Things Nonprofits Should Think About When Using Social Media

Before nonprofits begin using social media, they need to ask the following questions:

• What are your goals for using social media?
  (Example: Is your goal to fundraise, spread the word the organization, or provide information about a campaign?)
• Who are you trying to reach and what social media tools do they use?
• What social media tools do your current subscribers, donors, and volunteers use?
• What are other organizations doing with social media?
• What tools will the organization be using to spread news about the organization? Each time you begin a new campaign or bring awareness about an issue, you need to figure out what tools you will be using.
  

Questions to Ask When Putting Social Media To Action

• Who will be responsible for social media tasks?
  
• Do you have what is needed to complete a task?
  
• What is involved in each form of social media?


• Did you put information in your e-newsletter or website about where the organization can be found on social media sites?
  

Digital Video and YouTube - Do you have the equipment needed to create a video? Who will be making the video? Who will be posting it on YouTube or the organization's website? Will the video be posted on the organization's blog or social networking sites?

Blogging - Will one person or more staff be updating the blog? How often will it be updated? What content will you include?

Social Networking Sites and Groups - Who will be responsible for creating and monitoring the organization's page? How will you decide who to approve as a friend? How often will you post information to the group? How often will you read comments and respond to them?

Blog Outreach - Who will be looking for blogs to see what people are writing about the organization and related issues? Will you connect to these bloggers by writing comments on blog entries? Are you going to keep track of how many blogs mention the organization or write about a campaign?

Social Bookmarking - How many people bookmarked a certain item? What tags were used? Who will be monitoring social bookmarking sites?

Evaluation Questions

• What tools worked and what did not work?
  
• What would you do differently?
  
• Did you raise money and how much did you raise?


• Did you gain new supporters?
  
• Are people viewing videos?
  
• Are people subscribing to the blog's feed or writing comments?
  
• What are people saying about the organization or mission?
  
• What topics are people interested in?