Content For Nothing And Tweets For Free

This was presented to a group of Community Associations in Regina. Download the presentation here: Content for Nothing, Tweets For Free: 21 Ideas on Social Strategy for Non-Profits.

1. Use User-Generated Content

Encourage followers to share their experiences with your cause using a specific hashtag. Repost their content to build community and authenticity.

The Regina Farmers Market has always been the best at this. Any Wednesday morning or Saturday, you’ll find their feed full of content that isn’t their own. Why? Because they’re GREAT at resharing when people tag them.

2. Create a Content Calendar

Plan and schedule your posts in advance using free tools like Google Calendar or Trello to stay consistent and organized.

Over the 13+ years of running social media strategies for organizations, sure you can spend money on a fancy calendar OR you can make one in Google Sheets. It’s free, easy to share, and easy to edit.

Try it out! What do you have to lose? Start planning your social media well in advance.

Here’s an example of what a content calendar looks like:

3. Use Canva for Design

Create visually appealing graphics, infographics, and social media posts with Canva’s free templates.

When teaching Social Media 317 at the University, the best feedback I got from one student was “I had no idea Canva existed before your class, it’s changed my life!” How’s that for feedback from a class?!

No, you don’t need an advanced degree in Photoshop, nope, Canva can do so much for you.

4. Host a Social Media Takeover

Allow volunteers, donors, or beneficiaries to take over your account for a day. It’s engaging and provides fresh perspectives. It also shows you trust the folks around you to message on behalf of your organization. Ideally, you spread your voice among your community. The more voices you can share, the more effective your communication.

Yes, one person in control of your “brand” seems like a good idea until that person needs a break, or just leaves your organization. You need a backup plan. Allowing other people (guests) to post on your accounts, leaves the opportunity open for a collaborative approach to your social media strategy.

5. Share Behind-the-Scenes Content

Show the human side of your organization by sharing behind-the-scenes photos and videos. It builds trust and transparency. The more comfortable you are with what you share, the more trust you’re going to build. We recently filmed some “professional” videos with the Al Ritchie Community Association. They look great, and performed well on social. But do you want to know what performed even better? Denis, the executive director, talking to the camera, in his office, telling the story of why they need more community support. It did better than our video.

If you haven’t filmed yourself telling a story about your organization, start. The first one is hard. The second one is a little better. By the 10th one you’re practically ready for primetime television. Get used to talking on camera and showing behind the scenes of your organization.

6. Run a Poll or Survey:

Engage your audience with Twitter polls, Instagram story questions, or Facebook surveys to gather feedback and boost interaction. Every now and then ask your audience a question. You’ll be surprised at how many responses you’ll get. People like to be asked questions, if its something they care about they may even share it with their audience.

The beauty of social media is the social side of it! If all you’ve been doing is yelling into your mega phone of social wondering why people don’t comment or share your content, maybe you need to ask them “why” or “why not”.

7. Tap Into Storytelling

Share powerful stories of those impacted by your organization. Stories resonate more than facts and figures. We just published The Four Stories Your Company Should be Telling on our blog after I read Kindra Hall’s Stories That Stick book.

Stories are how we pass down knowledge from generation to generation. In every culture, our ancestors had to figure out ways to protect the stories they were told. Your story is very powerful whether you like it or not. So start telling it.

8. Use Free Analytics Tools

Track your performance with free tools like Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, or Google Analytics to refine your strategy. If you have a professional account on Instagram, tap professional dashboard and right there front and centre are your three main measurables you can start tracking to make your account better.

Accounts Reached: the number of accounts you’ve got to.

Accounts Engaged: the number of accounts that have done something with your account.

Followers: the number of people following you.

Each of these measures a different outcome on your account, and each has strategies to increase them (engaging people, following people, running contests, ads, etc). From here you can set monthly goals and track your progress.

9. What are your three P’s of social media strategy?

The best accounts on social media have a variety of People, Passions, and projects in their feeds. People show you’re not a bot account. Passions show you care about something other than yourself, and projects are what you actually do.

What would your three themes be? We’ve heard educational, emotional, and promotional. I like that, gives you three different themes to create posts under. You don’t have to use the three P’s but come up with your own themes and start creating.

If you want to learn more about People, Passions, Projects see this post: The Ultimate Social Media Strategy for any organization. 

10. Repurpose Content

Reuse blog posts, newsletters, or event highlights as social media content. Turn long-form content into bite-sized posts.

If you have a newsletter, share what you’re putting in there on social and your website. Between your website, social media, newsletter, and whatever other outreach you do, you should be able to post photos and videos in several places to increase your online footprint. Never just take a photo and post it. Put it in the newsletter, write a blog post about it, put it in your social media calendar four months from now as a #ThrowBackThursday. Just don’t post that amazing video once and walk away thinking you did your job.

11. Collaborate with Other Non-Profits

Partner with like-minded organizations for joint campaigns. It’s a great way to reach new audiences. When posting on Instagram, you can “collaborate” with another account (or many accounts) so that your post comes up on each account. An easy way to share an audience. Message the organization first before you surprise them with a collab post though! And don’t be upset when the other organization says no. That’ll happen, you’ve been warned!

