PURPOSE

Create a social media strategy for your organization as a whole and create social media plans for each of your pages, events, and initiatives.  This could be as vast as a report or be as short as a few concise sentences. Your strategy and goals will guide your next steps.  Having a timeline and setting responsibilities will make your use of time on social media effective towards achieving your mission.

MISSION

In as little as 2-3 sentences, what is your mission with your social media strategy?  What are you trying to accomplish?  Having your mission or “end game” clearly stated before your effort begins will help keep your social media team on the same page.

POLICY & PROCEDURE

Set your social media policy and procedures (or Best Practices Guidelines).  Everyone should be familiar with and follow your company’s social media policies.  Know what topics you will or won’t discuss on your brand’s social media accounts and link all of your social media accounts back to your organization.

CONTENT

Content for social media needs to engage the reader.  Your content could be educational, inspirational entertaining or promotional or a combination of these.  Remember that you are trying to humanize your brand, so aggressive self-promotion will fall on deaf ears (or blind eyes!)

Use posts, tweets, quotes, blogs, articles, stories, contests and surveys to interest readers and interact with them. Social media is becoming more visual so photos, graphics, infographics, sites like Pinterest, and high quality marketing images should be a major consideration.

One benefit of high quality images and graphics are that photos can translate to an international audience.

Post regularly and post good content. Your content and consistency will set you apart from your competition and can help establish you as an expert/thought leader

Here is the 70/20/10 rule:

• 70 percent of content should focus on your customers' interests and needs. This can be accomplished through how-to tips, answers to frequently asked questions, and links to helpful resources. Ask yourself, "Would I find this content helpful?" If the answer is yes, then it's probable others will too.
• 20 percent of content should be "OPC" — other people's content. That mandates a willingness to allow user-generated content on social channels you manage, such as a Facebook page. This gives your customers a sense of ownership in the conversation and serves to foster trust.
• 10 percent of content should be promotional. If you are willing to focus 90 percent of your content on others, then, hopefully, no one will complain when 1/10th of it calls attention to your products and services.

The greatest gift of social media is the opportunity to humanize a brand, or in our case a cause or nonprofit and all people impacted by the focus of the nonprofit.

The only way to humanize a brand is if your social media effort is authentic. Your organization’s social media presence needs to have a personality that readers can relate to.  It must listen to your constituents and respond to them in a timely manner.  It needs to provide fresh content that engages readers and inspires them.

Your social media efforts need to relay the message that your organization cares.