Social media is enabling millions of people worldwide to discuss top trends, their favorite social causes, products they’d recommend to a friend and more with just one click of a button. With limited budgets and small teams, nonprofits can create communications strategies that rely heavily on social media to effectively mobilize the public and inspire change.
One way to amplify your organization’s social channels is by participating in social listening, or tracking sentiment in real-time.
To break it down, there are two steps you should take:
- Step 1: Monitor social media channels for mentions of your organization and keywords related to your nonprofit.
- Step 2: Analyze the information and put what you learn into action. This could be as simple as engaging with your audience through likes and shares or implementing a new campaign.
Social listening is all about seeing the grand picture, so you can identify trends and better understand your target audience. But how can nonprofits use social listening and where should they start? Social listening tools such as Brandwatch, Buzzsumo and Sprout Social can be used to check mentions of your brand, relevant keywords and direct feedback through tags and DMs. These services are not free, but most offer different packages depending on needs. If you cannot afford a specialized tool, you can still conduct social listening for free through resources such as TweetDeck and setting up Google Alerts.
Let’s take a deeper dive into how social listening can help your organization achieve its goals.
Reputation Management
It’s important to know what your audience is talking about. Setting up monitoring alerts for your name and hashtag as well as topics you care about allows you to review all conversations in real-time. Monitoring alerts can be set up within your social listening tool’s dashboard. If you do not have a tool, then you can conduct daily monitoring sweeps within each social platform your organization uses. When examining results, observe and take note of negative and positive mentions. You should take advantage of both types of mentions – sharing and interacting with positive sentiments reinforces your organization’s benefit, while negative or constructive mentions should be addressed privately and directly to show that you care. Exceed the public’s expectations by going above and beyond.
Community Management
Nonprofits can use what they learn from social listening to build relationships with their communities. According to Sprout Social, 65% of consumers feel more connected to brands that have a robust social presence. Audiences want to feel as if there’s a face behind the company. This can be done through consistently posting interactive content and engaging with followers to form a bond. Doing so will increase audience sizes, raise awareness of your cause, and can position you as a key thought leader.
Influencer Identification
Social listening can help you determine which organizations and people to interact with and monitor. Knowing the key players, or influencers, within your sector will help you understand who shares your mission. Utilizing influencers will allow your nonprofit to reach a wider audience through trustworthy, authentic voices, which can be elevated across social media platforms. (If you’re interested, our team has also shared tips on how to use influencers effectively.)
Fundraising
Securing funding is essential for nonprofits. Social listening can help your organization identify philanthropists interested in your mission. When setting up your social monitoring alerts, it may be useful to include terms such as “grants” or “giving.” Once you identify potential donors, you’ll be ready to reach out them with info about your organization and its work.
