Welcome to Social Media 101

Stephanie Bezaire Not-for-Profit Management Diploma from Western Continuing Studies Completed a four month practicum at ReForest London as the Program Assistant for the Neighbourhood Releaf program Which organization are you affiliated with? Do you have experience with social media? Is there anything you’re hoping to learn?

Agenda Introduction Scheduling Choosing the Right Social Media Platform Bitly Analytics Things to Consider Social Media Guide Facebook Conclusion Twitter Questions Instagram Youtube LinkedIn When to Post

Why use social media? The main reasons that a non-profit uses social media are: Build your organization’s following; Engage current community members; Drive community action for your cause; and Measure success with relevant goals and metrics. The main goal for most non-profit organizations on social media is to build a thriving support community. As a non-profit organization, having a dedicated, active community of supports and advocates is one of your most valuable assets. It gets the word out about your purpose of your organization, the local events you are hosting and/or attending, but most importantly, what you can do to improve their lives, your supporters and volunteers, and the surrounding community. A presence on multiple social media platforms also allows like-minded individuals and organizations to connect with you easily. The sites get urgent messages and opportunities out more efficiently and effectively due the ability to share through the click of a button. You can share content and ideas back and fourth from basically anywhere and anytime in the community to provide a more efficient presence.

This chart shows the four most popular social media platforms in Canada. Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, and Instagram. In addition to these, we will be talking about Pinterest, Google+, and Youtube. The popularity of the platform is something to consider when deciding if the platform is the right fit for your organization. There are easily over a hundred social media platforms and so knowing which are the most popular will let you reach the most amount of people in the most effective way for your organization.

Time Resources Knowledge Audience Choosing the RIGHT Social Media Platform Time Resources Knowledge Audience Time – How much time can you devote to a social network? Plan on at least an hour per day per social network, at least at the start. (Once you get going, tools like TweetDeck, Hootsuite can help you save a bit of time.) Resources - What personnel and skills do you have to work with? Visual social networks like Pinterest and Instagram require lots of images and photos. Social networks like Google+ emphasize quality content. Do you have the resources to create what’s needed? Knowledge - What will be the learning curve for you for a given social network? Are there ones you're quite familiar with already? Getting up to speed might be a factor to consider here. At the Children’s Museum we use Facebook and Twitter very well. We will soon have an active Pinterest page as well. Your audience – Where do your potential customers hang out? Which social network has the right demographics? In the summer of 2014 we researched visitors over the course of 2 weeks and found our 91% of them are on Facebook, 43% on Pinterest, 26% on Instagram & 23% on Twitter.

Things to Consider Be Consistent – post regularly and about topics related to your organization Be Clear – make sure your message is clear and to the point so you do not loose your audience Be Concise – people have a short attention span when looking at social media and will move on from content that is too long Post often It’s not about you When posting on social media it is crucial to ensure that you get your message across effectively. It is even more important now than in previous years because people’s attention spans while on the internet have been shortening. Making sure that your message is received and understood will take being consistent, clear, and concise.

Facebook is the most widely used social media platform in Canada Important way to keep supporters up to date on what is going on within the organization. It is the most versatile. You can post events, photos, videos, take polls and link information. This platform would likely be secondary to your website because you can share the most information with your supporters. There is also the ability to add a “Donate Now” button to your page making it even easier for people to financially support you.

Twitter is beneficial for businesses because it allows them to frequently engage their followers frequently with short clear messages. ”Tweets” are 140 character messages that can contain text, photos, links, and videos. Organizations that have a presence on can be tagged in posts with an “@” symbol. These organizations will see you posting about them and will be able to measure it. Hashtags (# symbols) are used to show a message or a specific topic. They are indicated by a pound sign.

Instagram uses the same “@” and “#” symbols as twitter. Instagram is an online mobile photo-sharing and video-sharing social media platform. Users can share their content privately or publicly as well as on other platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Instagram uses the same “@” and “#” symbols as twitter. It is important to note that videos shared on Instagram can only be a maximum of 60 seconds long. Instagram is a way to connect with your younger audience. It is especially useful if your organization does a lot of storytelling through pictures.

Content reach vs. Resources to create YouTube is a video sharing website. Organizations can create channels and post videos they create and people following them or searching similar videos will see them. These videos can also be embedded into other websites, power points, etc. This platform is useful if you are already making videos of what your organization is doing. Content reach vs. Resources to create

LinkedIn is a social media platform aimed at professionals to help them connect and form networks with other professionals they know and trust. This social media platform is useful for your employees because having a presence on LinkedIn allows your employees to affiliate themselves with you. It is also a good way to find potential candidates for new openings.

This chart shows the best time to post on various platforms This chart shows the best time to post on various platforms. Posting within these times will give you the highest engagement from your followers. However, what is possibly more important is the deadzones that you want to avoid posting in at all costs. These zones will have the lowest engagement – if you’re posting outside of the ideal zones on the right, you should try and avoid those on the left. These times aren’t set in stone though, it is important to also keep your audience in mind and think about how their lifestyle will impact when they are checking social media and therefore, when it is best for you to post.

Allows you to schedule all of your social media from one place in advance. There is an app that allows you to manage your scheduling from your phone. Their basic plan is free for up to three social networks with basic analytics. Note: As with all services that schedule Instagram, the post is not posted automatically, your phone will notify you to complete the post.

Bitly

Analytics

Social Media Guide Approved Hashtags #treeblitz #releaf #milliontrees #treedepot #idigtrees #ldnont #freetree Sponsors to promote/thank/mention in posts @CityofLdnOnt @LdnCommFdn (the Richard and Beryl Ivey Fund) @ONTrillium Establishing a social media guide for your organization generally, or for specific programs, will help ensure that you stay consistent. This is especially important if you rely on volunteers to do the bulk of your social media posting, if you have cyclical programming (makes sure you don’t forget to do things), or if you want to make sure that whoever takes over the program knows what you’ve been doing. For your guide, it is important to list your platforms, and then each program or event that you will use each of them for. Then make sure to list a time line for each event or program and how often you want to post about it on each platform. Finally, you can either write out an example or what you want the focus of these posts to be. It is also important to include hashtags that you will use across your platforms to ensure consistency. It might also be helpful to include the online prescences of your sponsors so they can be thanked.

  Conclusion Only use the social media platforms that you have applicable content for and the time to use well. It is better to use fewer platforms great than many poorly Be clear, consistent, and concise Post often – do not let your social media accounts appear dormant Remember, it’s not about you Use scheduling services to manage your resources efficiently

  Questions?