During the best of economic times, fund raising and recruiting volunteers is a challenge for non-profits; it is even more challenging to do these essential tasks in today’s tough economic times.

Launching an effective social media campaign can assist in these areas, as well as serve as a means to educate the public and increase awareness about issues related to your cause to elicit social change. In order to have a successful campaign, just follow these steps and follow up with social media metrics to determine if you are reaching your audience with your message.

Social Media Goals for Non-Profits: Steps to Knowing the Tools

Social media covers a broad range of platforms, and in order to use each platform effectively, it helps to know for what purpose each type is shown efficacy.

For example, Twitter is a great way to build awareness and develop motivation for social change through powerful and targeted tweets with links to your website. Twitter is also a means of engaging with people one on one to inform them about your cause and motivate them to take action.

Facebook allows more lengthy posts in addition to being able to upload pictures and articles or notes. This social media platform is a great way to organize volunteers and organize real life events by using the poll feature, the ability to post maps and action lists.

Additionally, you can set up a private group page just for volunteers and staff and then a fan page that serves more as a newsletter and marketing device.

YouTube provides a bridge between the virtual world and real life activism. This platform is a great way to show donors and volunteers what actions your non-profit organization take in real life.

Through comments associated with the video you post, you have the opportunity to recruit more volunteers and educate potential donors about your cause.

Social Media Goals for Non-Profits: Steps for Managing Your Campaign

Once you have your non-profit social media tools in place and your campaign underway, the next step is to achieving success is managing your campaign. Reputation management is essential for the successful use of non-profit social media. While it is great to have a high number of followers, the quality of those followers counts as well.

It is important to check the profiles of your followers to make sure you do not have any “bots” or other unsavory followers. It is also important that you do not respond to those who try to disrupt your message, known as trolling, a simple correction will suffice, and if they continue to try to disrupt, it is best to block and report the person as opposed to engaging them.

Social Media Goals for Non-Profits: Steps for Measuring Your Success

Many of the popular social media metrics, such as Klout and Tweetreach, base your score on the number of followers you have, the number of times your unique posts are re-posted or re-tweeted by others, and the number of people who engage with you.

These means of social measurement can help your non-profit organization determine the efficacy of your social media campaign and the return on investment of your time and energy. Other social media measurement tools include site meters for web pages and blogs.

Most site meters are free and give you a precise look at the scale and reach of your social media campaign.

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