Using Digital Storytelling for Non-Profit Social Media
Using Digital Storytelling for Non-Profit Social Media
Does your organization use social media as part of your communication strategy? If you do, then you already know how tricky it can be to get it right and get results. If you don’t, you’re missing out on a great opportunity to connect and interact with audiences who want to be a part of what you do.
Social Media has become an essential part of the marketing toolkit for non-profit organizations. Learning how to get the most out of your social media messaging takes a good strategy, careful planning, and skillful execution. Smart non-profits use great digital storytelling to gain an advantage in the competition for views, likes, and shares.
How can you get stories to tell and how do you make sure you’re telling them well?
How do you plan and schedule an effective social media program and what tools do you need?
How do you track social media performance and get better over time?
Read on to find out!
Simple Story Finding and Great Storytelling: Some Good Advice from Julia Campbell
Julia Campbell is one of the most trusted and recognized names in the world on nonprofit marketing. So, when she gives advice on how to use social media to tell stories that amplify an organization’s message—we listen.
A few of Campbell’s most important pointers are:
1. Understand where social media fits in your organization’s broader communication
strategy.
2. Create a culture of storytelling to make sure you always have plenty of great stories
to tell.
3. Get better results by telling the right stories the right way.
Understanding Where Social Media Fits Into Your Storytelling Strategy
One of the problems that a lot of nonprofits have with social media is that there are just too many platforms to keep up with. If you don’t have a strategy to stick to, your organization can quickly find itself spread too thin and pulled in too many different directions. That has a lot to do with why so many nonprofits abandon social media as unproductive or not worth the effort.
Campbell recommends building on solid foundations.
When it comes to platforms, that means starting with a killer website and a solid email marketing plan.
When it comes to storytelling, that means encouraging a culture that produces stories that need to be told.
Creating a Culture of Storytelling at Your Nonprofit Organization
In a post on the CauseVox blog, Campbell argued that great storytelling a sound strategy for nonprofits regardless of their size, budget, or mission.
The first step in creating a culture of storytelling at your nonprofit is to secure buy-in from every level of the organization. It’s not an easy thing to do, but it’s crucial to the long-term success of something as fundamental as a culture shift. Focus on the fact that audiences, including donors and volunteers, expect interesting and engaging stories. Combine that with the fact that data alone can’t get the job done.
Once you’ve got everyone on board, it’s important to keep them there. The best way to do that is to empower them to be a part of your organization’s process of finding great stories to tell and telling them in exciting ways. You should also make storytelling part of who you are as an organization by featuring them in your meetings and events.
Ensure the long-term success of your storytelling culture by making training, recognition, and celebrating success a part of your storytelling plan. Build the momentum you need, monitor the results you get from storytelling, and maintain to get results with exponential returns.
Great Digital Storytelling Means Telling the Right Stories the Right Way
There’s another reason that nonprofits don’t get the results they’re after and give up on social media. They don’t do enough to ensure they’re putting out content that stands out on the platforms they use.
A lot of nonprofits expect social media to be a cheap and easy way to boost fundraising. If it were that easy, everybody would be doing it.
Social media will connect your nonprofit to new and existing audiences when you give them the kinds of stories they enjoy. Don’t use social media to tell stories that put the focus on you. Julia Campbell's advice is to tell stories that create value for the audience.
For social media success, prioritize stories that educate or inform in engaging and entertaining ways. Use stories to show your organization’s impact and create emotional connections. Putting the audience at the center of your strategy will lead to better results from calls to action when you need to recruit volunteers or meet fundraising goals.
Plan for Success
Steering a culture change in your nonprofit organization and investing the time and effort that it takes to get good at storytelling are big jobs. But together they will lay the foundations of a successful program. They give you stories you can rely on as you begin to execute your digital storytelling plan.
Once you have the stories, you need to think about which platforms to focus on.
· Each platform has unique features.
· Your organization has limited resources.
· Be strategic about selecting platforms.
A Storytelling Grid Helps Figure Out the How, What, and Where of Your Strategy
Rob Wu shared a useful tool on the CauseVox blog recently. His Storytelling Grid helps organizations make sure that their plan includes all of the most important types of stories and uses all of the ways to tell them well—including videos, social media, emails, and blog posts.
We used his grid to come up with one of our own that helps organizations decide how to tell each important story the right way on a given platform.
A Digital Storytelling Grid To Plan Where, What, and How
The combinations that you choose will help you determine which platform is the best one to present the story you want to tell the way that you chose to tell it. To use this grid, simply fill in the open spaces with the name of the platform that is the best fit for the combination that you chose to use when telling a particular story.
Why Reinvent the Wheel? Learn from the Storytelling Success of Other Nonprofits
Another great source of advice for nonprofits that want to make video or digital storytelling part of their program is Vanessa Chase Lockshin. In a recent post on her blog, she pointed out that fundraising isn’t the right storytelling strategy for nonprofits to use on social and went on to explain why they’re better off telling stories that show impact.
There’s a lot of good advice in Vanessa’s post. We love that she gives similar attention to having a foundation of good stories that Campbell used as a starting point. What we really liked was her attention to how particular nonprofits have done a great job of using particular platforms particularly well.
Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram all do things a little bit differently. Instead of trying to do them all at once right out of the gate, choose one that is well suited to what you’re ready to do. You can always branch out to other platforms later on.
We think Vanessa’s post is a great place to start if your organization is looking for examples of how other nonprofits have gotten it right.
How Will You Define Success?
It’s so easy to get set-up on most platforms that you might not appreciate how tough it can be to get good results in return for the marketing work that you do there.
It’s important to make measurement, evaluation, and improvement part of your social strategy. There are plenty of free and affordable tools available to make evaluation easier and more efficient. The bottom line is that “organizations that evaluate the impact of their storytelling . . . can learn what’s working and enhance their success” (SSIR.org).
If training storytellers and maintaining momentum are pieces of Campbell’s strategic advice that you plan on following—measurement and evaluation are great ways to make sure your strategy comes full-circle and closes the loop.
Argonaut Productions Can Help Your Nonprofit Handle Digital Storytelling for SMM
When you’re ready to get started on a digital strategy that will help your nonprofit show impact, make connections, and create fundraising opportunities, Argonaut Productions is here for you.
Our three-stage process can help you:
· Discover your WHY,
· Design stories that amplify your message, and
· Deliver packages that are platform-perfect every time.
