6 Common Pitfalls of a Nonprofit's Social Media Campaign

In this blog my aim will be to focus on multiple common pitfalls that nonprofits forget in everyday social media campaigns and shed light on them. This list is devised of personal experience from my nonprofit clients I have worked with throughout college as well as my research I've conducted from a multitude of articles and nonprofit testimonials. Although there are numerous mistakes that could be pointed, these 6 I felt needed to be brought to the table. 

1. Using only social media account to target your audience 

As nonprofit social media beginners, how do you decide which social media is the best for your audience? How do you decide how many and which ones you should create accounts on? These questions are going to be specific to your brand and the social media behavior of your target audience. However, I think it's important to note that your audience is spread out on more than one social media account and its essential that you connect with them on different platforms. You are going to be able to reach and connect with your audiences in different ways depending on the social media. Facebook and Twitter present a great way to share short updates about your brand. Flickr and Slideshare allow you to connect with pictures and blogs allow you to create meaningful content that adds value to your community. The list is endless. The point is that you  need to understand how your audience behaviors and interacts on social media and then join the conversation.


2. Link Wheel: not linking all your social media accounts to your brand platform

If you take nothing else from this blog, please remember the most important thing in every social media campaign is to link your social media accounts to your website; creating what's called a link wheel. If your audience is directed to one social site, they should be easily connected to every social media platform controlled by your brand. When visiting your blog, Facebook page, or website, a visitor should see links to all your accounts at the top of each account in order to ensure easy access. 


3. Use an appropriate avatar to represent your social identity

A social media avatar (profile picture) is in an important representation of your social identity. It should convey the tone and message of your brand. It's important that the same or similar avatar is used across all social media accounts to convey a consistent identity for your brand. Your audience will associate this profile picture with your brand, therefore, it's important that your avatar is unique and representative. For more tips on creating the perfect avatar for your nonprofit social media platform visit the following link. (9 Tips for Choosing a Social Media Avatar)



4. Posting more than one status update a day on Facebook

I was intrigued with this next tip. The key to social media is having a presence and engaging your audience. However- I have found this pitfall spread across numerous websites/articles. Businesses who post more than one status update on Facebook a day are found to annoy its audiences. Nonprofit Tech for Good recommends that in order to avoid being hidden on your follower's news feeds, post no more than 1-2 statuses on Facebook (www.nptechforgood.com) If your nonprofit brand has any insight into this tip, I would love to hear back from you on how many posts a day on Facebook works for your target audience.

5. Storytelling vs. Content Marketing

Marketing is storytelling. People have been told this time and time again. It's the implementation of this concept we struggle with. Social media marketing is not about marketing your brand. It's about the people. This isn't the case of "build it and they will come." You need to engage in storytelling to inspire, engage and interact with your audience. Meaning no boring, cliche content marketing. "Check out our pictures on Flickr" "Like us on Facebook" posts aren't going to cut it. That doesn't elicit engagement- which doesn't lead to earned media. Sharing meaningful stories that engage your audience with your brand is how people connect. 

6. Blogging

Blogging is a small thing that not very many nonprofits are adding to their social profiles. Yet its one of the essentials. Blogging is a way to build a connection for a brand's audience. Whether it's content concerning the blog or related topics, it's important that your brand establishes a blog to create content and engage their audience. Once you've created a blog, you can then link back to your website to further the relationship and sharing of information.  The blog is not only designed to create meaningful content that adds value to your communities, but it will also build your networking on connected social media accounts. Blogging is the icing on the top of the cake to every social media campaign.