How To Get Nonprofit Leaders “On Board” with Social Media

In order for nonprofits to be successful with using social media it is essential to get buy in from leadership.  This continues to be a challenge for many nonprofits.  We had a great conversation about this topic last week during nonprofit talk (#nptalk), which is a weekly Twitter Chat. Below is a list of 5 ideas discussed during the chat:

1.    Just do it – The idea of do it now ask for permission or forgiveness later was a strong theme among participants. Many nonprofit professionals felt that their organization would never get anywhere with social media if they tried to get permission first. The question of whether this was the best way to approach social media was answered in several ways: Depends on the organization, size, leadership, and acceptance. It may be easier to implement “just do it” at small, responsive nonprofit organizations that are used to rapid change. One comment resonated that while social media may be “free”, it is an expenditure of organization resources (time). If you just go ahead and do it, do you set up the nonprofit with unrealistic expectations of what amount of time and energy is required to truly be successful?

2.    Listen first to what is being said about the organization and collecting sites and comments people are making present to management. Once the management is aware that their nonprofit is being talked about already in social media space you can ask them to join in on their own conversation. This is a great approach if there are people having conversations about your nonprofit. If there is not much conversation going on around your nonprofit you may have trouble making the case. One option would be to do research on how other nonprofits are using social media, what types of successes have they seen and how could that translate to your organization. Also look at conversation about topics that relate to your nonprofit because those are potential communities your nonprofit could join. Focus on results; nonprofit leaders will turn into believers if they see positive case studies from other organizations. When putting together a social media plan for an organization one of the first things I do is to listen and find out what is being said and where the conversations are happening. This is a key to social media success.

3.    Educate top-tier execs about social media. Stress that social media is a way to engage stakeholders, build trust, increase donations (in the long term) and create open feedback loops to increase impact!  To get buy in, the key is to communicate value. With limited resources, time is money. Prove social media is worth the time. I find this to be a staple of the work I do while consulting for nonprofit organizations. I spend a fair amount of my time educating leadership about social media. When a nonprofit brings me in to present the case for social media to a board of directors or other leaders in the organization the results are excellent. Often times the resistance to social media is the unknown and having a professional educate people of that unknown can overcome that doubt.

4.    Take baby steps. Start slow and as you get results present them to leadership. As the results show success leadership will get excited and ask for more. Strategy and plans are great but sometimes you just need to play with social media to overcome organizational fear. I believe taking baby steps is ok, but I do not necessarily think that a nonprofit should simply play with social media without some type of plan. In order to be successful with social media the need to have goals, objectives and a well thought out marketing plan is essential. Would we tell a fortune 500 company to simply play with a tool to see if it fits? Probably not. Nonprofits need to take social media seriously and the attitude of simply playing around does not do that.

5.    Start with a plan and move forward in a strategic way. Include in your plan why you want to use social media, what your objectives are and what you hope to accomplish. Social media is a major form of communication and without a plan and policies in place an organization could potentially find itself in trouble fast. There is a lot of room to make errors and those errors will be public and could be damaging. I am a huge advocate of setting a strategy and plan first before entering in social media for organizations. Of course the strategy has to be fluid and allow for change that will come as things get moving, but having a picture of what you want to accomplish and how you will do that is very important.

The ideas presented above all have merit and depending on your organization may help you to get leadership to buy into using social media to promote the organization. The most important thing is to get the leadership on board and moving forward with social media. We are in a revolution of how messages are delivered and received; the nonprofits and businesses that embrace this change will be the leaders in this new economy. Will you be part of that leadership group? I hope so.

Related posts:

1. Nonprofit Tips for Building Community through Social Media-Please Join the Conversation