Justin G. Roy

Recently, I came across a post by Celeste Wroblewski, vice president of external relations at Donors Forum in Illinois on Getting Attention blog titled Less Is More! – Uncommon Advice from a Nonprofit Social Media Enthusiast.

Wroblewski brings up some very valid points for the use of time in social media but does focus a bit more on the traditional billboard marketing strategy rather than stepping out of your comfort zone, realizing and understanding that today’s consumer is demanding a much different experience with your brand (yes, a nonprofit is a brand). It goes without saying that social media (online branding and marketing) is not a fad, it’s here to stay, and the delay in acceptance only puts your competitors that much further ahead.

Moving into a more donor-based brand, isn’t the purpose to share your mission, open your arms, and educate your different constituents? You do not have to share that you recently got a coffee or saw a plane, but what about opening your gates a little to let folks know what goes on in your office on a daily basis? If something funny happened that day, share it. Let your current and [just as important] potential future donors get to know you as a human.

Let’s not forget (and I am not going to explore it today) the additional search results that come from participation on social networking sites. Can your brand afford not to create additional pages of search results?

I wanted to share my response to the article and ask for your opinion:

My response:
There are some great points brought up in the post above, in regards to sometimes flooding the online waves and I wanted to thank, Celeste for posting!

I do agree on the “rules” or accepted numbers challenge above; there really is not any “proven” magic number on how many blogs, posts, comments, tweets, or what-have-you. When you see interesting posts or information that you think your followers would like to read – post it. If you don’t then do not retweet something or post just to cross it off your list. Everybody’s following and their habits are different than another’s, so experiment and find out what works best for you in regards to building your followers/friends/readers/etc.

I am curious, however, why a nonprofit would go out onto any of these social networks if they are not going to be active? Simply being present is not enough for any online branding and marketing (aka social media) strategy. Would you attend a networking event and sit in the corner, choosing one person (based on the numbers), walk up to them and announce your good news, then walk away?

Any good strategy/plan would understand and touch upon the importance of building your audience (your target market), engaging your audience, building links and traffic to your site, and having a call to action. It’s time to throw away the billboard mentality and truly understand what online marketing and branding (social media) really is.

Time (free or spent) is absolutely an ongoing challenge for any brand (yes, nonprofits are brands too), adding in the question of who is responsible for social media. Some larger brands have resources to assign and most small(er) businesses don’t. When I speak to small business owners, I often remind them that it is just as important to “work” for your own business and don’t loose sight of that. If you allocate 10 hours a week to marketing then fit social media and engagement strategy in there.

I am really curious to hear others thoughts on this, knowing that I may be standing alone in left field. However, just as we embrace the ability to say what we feel we also need to embrace the possibility of standing alone.

What are your thoughts?