supporters that way. On Facebook, for instance, you can be a group and/or an event. Just make sure you understand the rules of the site. For a fee, some social sites will allow you to become an official sponsor of a group or community. This might be worth experimenting with. Many large companies, such as Victoria’s Secret and Apple, sponsor groups.
4. Prepare to lose control – There is no way you can control every word of every person who wants to be your friend or join your social networking group. Set up an approval process for ‘comments’ that people post but if you go this route, make sure the approval process is reasonable and fast.
5. Know who is already pretending to be you – There may be MySpace or Facebook groups for your organization that you did not set up such as unofficial profiles created by enthusiastic supporters. If you find such a profile, reach out to that person. He or she may be a committed supporter who might be willing to promote your content.
6. Make a good first impression -Try to ‘wow’ your ‘friends’ right off the bat. Make your profile look good. Control what your organization will look like on other people’s friend lists–pick a great picture and title that will get noticed.
7. Post your edgiest, most viral content – Social networks are at their best when people are passing content around and they will only pass yours around if it is creative. Come up with jazzy profile names, use video or flash animation.
8. Find out which of your supporters are already on social networks – Survey your members and find out who has MySpace profiles, Facebook accounts, or belong to other social networks. Send them an e-mail inviting them to become your friend or to join your group.
9. Devote staff time to making your social networking effort a success – Assign a staff person to accept friend requests, post comments on other people’s pages, and invite others to become friends. That is what social networking is all about.
10. Activate your social network supporters – Make sure your social networking pages always feature lots of opportunities to get involved. Also include donation opportunities on your social networking pages and always let people know what happened at an event or with a campaign even if they did not participate. They might get involved the next time.
11. Think of social networking as an investment in the future – The mostly young people you will deal with are your donors and supporters of tomorrow. Get into the game now and learn how to use social media or you might be left behind for good.

JMZ3 Related posts:

• 10 Powerful Reason to get involve with Social Media
• Facebook vs. Twitter as Marketing Tools

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 at 3:30 pm and is filed under Internet, Social Media Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.