12. Engage with Comments

Respond to comments and messages promptly. Engaging directly with your audience fosters stronger connections. Leave comments, talk to people. You have no idea how powerful your words are. People are used to fighting and defending their position on the Internet. When you are kind, happy, or uplifting, you’ll find that your comments are like a breath of fresh air. Kill people with kindness!

13. Host a Live Q&A Session

Use Facebook Live, Instagram Live, or YouTube to answer questions from your audience in real time, increasing transparency and trust. Try it out, what do you have to lose? Even if only a few show-up, it matters to those few. In the future, the more trust you can build with your audience the better odds you have of selling something to them.

Cathedral Village Community Association hosts their AGM on Facebook using the “Live” function.

14. Launch a Volunteer Spotlight Series

Feature volunteers on your social channels to recognize their efforts and inspire others to get involved. This one should be the first thing you do. Call out your volunteers for being awesome. Put them on a pedestal and tell their story. A simple thank you goes a long way these days, don’t be afraid to post thank you posts regularly.

Very few people have ever said, “Can you stop thanking us so much? We’re thanked enough!” 

15. Use ChatGPT for captions

You have a free tool that can write a caption for you faster than it takes me to type out this sentence. If you aren’t using Chat (or another AI) to write faster then you will be left in the dust.

“But it doesn’t sound like me!” That’s okay, set up your own custom GPT. Input all the information you have about you, your writing style, and anything that’s on the Internet. Then ask that GPT message on behalf of you.

(I DON’T SUGGEST DOING THIS) You can even upload a photo and ask Chat to caption it for you if you’re REALL

Y lazy! But don’t make a habit out of it!

Now you have a virtual assistant that communicates better, more clearly, and faster than you could ever attempt to. Learn how to use Artificial Intelligence, it is a game-changer.

Want to learn more about Chat? Take this

class “Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT” on Coursera, it’s awesome!

16. Create a Social Media Contest

Run a simple contest or giveaway to boost engagement and spread awareness. Contests are one of if not the easiest ways to grow the number of followers on your account. It shows you care about your audience, it shows you’re willing to have fun, and it shows you care about other local companies (if you’re giving away a local company gift card, which we always recommend).

You’d be surprised as to how effective a giveaway can be at getting to a wider audience than you currently communicate with. If you were going to spend $100 on ads, instead buy a $100 GC from a local favourite, and do a like and comment contest. See what happens. I bet you’ll get to more people than you would have by just boosting a post by $100.

17. Build a Private Facebook Group

Create a private group for your supporters where they can connect, share ideas, and get exclusive updates. This one I’m torn on. Yes, Groups are great at connecting people and giving your audience a place to communicate in. Groups tend to have more engagement, and more back in forth in the comments, but you can’t boost anything and you need to actively add people to the group or hope it’s active enough that others find out about it. If you have many people who need help digitally, this could be a solution for you. If you already have a fairly active Facebook page then I wouldn’t build a Group in addition.

18. Use Instagram Stories Highlights

Organize your stories into highlights on your profile to keep key information accessible to new visitors. If you’re sharing A LOT of stories in one day, you can save them all in a story highlight on your Instagram account. Story highlights are anything special you want to show people who’ve come to your profile.

Generally, we tell people to share stories when you have too much content or you don’t think the content is good enough to make a full-blown post about it. At Big Idea Camp, we post stories

19. Post Consistently

Develop a consistent posting schedule to keep your audience engaged and informed. Consistency builds reliability.

Anyone can come up with a fancy video just once, it takes talent and dedication to keep coming up with impactful content. When you’re consistent though, you get better with time. Your consistency is what makes the account into something worth following and staying up to date with.

The next time you hear someone go off on “You have to be authentic!”, kindly remind them that if being authentic means not showing up for work today then I don’t want authenticity, I want consistency! Say you’re going to do something and stick to it. You can create consistency.

20. Engage with Your Audience

Connect with local people or micro-influencers who are passionate about your cause. They may be willing to promote your non-profit for free or at a reduced rate. We never want to pay someone to talk about us. We want to be so remarkable that people innately want to talk about us. But you can’t expect people to show up in your comments if you aren’t willing to show up in theirs!

Talk to people on social media. Comment on posts you like. Give credit where it is due. Say something next to someone you haven’t talked to in a while. A nice comment can go a long way on the Internet.

21. Cross-Promote Across Platforms

Share your content across multiple social media platforms to maximize reach without extra effort. Tailor the message to fit each platform’s audience.

Somewhere in the annals of social media, someone recommended that you need to customize every post on every platform. That person never ran a social media strategy or ever paid someone to run a social strategy. Captions largely don’t matter. The majority of people don’t even see them let alone read them. Stop getting worried about your captions and just copy and paste on the next platform.

Don’t waste time customizing a message that few people will ever come across. Instead, post your content and worry about the next post.