How to execute a smooth, effective social media campaign

With tight budgets and limited bandwidth, planning a social media campaign for your nonprofit may seem like a daunting task. But it doesn’t have to be! Use these tips to organize the process and ensure that your campaign runs smoothly and is as effective at meeting your organizational goals as possible.

Define measurable goals and key performance indicators (KPIs).

How do you define a goal and what are some of the goals you should be thinking about? Here are some examples.

• • Awareness: Are you aiming to grow your Twitter following, drive website traffic, or get engagement around your content?
  • Lead Generation: With your campaign, do you want to drive sign-ups to your email list?
  • Supporter/Donor activation: Are you looking to drive donations for a specific program or get signatures for a petition?

Make sure to identify the right KPIs that will help contribute to your goal(s). For example, if one goal of your campaign is to build awareness by growing your Twitter following, then monitor followers gained, or cost-per-follower. If you are looking to boost sign-ups to your email list, track cost-per-acquisition.

If everyone on your team is on the same page and understands exactly what you’re trying to accomplish, and how, you can ensure that your campaign is marked for success. Having a conversation about goals will also help your team determine the right message you want to communicate to your audience.

Assign one person to manage the project, own the message, and delegate tasks.

Who’s in charge of email communications? Who’s developing all of the social media content? Do you know who is creating graphics and other creative assets? You’ll save yourself boatloads of time, headaches, and hair-pulling if everyone who is executing tasks related to the campaign knows exactly what s/he is doing, when their deliverables are due, and what is needed to make the campaign great. Empower one person to lead the ship, assign all of the tasks, and ensure that each team member is on track to get everything done well in advance of your launch date. Organization is key!

Need to communicate responsibilities to the team? Put together a quick communications plan by defining some of the below.

• Detail the goals and KPIs. This way, each team member can reference a list of goals and KPIs whenever they want.
• Define the target audience. For example, potential donors, California-based, women 44-55, HHI $250K+
• Cover the key messaging points. These might include headlines, ideal audience takeaways, or calls to action.
• Provide a campaign schedule. Here, you can detail team responsibilities and deadlines.
• Share visuals. What visuals will you share as part of the campaign? You can ensure that all team members have access by creating a shared folder with all assets cut to spec.
• Offer tracked links. Make sure each member of your team knows to track links so you can best measure your results and find optimization opportunities. What is UTM tracking and why should you use it? This should convince you.

Don’t be too cool for tools.

Do yourself – and your future self – a favor and check out some of the truly useful tools that will make it generally easier to live your life and do your job.

Need some suggestions to get started? I’ve got you covered. Many of the below applications offer free trials, so go ahead and give them a shot!  

Project Management

To manage and assign tasks, communicate needs, and manage your project, use Asana or Wrike. Need some cheap/free alternatives? Check out this list of free task management software.

Collaborative Documents

To collaboratively manage your editorial calendar, plan content, and schedule social media, try Sprout or Hootsuite. Alternative: Google Docs.

Get Creativity Going

To talk it out, have creative brainstorms, and share inspiration, use Slack. Alternatives: None that even remotely compare. Sorry. Don’t believe me? Ask the LA Times.

It’s never too late to learn something new!

Want to learn more about running a social media campaign for your nonprofit? Sign up for our email newsletter. Need someone to manage your organization’s social media and help you develop a strategy? Get in touch.

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