Social Media and Nonprofits

By: Haleigh Tomasek

What is Social Media?● Forms of electronic communication (as Web sites for social networking and microblogging)

through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal

messages, and other content (as videos) (Merriam Webster)

● Social networks allow users to build and maintain relationships with others. Blogs allow

users to easily publish and share content, similar to a personal journal.

● Microblogging allows users to post short messages- typically 140 characters or less.

● Video sharing allows users to post videos for others to watch and share.

● Photo sharing allows users to publically share photos.

● Bookmarking allows users to share sites of interest with others.

● Location services allow users to share their whereabouts with others.

● For social media specifically there are millions of people who interact. Facebook has 500

million users and 50% of these users log in daily. Twitter users send out more than 65

million tweets a day. More than 126 million blogs are on the Internet.

What are Nonprofit Organizations

● A nonprofit organization is an organization that uses revenues to achieve goals

instead of dividends or profits.

● Nonprofits are typically organizations that have purpose and good will behind

them.

● Although they are not driven by money for these organizations, employees still

need to pay their bills. This is one of the reasons that notoriety for the

organizations is important.

● Some of the most famous nonprofit organizations are National Public Radio

(NPR), United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF),

Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, American Red Cross and American

Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).

Ten Key Benefits of Social Media for Nonprofits

1. Learn what your supporters are saying and sharing about your organization.

2. Drive traffic to your various web properties—website, blog, Facebook, etc.

3. Improve results on search engine result pages with keyword rich content.

4. Drive visitors to online donation pages.

5. Enable supporters to distribute messages about your organization through their

social web presence.

Ten Key Benefits of Social Media for Nonprofits

6. Empower your most passionate and influential supporters to promote your

organization.

7. Enable grassroots movements in real-time and rapidly respond to unforeseen

events.

8. Humanize your organization by not limiting communications to traditional methods

or messages.

9. Acquire new contacts and build your email housefile.

10. Increase trust and loyalty from your supporters by allowing them to share their

voice through feedback forums.

Susan G. Komen and Social Media

● Key terms-“Wear pink,” “Loved ones,” “Resentment,” “Walk and runs,”

“Early detection,” “Diagnosis,” “Treatments,” and “Fundraising.”

● There were 1,351,823 breast-cancer related tweets during BCAM (Breast

Cancer Awareness Month) by 797,827 unique Twitter users.

● Compared to pre-BCAM levels, the tweets spiked dramatically the first

few days, with a peak of 125,278 on October 1st.

● There was an average of 1.69 BCAM-related tweets per user made during

the month.

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge● Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or ALS is commonly referred to as Lou Gehrig’s

disease, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the

brain and the spinal cord.

● The ALS ice bucket challenge called for participants to dump a bucket full of ice

and water on themselves or have someone do it for them and post a video of it on

their social media pages. This act gave them the allowance of nominating three

people to do the challenge and enticed everyone to donate to the cause. Those

nominated had 24 hours to complete the challenge and gave them the opportunity

to nominate three people as well. Those who do not accept the challenge are

supposed to pay $100, those who accept the challenge pay a less amount.

● After millions participated in the social media craze, ALS walked away with more

than $100 million in donations.

American Red Cross● The American Red-Cross provides disaster relief worldwide.

● They pioneered creative ways of obtaining donations such as by text messaging.

● By beginning with text messaging in 2009, the received nearly $4 million in

donations.

● With the devistation in Haiti, the American Red-Cross decided to use their text

message strategy but add social media.

● Tweets were tracked with the key words of Haiti and Red Cross and within 48

hours there were 2.3 million tweets relevant to these two terms.

● The simple text of “Haiti,” led to nearly $3 million in donations within 24 hours.

By the following week, they hit $21 million. In the end it was around $30 million

in donations to help those affected by the natural disaster

Foundation Abbe Pierre● A French based charity named after a priest who devoted his life to getting

people off the street and finding them a decent home.

● They joined Facebook in 2010 and built up a fan base of 7,000 in their

first year, but in the last 6 months they have increased this by over

200,000 fans and gathered a further 50,000 signatures on their Facebook

petition.

● The organization was spending $1 per signed petition and, though a

signed Facebook petition, spent 4X less plus built a very visible support

network they could turn to again.

Helping Hands

● A local affiliate of the Oregon Food Bank sponsored a Thanksgiving fun run, Give N’ Gobble.

● The campaign goals were to increase overall donations, registered runners, volunteers and awareness in

the Portland metro area.

● The race director hired Bonfire Social Media to create a search optimized blog, Twitter and Facebook

pages.

● The blog served as a platform for race news, interviews, photos and easy race registration.

● Donations increased by almost 50% versus the previous year; runners increased by over 25%; volunteers

increased 2X; web traffic increased 76%; pages indexed by search engines increased by 150%.

World Wildlife Foundation● Used social media to promote Earth Hour, an event to generate awareness of wildlife conservation and endangered species.

● Their YouTube channel ranked 9th for most subscribed non-profit organization).

● WWF also had a Facebook group which they used to engage the public in meaningful discussions and to raise awareness about their

efforts.

● When WWF official Earth Hour began, the video was viewed every 4 seconds, and the topic appeared 56.1 million times in Google

within a 24 hour time span.

● Earth Hour (#Earthhour) was amongst the top three Twitter trends. Their Earth Hour Canada group on Facebook had more than 100,

000 people participating.

● They even created a Facebook application that supporters could use to remind their friends to turn off the lights.

● This was significant awareness all gained as Earned Media through social media, at a fraction of the cost if it had been Paid Media.

Research Questions

· What methods did nonprofit organizations use before social media?

· What particular nonprofits have lead successful social media campaigns to spread

awareness?

· What social media platform did they use to compile their data for the measured

success in social media?

Data Research Methods

● BioMed Central- Susan G Komen

● Online Library Resources

● Google Scholar

● Nonprofits Social Media Pages

Limitations

● Access to Twitter Analytics

● Facebook Insights

● Reliance on other people’s data for

information

Limitations

● Updated financial information

● How much current or recent campaigns have earned the organization

Limitations

● Source of new followers

● Via WOM, Media, Etc.

Future Research Questions

● How many followers has the nonprofit organization gained

from its latest campaign?

● How did the followers hear of the nonprofit organization?

● What were the most impactful messages or themes on the

social media pages?

Conclusion● Social Media is a free tool that is very beneficial for nonprofit

organizations

● Clever campaigns can turn into a trend that becomes very

profitable

● Time invested in social media is a great return on investment

● Great way to spread awareness and inform the public

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