We recently convened our first virtual Brown Bag Lunch for members. Facilitated by members Bix Gabriel and Evan Briggs, it covered best practices for online engagement. See below for member Sandra Schanzer’s recap with her Top Takeaways… in case you missed it.
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Top Takeaways:
Online Engagement and the Nonprofit Specialist: What’s Old, What’s New, and What to Do?
Provided by Sandra Schanzer
The topic was social media and effective online engagement, including how to best use it in our coronavirus world. The discussion covered five major areas of social media use – here are my highlights:
First, three general notes:
- Make sure to build followers, respond to them and to likes
- Always include a Call to Action (CTA) to encourage continued interaction and so you can see the results of your posts and follow-up
- Tailor the platform and the message to your target audience
1. How can we use social media now to help our clients and our business presence?
- Share helpful information
- Show that we are available to respond to their new situation
2. What platforms should we use since different platforms have different purposes?
- Websites give information about your organization
- Social media fosters engagement, news, community
- Emails send specific, often targeted, information
3. Which platforms should we use, and how frequently?
- LinkedIn. The best platform – use daily – check, post, respond
- Twitter. Good but regular use may be too difficult for small businesses
- Instagram. Very successful for the panelists – more creative, less text, more images
- Email. Use perhaps once per quarter except for special circumstances
- And…Facebook. Use is declining (privacy issues, too many ads, algorithms change, more for individuals)
4. Some content guidelines:
- Be compelling – you have three seconds to grab attention
- Use graphics – images, testimonials, photos
- Videos are good – professionally done for website portfolio, more informal is ok for other social media
- Recycle content – people generally favor just one platform so they won’t notice repeated content
5. Finally, 2 tips:
- Square images generally work best across all media
- Use tools to simplify managing content creation and distribution, e.g., Buffer.com
ABOUT SANDRA SCHANZER
I’ve been member of Nonprofit Specialists for 2 years. I joined to meet others working in the nonprofit world, to get a broader view of the problems of this world, to see how we all work with them, and to show fellow members how I can help them help their clients.
In a broad sense I am an information and process consultant and my tool is Salesforce. Using Salesforce, non-profits can make the best and most efficient use of their people, resources, and data for both sides of their work: Funding and Programs.
I’ve been a Salesforce consultant for over 12 years and am Salesforce Certified. I tailor each Salesforce system, creating a bespoke information management system for each client. If an organization already uses Salesforce, I work with them to improve what’s there, expand its functions, simplify their processes, train users and clean up the existing data.
In short, I help my clients work smarter and more effectively to make best use of their limited resources — time, money, people.
Dorset Consulting
sschanzer@dorsetconsulting.com
dorsetconsulting.com
