Your nonprofit might have a great social media following, or a not-so-great one. No matter what “social situation” your nonprofit finds itself in, you can grow your social media presence significantly by enlisting social ambassadors.
Who can be your social ambassadors? Well, they can be your staff, your volunteers, your corporate partners, your most avid social media fans… even donors. You must rely on the goodness in the hearts of people inside and outside your organization. The key is to make it easy for these people you appoint as your ambassadors to share your social content with their own networks — greatly expanding your social reach.
First, look in-house. It could be as simple as encouraging your staff to share your posts whenever you post. Come up with some original posts they can easily share — a good idea is to build a shared document schedule full of tweets, or Facebook/LinkedIn/Instagram posts (don’t forget to tag partners where appropriate and use hashtags), that they can easily copy and paste into their social accounts. You don’t want to make this a chore for them; you know how busy they are!
Another source of social ambassadors can be your social media super-fans. These are the people who already frequently like or share your posts, and who comment on them. Identify these people, and start an outreach program. Thank them for their engagement, and tell them that they can make a real impact by becoming one of your nonprofit’s official social ambassadors. Maybe you can even name them on your website, or tag them to make them famous in your community!
Then, there are your most dedicated constituents: your volunteers. These are people who are already donating their time and energy to your cause. It’s not a great leap for them to extend that spirit into social media.
Maybe you have some local or national celebrities who are aligned with your cause. You could also approach them to be your social ambassadors. Many of them are happy to help charities by exposing them to their substantial audiences.
To incentivize your social ambassadors, have a contest for whoever gets the most likes and shares in a given month. Give that person an award of some kind — maybe even a donation in their name from one of your sponsors.
Another idea: Once you have your ambassadors in place, consider having an online conference where you gather all of your ambassadors and talk about way that can boost your nonprofit’s social profile. Some of your ambassadors are likely social media superstars, and might have great ideas you’d never think of on your own. Remember, social media success is not a science; a lot of it revolves around luck, and all of it revolves around great ideas.
In today’s cluttered social media landscape, you need all of the help you can get to be seen and heard. Social ambassadors can provide a huge boost to your profile(s)!