How Useful is Social Media to Nonprofits?

No matter where you look, social media is on everyone’s radar. The big question nonprofits ask is, how useful is social media? In an attempt to help nonprofits answer that question, Idealware, in partnership with NOI, recently released "The Nonprofit Social Media Decision Guide."

 According to Idealware’s survey of over 750 nonprofit staffers:

• Almost 80% "think" that they reach new supporters using Facebook, Twitter, video sharing sites like YouTube, and blogging. However, only between 25% and 35% said that they could confirm that they are truly reaching new supporters via these social networks.

• About 55% think that LinkedIn is a good source to reach new supporters.

• Less then 40% think using MySpace to reach new supporters is helpful.

While many nonprofit staff were optimistic in hopes of reaching constituents and building better relationships with them via social networks, nonprofit staff clearly don’t think they are raising money through these channels.

• Approximately, 40% said that they “think” that they are raising some money via Facebook and blogging. But only about 10% to 20% could confirm it.

• About 30% said that they “think” they are raising money via Twitter, video sharing sites and LinkedIn.

"Most who have successfully used Facebook as a fundraising technique either use it as just one of many communication methods (like supplementing a direct mail and email campaign), or do very personal campaigns - for example, the [Causes] “birthday” campaign, where users ask folks to donate to a cause in support of their own birthdays," said the report.

Other tangible results include:

What else did the research say about Facebook and Twitter?

Facebook and Twitter are the most widely used social media channels among nonprofits. Here's some recent Facebook demographic information from July 2010.

Also noteworthy, of the 271 Facebook users and survey respondents, (38 percent) said they would probably look for a Facebook page for an organization with which they were considering volunteering. 43 percent of these respondents said they use Facebook daily.

Why are Nonprofits Using Twitter?

According to Idealware's small sample of about 69 nonprofit staffers, Twitter is used to learn about
new resources or keep up with specific issues, to post about what they’re doing, or to market themselves,
and often, all of the above.



Idealware asked respondents who were also active twitter users, how often they found information or took action about nonprofit causes via Twitter. The data revealed that while people may be hearing about nonprofits and clicking through to their websites to learn more, these people are also less likely to get involved by volunteering, taking action or donating.

As nonprofit campaigners have suspected and Frogloop has reported on, just because you have millions of followers, does not mean you are saving the world. The report concluded lots of followers "doesn’t mean they’re actually paying attention to what you’re saying. The only way to measure that is to look at how many people click on links, retweet your posts, or take action."

Photo and Video Sharing

36 percent of respondents said they use photo sharing sites and 49 percent of nonprofit social media users said they use video sharing websites. But only between 8 percent and 16 percent said they were using photo sharing and video sites as part of their social media strategy. Does this imply that only a small number of respondents think of these sites as an important social media channel? Are nonprofit staff primarily using photo sharing and video sites such as Flickr and YouTube to post photos and video online rather then to foster community?

How do Idealware's stats measure up to your own nonprofits social media statistics?

Comments

[elisa]

Very interesting, but somewhat discouraging. I am active using social media, typically to stay up on issues, yet as well to try to concise these issues to those whom I know. Currently, I am taking over the social media for a small non-profit group. In light of these statistics, how should we conduct social media? Should we view social media as only to grow awareness or update those whom are already interested? Or should we still focus on reaching out using social media?

[Bob Rowelll]

Statististics on "I think..." are not useful in assessing value of social media. But there were some real stats about real measurable results. How do these compare with results of traditional outreach methods, especially in terms of allocated resources to achieve those results? Seems to me that the measurable results reported, however low they seem, may well show social media to be a worthy approach. It remains unclear to me.

[Steve Carlson]

I am running for Congress right now, and one of my opponents is kind of a non-profit queen in congress, incumbent Rep. Betty McCollum. I've worked in non-profits, and in media. I'm on a fast, pretty self-tutored learning curve on this social media. I think your article is very good. Since I am a musician and a writer, I wrote and performed a song and uploaded it up to YouTube. It's on my website. Your organizations might try that, too, it has kind of a persuasive effect on a different level.

Depending on your non-profit purpose, and the availability of computers for your clients, I don't see why you couldn't network them, and their families, in on these social media, and even teach social media to them. You could create family and educational activities.

I do think your numbers show the growth of social media. If I wanted to learn how other non-profits were using it, I'd just go to their various media and study it, and study the interaction they are having. This stuff is qualitative, not quantitative, we're transmitting ideas here, not funds or quantities of things. You want to reach out and touch, and interact with, someone.

[Tom McFarland]

Finally some information on what is REALLY going on in the world of social media and non-profit communications. I've been thinking that many of the brash claims about what social media can do to transform not profits' relationships with various audiences are being made by those standing to make money from its proliferation. There are many realities to confront when attempting to implement a workable social media strategy in a non-profit. The biggest is the organization's ability to commit the human resource required to keep content moving through the various channels. Twitter, for example, requires a commitment to feeding it with new information and responding to Tweets coming your way. Somebody has to do that. Blogging means that someone has to be responsible for keeping content up to date. FaceBook has its own demands. This is all to say that most non-profits are running threadbare right now and I would think it safe to assume that most workers are buried in their own responsibilities. So your statistics, rather than suggesting open-arms adoption, seem to be telling us that the jury is still out what this can actually accomplish. Telling us that something may NOT work for us is as valuable as telling us what it MIGHT do for us.

[Wanting Data]

I love the summary: "The report concluded lots of followers "doesn’t mean they’re actually paying attention to what you’re saying. The only way to measure that is to look at how many people click on links, retweet your posts, or take action."

In my experience many nonprofits are scared to make data-driven decision making, i.e. setting goals and measuring the effectiveness of different types of communication. So often the most outspoken or popular staff member overstates their case for their media of choice: Facebook, video, web, Twitter, etc. (Of course they should all be used but in a resource-limited environment there should be some quantitative measurement too.) While they all have different roles and thus not directly comparable, they each should all be measured for how well they get people to "click on links, retweet, and take action." Plus I'd add, if possible, interact in a community discussion (ex. how many comments on Facebook & blog), how many times view video, amount of contributions from each media, etc.

It would be great to have an article on easy ideas for how to measure different media. Off the top of my head:
• Twitter- measure re-tweets with Twitter
• Website- Google Analytics for taking action (having successful actions go to a unique page only folks that completed the action would arrive at)
• Links- Can Google Analytics do this? AddThis.com can.
• Donations- built into payment processor
• Interaction- number of comments (Facebook & YouTube) or replies (blog)

Lastly, does anyone have suggestions for free tools are there to measure "engagement" not just views?