Should your organization invest in social media marketing?

Should your organization invest in social media marketing?

I want to attempt to answer the question for any nonprofit leader or marketing director out there who is wondering- Why should we be investing in social media marketing?

I’ll illustrate with a story that happened to me a couple months ago. I was at an event and noticed an individual I’d worked with some years back. I went over to him with the idea of asking if his company needed any marketing. Before I could even get to hello, he said, “oh, I have a client to send your way!” He ended up sending us quite a significant amount of work since then. He knew about us, he had been happy with our work – but until there was a visual reconnection, we were not on his mind!

Not that long ago, nonprofit marketers and fundraisers had to rely solely on extremely inefficient methods to remain at the top of their stakeholder’s minds; phone calls, which are tedious and time consuming; print ads or billboards, which are expensive and time-limited; or spammy and irritating email campaigns, for example. The popularity of social media has given us a gift; a relatively inexpensive way to potentially reach thousands upon thousands of people by providing them with relevant, interesting content that feels more like engagement and less like advertising. So if you are not on social media, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to visually and emotionally connect with your target audience in a way that allows you to be at the ‘top of their minds.’

The ROI of social media is very difficult to measure, which is one of the reasons many organizations shy away from even attempting it or give up after only a few months. We measure social media results in terms of engagement, not dollars; but by running a multi-channel marketing strategy simultaneously, you can actually put a dollar value on your efforts.

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