Social Media Tips for Non-Profits
The first monthly New York Social Media Roundtable was held as part of Internet Week, sponsored by marketing agency Flightpath. For its inauguration, the topic was how non profits can use social media to drive fund raising and awareness. The panelists included the New York Times’ Soraya Dorabi, Matthew Knell of Social Media for Social Change, Rachel Sklar of Charitini and the LGBT Center’s (where the panel took place) Web Manager Allison Palmer.
While this panel also extolled the virtues of Twitter, two other sites were also discussed as being worthwhile for non profits: Facebook and Tumblr. Palmer said that implementing Facebook Causes into the Center’s Facebook page has been very worthwhile for them, because of the “peer pressure” aspect; the application lets you recruit others for your cause and rewards people the more friends they recruit. Tumblr, a micro-blogging site with a heavy community aspect was also cited as being helpful for Dorabi’s Goods for Good website as well as Sklar’s micro-giving site, Charitini. Both websites use Tumblr’s “re-blog” feature to spread awareness.
Twitter, however, remained the belle of the ball and the main focus for social media campaigns due to its real time and participatory nature. As for the ever present issue of how important number of followers truly is, Dorabi made a good point in that the focus should be not how many people follow you, but the quality of those that do. If you have followers who are influential and re-tweet your message, it can spread far and wide, even if your own network is small. Knell re-iterated this, especially in light of the low (or non-existent) budgets non-profits tend to have. Since a big PR budget can’t exist, just getting a high profile person who cares about your cause can funnel a lot of attention (and money) back to the organization.
Finally, the question of how to get supporters to come to events was raised, since in reality, big money tends to come from in person parties. Dorabi mentioned a collaboration with location based software foursquare (popular amongst NYC media types) that would encourage people to check in at a party and get their friends to come. Several hashtag campaigns were mentioned, which if used enough, can become trending topics on Twitter and become highly visible.
The key to publisizing your non profit over social media is very much the same as for “for-profit” businesses: you have to learn to speak the language of the Internet and be able to tap in, as Sklar mentioned, the “nerdy togetherness” of the space to be successful.
