IdealWare: Nonprofit Social Media Success Toolkit

Six sessions, every Tuesday 1:00 – 2:30 PM Eastern, September 2 – October 7

[WVNPA Members receive a $25 discount. Email lauralee@dev.wvnpa.org for details.]

What does your social media presence say about you? Are you able to convert “likes” into donations and activism? Do you know what’s OK for your staff and community to post? Even if you have a presence on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest and are diligently working with blogs, photos, and videos to tell your story, bringing all these elements and channels together can be a challenge.

Ready to step beyond the basics? This class is for you. Over six trainings we’ll show you not just how to be on social media, but how to be successful on social media. We’ll explore using social media for branding, deep engagement, and integrated campaigns, and discuss how to measure your social media impact. We’ll also walk you through creating a social media policy step-by-step.

Participants will:

• Create and reinforce their organizations’ brands using social media.
• Learn about strategies for engaging supporters and motivating them to act.
• Learn how social media tools can work together to create an integrated campaign that promotes brands and causes through multiple channels.
• Begin the process of creating a social media policy for their organizations.
• Discover tools to measure social media efforts, and learn to make this task effective and manageable.
• Design a social media strategy for their organizations.

The six 90-minute sessions will run Tuesdays through September and October at 1 PM Eastern as follows:

Week 1 – Branding Through Social Media
September 2

We’ll kick off the course with the concept of branding through the lens of social media and take a detailed look at creating, refining, and managing your brand message and personality through social media. This session will explore how what you say and how you say it affects the impression your organization makes.

Week 2 – Getting Beyond the Like: Using Social Media to Cultivate Deeper Commitment
September 9

People “like” you on Facebook, but what is that actually doing to support your organization’s bottom line? We’ll talk critically about how to move constituents up the ladder of engagement from a simple “like” to tangible results, like signing petitions, attending events, joining movements, and even donating. Armed with case studies, industry research, and plain old common sense and experience, we’ll work together to recalibrate our social media mindsets to provide more value and cultivate deeper commitments.

Week 3 – Integrating Social Media Channels (and Other Communications)
September 16

Our communications don’t exist in a vacuum. We need to consider not only how our different social media channels work together, but how our messaging stays consistent across other online channels—like email and websites—as well as offline channels like direct mail, general press, and advertisements. Which channels make sense to communicate what kind of messages, or to encourage action? We’ll provide a decision-making structure to help you define what makes sense for you, and a model to articulate your own communications strategy.

Week 4 – Getting Started with Social Media Fundraising
September 23

Nonprofits may be using social media, but how do they use it for fundraising? We’ll outline how social media can integrate with your existing fundraising efforts or work on its own. We’ll look at a few organizations that have had success fundraising through social media, and outline how you can apply those lessons to your own outreach.

Week 5 – Measuring Your Social Media Efforts
September 30

You may have a Facebook, blog, Twitter account, and YouTube channel, but are they really working? Are they worth the time you’re putting in, and how do you know? We’ll walk through a framework of Views, Followers, Engagement, and Conversion and look at the tools that can help you gather the data, analyze your strategy, strengthen what works, and change what doesn’t.

Week 6 – Creating a Social Media Policy
October 7

Your social media channels are your organization’s public voice. As transparency and two-way conversations become the norm, many organizations are racing to develop social media policies that govern who does what, what’s OK to say, and how to handle the sticky situations. Even more than simply legislating these details, the process of creating such a policy can help your organization engage in important discussions that will mature your culture and better position you to take advantage of tools and opportunities. We’ll explore why the process (not just the product) is so important, how to make these conversations productive and strategic, and why a social media policy is an important milestone of digital maturity.

You’ll also have additional coursework and weekly homework assignments.

Office Hours

Each Friday during the training at 1 PM Eastern, you have the option to join us for one-hour sessions with one of the course presenters to ask questions and get assistance with your social media strategy.