Social Media Marketing for NGOs
Charity Organizations Need to Understand the Value of E-Marketing
Sep 20, 2009
The top 100 most popular users on Twitter are from all sorts of backgrounds. But, what are missing from this list are charity organizations. In his blog, Seth Godin has very correctly pointed out that this is because non-profit organizations are either simply lazy or have way too much bureaucracy to allow their volunteers, supporters and team members to tweet away.
Most major charity organizations have websites and publish e-versions of their newsletters on a regular basis. What not for profits need to obtain is a love for social media networking and a true understanding of how to use it.
Blogs as Social Media Tools
Blogs appear in search engines and can help in creating greater visibility for a particular not-for-profit organization. They are less formal than newsletters and website updates and can therefore be easily written and published. They don't necessarily have to cover only updates of the organization- remember, blogs are not newsletters. They can cover everything related to the charity organization. Therefore, blogs can include videos from YouTube, photos from Flickr or different websites and articles from newspapers, magazines or other bloggers that are relevant to the organization's subject.
It is important to be able to blog as regularly as possible so that the followers can rely on the blog as not being a lazy one. It is equally essential to communicate with other like-minded bloggers and leave constructive comments on their blogs. This will increase blog-world friendships and also increase visibility of the organization in the cyber-world.
Charity Organizations Should Twitter Away
Twitter is a great new tool to communicate with a big following of people. The fact that all the big names from celebrities to professionals, and big and small organizations are on Twitter shows that Twitter is an important tool of online marketing and its value cannot be ignored.
Marketeers can use Twitter to send 140 character long messages on a regular basis. These can be helpful links to the non-profit's blogs, other related blogs and articles, relevant photos, or just random communication to engage with the followers. There are a great many ways to make the most out of Twitter and there are various books available online and offline to explain these further.
Facebook is Popular and Fun for Organizations
Facebook has great integrated applications that can make marketing fun. There are fan pages that organizations can create. These can allow discussions, photos, videos, notes and events amongst others. The best part is that when a organization wants to spend a little more money, it can easily do so by promoting its fan page through advertisements on Facebook.
Tips on How to Use Social Media Networking
An important aspect of using Twitter, Facebook and other networking sites like MySpace, YouTube and Flickr is to engage with the followers on these sites regularly and without major lulls. Creating incentives for the fans and followers is also important. For example, a great idea is to offer them deals, fun opportunities, or great pieces of information.
The best suggestion anyone can get about social media networking is to be able to experiment with it. Learn to love it and not fear it. The more a non-profit's supporters, volunteers, and workers are using social media sites, the better it is. It is a great way to quickly engage with people and to gauge popularity without conducting major marketing research.
