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Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

3 Ways for Your Nonprofit to Become More Likeable on Social Media

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“Likeable” means friendly, thoughtful, generous, human. “Likeable” also means something that people will mark like on Facebook.  Nonprofit organizations need to be likeable, in both senses. 

Why must nonprofits be likeable online?  We have known for a long time that word of mouth defines who we are.  In the age of social media, a friend’s recommendation can travel farther–and faster–than ever before.  To keep on getting clients, Board members, volunteers, and donors,  we need friends who will speak up for us.

Dave Kerpen’s book Likeable Social Media  appeared in 2010 with a bold message: the same qualities that make us likeable in real life can help our organizations win likes on Facebook.  We don’t have to be Mad Men or social media gurus.  We just need to think like the people we are trying to attract and give them what need.

In 2013, many of us are still trying to master social media.  Here are three ways to read Kerpen’s book to make your organization more likeable.

  1. For education.  Are you on social media but not sure why, or what to do with it? Read the Introduction, then skip to the Appendix for a smart overview of the various social media. Then read the book, starting with Chapter 1 but going on to the chapters that interest you most.
  2. For inspiration.  Do you sometimes feel like your Facebook posts are the same old same old?  Are you tweeting more and enjoying it less?  Look for some of the stories Kerpen tells about everybody from Omaha Steaks to the Stride Rite Foundation.  Think. “How can we do something like that?”
  3. For action.  Maybe you get it about likeability, engaging your audience, and attracting support and respect by giving information away.  But how can you start moving your nonprofit in the right direction?  I suggest making the Action Items at the end of each chapter into your social media workplan.

“Whether your organization is already deeply engaged with its customers or is far from it, the process of becoming further involved starts with one person, and one action.”  -Dave Kerpen  You are that person.  Read this book and take your first step.

 

How Do You Say “Marketing” In Nonprofit?

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Marketing.  It sounds so commercial, doesn’t it?  But don’t be put off by the term.  Your nonprofit organization can steal marketing secrets and use them for a good cause.

Handheld translatorMarketing  is business-speak for “communications with a purpose.”  Your purpose may be to improve public health, enhance democracy, end hunger or homelessness, or enhance people’s lives through the arts.  Whatever it is, s long as you tailor your communications to a purpose, you’re doing marketing, and you can look for ways to do it better.

Strategy means keeping your purpose in mind and letting it direct your activities and the way you use your time.  It means knowing how you will approach your goal and not making it all up on the fly.

So what is marketing strategy? For businesses, the term means:

An organization’s strategy that combines all of its marketing goals into one comprehensive plan. A good marketing strategy should be drawn from market research and focus on the right product mix in order to achieve the maximum profit potential and sustain the business.

How do we say that in nonprofit?

  • Market research for nonprofits is however you get to know and love your audience. Depending on your organization. your research could be hiring an outside professional to conduct surveys and focus groups–or going through your files and asking your staff and Board members what they know.
  • Product mix is the services and benefits you offer.  When you know and love your audience, you figure out what they need.
  • Instead of profit, you aim to maximize good outcomes for the people you serve.  You can only do that if they know about your services and use them.
  • But you still need to sustain the business.  And unlike a for-profit business, you can’t count on the people who use your services to pay for them.  So, “sustaining the business” means raising funds from donors, foundations, corporations, and government, or through events or sales, to pay for what you really are “in business” to do: your mission.

Let’s put it all together.  When you develop a marketing strategy, you are making a commitment.  You are promising that everyone inside your organization will know whom you are trying to serve, what will help them, how you are providing that help, and what difference it makes.  The people who use your services and the people and institutions that pay for them will know that too.  All your communications will help you convey that message, and your programs will help you make it reality.

Make that commitment and keep to it.  That’s how you say “marketing” in nonprofit.

Nonprofits, Start with the Experts Who Speak Your Language

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So you’ve decided your nonprofit organization needs to improve its communications.  You go online looking for advice.  What do you find?  Most of what’s written about communications (outside of this blog!) is aimed at for-profit businesses.  And there’s a lot of it.  How do you sort through the advice available to find what you can use right away?

Here’s the secret: start with the experts who speak your language.

Speak the same language

Speak the same language

You’ll find there are three kinds of articles about marketing and communications:

  1. Some are written for businesses but could equally well apply to nonprofits, with just a little translation.
  2. Some articles assume that you’re in business to make money and that all your decisions (including what you do and whom you serve) will change as the market changes.  Reading these articles is like looking at yourself in a distorting mirror.  It will take time and effort to make a picture you can recognize, let alone gain advice you can use.
  3. Some articles are entirely concerned with for-profit business problems and solutions.

Discard the #3’s.  File the #2’s for later.  Start with the #1’s.

What does it sound like when a communications pro speaks your language?  For example, take a look at Ken Mueller’s article “The Importance of Telling and Retelling Your Story.”  It makes its point in straightforward English, without a lot of jargon: you need to make sure the image people have of your organization is the image you’d like them to have.

This is why it’s important for a business to tell its story online. And to keep telling it. Not only does it tell people who you are, but it also corrects misinformation and tells them who you aren’t. In fact, every blog post, every status update, every photo, and so on, is a part of telling your story.

Just insert “nonprofit” for “business,” and you’ll hear advice that applies to you.  Look for more advice like that.  It will save you time and grief.

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