“I don’t have time for social media.”
“I don’t have the money to hire anyone to do our social media marketing.”
“Social media? I wouldn’t even know where to start!”
Do any of these above statements sound familiar?
Well, you aren’t alone. Getting your organization out there on social media can be daunting… but it doesn’t have to be.
Here are 5 quick tips that you can easily implement today to get your company dominating on social media (if you want even more tips, check out our book with over 80+ pages of social media advice for social good companies)…
Hint: All of these 5 tips are things you can do on your own (without the need to hire additional staff/contractors) in just a few minutes a day!
- Quality over quantity – Pick one or two social media platforms you want to be active on
There are SO many social media platforms out there to drive awareness to your organization: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Vine, YouTube… heck, as social media marketers, there are some even we don’t know about!
Knowing that all of these platforms are out there can be intimidating. However, you don’t need to conquer them all. It is our motto at ModMark Group that it is better to have a strong presence on one or two social media platforms, instead of just an “okay” presence on many.
Determine where your target audience is located in the world of social media, and start getting visibility on just those platforms… you can always create more accounts down the line when you want to branch out (and you have the time and resources to do so!).
- Download social media apps to your smartphone or tablet
One way to get involved with social media in a time-effective manner is to multitask! All of the social platforms out there have mobile apps that you can download on your smartphone, so you can access your accounts at any time, from anywhere. Whether you are commuting to work, getting your nails done, or watching tv, you can send out social updates such as Tweets and Instagram photos from your organization… it’s a great way to kill two birds with one stone and raise awareness of your company – without adding anything to your already busy schedule!
- Follow your employees and partners on social media
One way to easily find great content to share with your company’s followers is to follow your own employees, partners, and volunteers on social media.
If you’re a social good organization, chances are your people are uber passionate about the work that you are doing… and they are going to want to share that work with their connections on a regular basis. Why not leverage their social media updates for your organization’s social media strategy?
Creating an account with social media management platforms such as Hootsuite and Tweetdeck are great tools for this. With these platforms, you can organize your social media followers into lists, so you can create a list specifically dedicated to your organization’s people. Each day, you can refer to this list for great content to share with your community….
… Did Sally from accounting just share a photo on Facebook of last night’s fundraising event? Perfect, share away!
- Set up methods to easily curate content daily
Setting up an account with one or several content discovery platforms will allow you effortlessly find newsworthy and trending content relevant to your organization to share daily on social media. With these platforms, you can search and set up profiles for different news categories, so that only tops stories relevant to your unique interests will show up in the tool’s feed/homepage. Many platforms also integrate with your social media platforms for easy sharing! Some of our favorites are Alltop, Scoop.it, and PostPlanner.
We also are big fans of setting up Google Alerts, whereby you can receive daily or weekly email alerts about search engine results of keywords you want to monitor for interesting new content.
- Carve out 10 minutes daily (we prefer the mornings!) strictly dedicated to social media
Now that you are involved with social media, it is important to make sure your presence on your designated platform(s) is consistent.
While you don’t need to spend 24/7 online, we do recommend carving out a few minutes daily of uninterrupted time for social media maintenance. Put a bookmark on your calendar to check-in daily to your social media platforms to schedule out content (this is where platforms like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck come in handy!), respond to your community members, and to engage with other organizations and industry influencers.
We know you’re busy, but carving out 10 minutes a day is a low impact way to make a BIG IMPACT for your organization’s social media strategy!
These are just a few tips of ours to help you get your organization’s feet wet with social media – without breaking the bank or spending 24/7 online. We hope you utilize these tips as a building block to bring awareness of your social enterprise online… and grow from there!
Do you want to know even more tips about how to best use social media as a social good company?
At ModMark Group, we’ve recently found a big need in the social good community to help organizations focus their branding on social media in a time-effective and inexpensive way. This is why we just launched a new ebook, Get Social: The Ultimate Online Marketing Guide for Social Good Companies, to help organizations combat their social media fears once and for all. Get Social includes 80+ pages of all our best practices and tips on how to gain the attention of your community without hiring more staff/interns or spending 24/7 online. We would love for you to check out the book and we hope you find it to be a valuable resource for your organization’s social media strategy.
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Meg’s Bio: Meg is the Co-Founder of ModMark Group – a boutique marketing and PR agency working with social good companies to grow their communities and expand their global impact. “Carpe diem” is her favorite cliche and motto. Meg is a high-energy girl living in Portland, OR that loves traveling, being active, spending time outdoors, and eating (A LOT)! Click here for her social media guide for social good companies.
