Effective nonprofit social media outreach takes leadership and spreadsheets, says Beth Kanter.
Beth Kanter
Beth writes Beth’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media, one of the longest running and most popular blogs for nonprofits. She spoke April 27 on the GuideStar webinar “A Conversation with Beth Kanter: Nonprofits and Social Media.”
Creating a social media culture at your nonprofit begins with leadership, Beth said. “You absolutely need leadership buy-in.”
Somebody in leadership then needs to “get out that spreadsheet.” In other words, have an editorial calendar. I’m adding to Beth’s words here: Communicate intentionally! Communicate with purpose. You increase your chances of doing that when you plan. (Nonprofit marketing consultant Clover Frederick has some thoughts here on what comes first, the marketing plan or the strategic plan.)
Planning takes SMART objectives. Beth repeatedly mentioned these; they’re Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Framed.
Notice that measurement is built right in to SMART objectives—but be careful, because as Beth said, “There’s a lot of confusion between counting and measurement.” You should have a spreadsheet or some other tool recording measurements of your social media results. Beth suggests three outcome measures … Continue Reading…
