How to Win at Social Media for Nonprofits
Building a community on social media without ripping your hair out!
“How do we make a TikTok?” “How do we go viral?!” “Do we need to dance to get followers?”
I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve heard this during consulting calls. Organizations are eager to get the word out about their work, connect with their community, and drive engagement, but have no idea how to actually do that. Or they’ve gone viral once and have been unable to keep that engagement high or translate that moment into anything more than fleeting views.
Let’s discuss how to create an engagement funnel that turns scrolling strangers into engaged followers into true supporters. This starts by understanding that social media is not the final step, but the first one. Our goal is to build reach and trust on socials. Conversion happens on a website, email list, or donation page (more on that in coming weeks!)
Creating the Funnel
Awareness
Goal
Awareness is the top of the funnel. We want to get in front of new eyes that fit our idea supporter profile. We need to think about who we want to reach and attempt to meet them where they are.
Tactics
Short form video does really well for engagement. If you’ve ever seen anything go viral, nine times out of ten it was a short form video that grabs your attention. These often live on Instagram Reels, Youtube Shorts, and Tiktoks.
Many utilize trending audio and hashtags. If you’ve seen videos all with the same sound playing, that’s a form of trending audio. Because the song/sound is popular or action being taken is popular at the moment, it’s prioritized by the algorithm.
Another way to get increased viewership is through advertising. There are typically two different forms of advertising on social media: creator collaborations and paid ads. Creator collaborations would mean reaching out to a creator that has a larger audience than you (also important that they have the type of follower that you are seeking). You would pay them to make a post of their own promoting your organization or to share a post that you’ve made. Paid ads are what they sound like. You pay the platform to boost your content in the hope of higher engagement.
Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)
Reach and/or Views: How many people saw your content
Impressions: How many people engaged with your content (clicked a link, sent it to a friend, commented, or liked it)
Follower Growth Rate: How many more followers have you gotten over a certain time period (usually 30 days)
Interest
Goal
Convert people from passive viewers into scrollers. We are trying to move from the first view of your content to a second view and a follow.
Tactics
Interest Content requires deeper engagement than your awareness content. There are multiple examples of things that you can try that resonate with viewers that can convert them into followers. Educational Carousels are multipage forms of content that tell a story. These posts keep people scrolling and engaged. Behind the scenes content shows the making of an event, a presentation, a program, etc. This brings the viewer into the process and gets them engaged with the story behind the end product. Founder/team posts put a face to the work. Rather than just seeing the organization as an entity, followers get to see and engage with the people behind the work. Polls and questions give a chance to create a feedback loop and ways for followers to actually engage directly.
Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)
Follows: Amount of new followers you are getting.
Profile Visits: How many people are clicking on your profile page after seeing your content.
Save Rate: How many people are saving your posts so that they can revisit.
Story Replies: How many people are writing back to you and engaging with your work.
Engagement
Goal
Engagement is where we move followers from just watching to being an active participant in our work. This is the start of building relationships that create actual partners instead of just followers.
Tactics
Engagement requires a deeper level of connection. Tactics can include comment prompting questions that get your followers thinking and engaging, user generated content where followers create content based on your work to spread the story, and live sessions and streams where you can communicate directly with your followers.
Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)
Engagement Rate: Amount of people commenting, replying, or sharing your content
Comments per Post: Amount of followers
Shares: Amount of people sharing your work
Direct Messages: Private messages sent to you
Conversion
Goal
This is the point through which we move followers out of just social media interaction to actual conversions off-platform.
Tactics
There are many tools to make conversion easy for organizations. Using a link in bio funnel is a great way to have multiple links available for followers to check out. You can use pinned posts to make sure your lead magnet posts are at the top of your page at all times. Use link stickers in your stories to send people to your email list.
Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)
Clickthrough Rate: Rate of that measures what percentage of people clicked a link that saw one.
Email signups: Email signups. You can also track which ones came directly from social media.
Donations from link: You can track which donations were driven by links
Advocacy
Goal
This is the final step in social media conversion. You’ve turned followers into offline supporters. Now you are bringing them back to socials to amplify and share the message of your organization.
Tactics
There are many ways to get strong supporters involved. Provide them with shareable graphics and quote cards to be able to use for their own social media. Create an ambassador program that gives them the tools to be able to share the mission of your organization or do peer to peer fundraising. Utilize tag a friend prompts to get supporters to share directly with their networks.
Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)
Shares per Post: Amount of time your post has been shared privately
Tags and Mentions: Your screen name has been added to a post, story, or comment. This will notify you that someone is speaking to or about you.
Referral Traffic: Visits to your page driven by external sources. You can track this in analytics.
What to Post and Where?
Every post you make should have an underlying reason. You’re not sharing a post. You are trying to convince the reader/watcher to do something. Therefore, all of your posts should map to one of four content pillars. This keeps the feed varied without losing focus.
1. Educate — explain a problem, share a stat, teach a skill.
2. Inspire — stories of impact, before/after, testimonials.
3. Connect — behind-the-scenes, team spotlights, ask questions.
4. Convert — campaign launches, deadlines, direct asks.
Make sure you mix up the posts so that you can see what resonates with your organization. Not every follower base operates the same but here’s an introductory ratio to try: 40% Educate / 25% Inspire / 25% Connect / 10% Convert.
Keep testing what posts work best with your followers. Double down on the successful types and make less of the ones that get less reaction.
Now that we know what to post, let’s talk about where to do it. There are six major networks that you can post to develop social media networks. You don’t have to do all of them, although it’s a good idea to at least secure the handles so people cannot impersonate you. Start with platforms that naturally lend themselves to your work and keep developing from there.
Instagram is built for visual storytelling. This was originally a picture-based app, but in recent times has pivoted strongly to video. You can create reels (short form video) to increase your reach, and post on your story (pictures and videos that have 24 hour lives before they get deleted).
Tiktok is the most rapidly growing social media network. A video based app, Tiktok is good for discovery and developing a brand voice. It’s especially popular among young people, so if you are trying to reach 18-35 year olds, Tiktok is the place to be.
LinkedIn is the professional social media network. The purpose of this site is B2B (business to business) connection, partnership building and thought partnership.
Facebook is the social network that started it all. It skews older demographically but is still the most used social media network. There are community groups to activate, strong event promotion, and many potential donors and peer to peer fundraising opportunities.
Twitter/X & Bluesky are not the same social network but operate very similarly. Bluesky was created by the creator of Twitter/X after it was sold to Elon Musk. There was a mass exodus from Twitter as it became more toxic to Bluesky. Both are text based apps that operate similarly, but the user bases are very different. Twitter/X has a much larger user base but Bluesky has a much more aligned user base to progressive groups.
As far as posting frequency, the overall advice is whatever fits your capacity. The suggestions below are for organizations that have a social media consultant or comms team that can truly focus on increasing output. But good content beats slop every time! Work on creating engaging content and it will increase your reach much faster than blindly following trends and posting for the sake of posting.
Instagram: 1-3 feed posts/week + daily Stories
TikTok: 2-5 posts/week
LinkedIn: 1-3 posts/week
Facebook: 1-3 posts/week + 1 community thread
Twitter/X/Bluesky: 5-10 posts/week
To Be the Best, You Gotta Test!
In order to figure out what is working and what isn’t, you have to set up systems to be able to track. Run the following reports and you’ll be a well-oiled machine in no time.
Daily: respond to comments and DMs within 4 hours.
Weekly: review top 3 and bottom 3 posts; document why.
Monthly: report on follower growth, engagement rate, click-through, and email signups attributed to social.
Quarterly: full content audit; retire underperforming pillars; double down on winners.