The Nonprofit Communications Trends Report 2014 – communications tools and social media

In part one of our look at the 4th annual Nonprofit Communications Trends Report  we assessed some of the underlying messages about donor strategy for those in the nonprofit fundraising sector. Today we’ll examine some of the social media and communication data revealed by this fascinating report.

Social Media – Much of what the report suggests may reinforce some of your existing knowledge but what makes it so vibrant is that the data is collected from those in the nonprofit world as the survey collects the thoughts of more than 2,100 nonprofit professionals across the United States.

The current profile of social media expectations (image to the right) is very revealing as it displays the social media channels that nonprofits expect to be most important to communication strategies in 2014. I was stunned at the perceived extreme importance of Facebook above all others by such a wide margin. While it is the primary social media platform for many, the gulf between it and Twitter/YouTube is remarkable and when you dig deeper to the others that gap becomes even wider. I think that Google+, video marketing, LinkedIn and the rapid growth of image sharing sites are all being underestimated as communication tools to some extent.

The report also records (image to the left) the platforms that users are most likely to add or experiment with in 2014 with Instagram and Pinterest leading the way. I’m not convinced of the staying power of either as a strong donor engagement method but both can definitely assist with traffic to your website. In terms of a platform for communication and letting donors be heard (which reports say is a key desire) I’d give more kudos to LinkedIn, Google + and even Twitter.

It is interesting to see that despite huge investment and marketing that Google+ is still not yet seen my many as a key platform for engagement. I firmly believe that this will change in the coming year and that over-reliance on other tried and tested tools might be an opportunity missed. As I’ve written before it’s not optimal to be extremely active on every single social media platform as you’ll spread yourself too thin but I do think up to five avenues are ideal with the understanding that two will be your primary communication tools. So much is down to trial and error and then in turn studying the data after an extended period of no less than sixty days.

Communication Tools & Content – The report also has extensive findings that are of interest relating to content creation and the communication tools used to distribute that content.

The graphic below is very revealing as it breaks down the most popular tools and the level of importance assigned to each by those surveyed. As you can see it takes a fine balance to manage each of the tasks effectively with no less than three ‘tasks’ considered very important (column 2) by at least half of those surveyed. Email marketing remains robust and is flanked by website work and social media, tellingly there is no tool with an appreciable lead within the top three. I’m surprised to see ‘blogging’ considered least important by 24% as it truly is a great traffic and keyword source with regular updates but as the report also shows it may be the time commitment that is the obstacle.

All reports in this article are courtesy of http://nonprofitmarketingguide.com/

Also within the report on page 17 the survey explains the ‘Biggest Challenges for Nonprofit Communicators’ and the answers shed some light upon issues that you may be familiar with:

• Lack of time to produce quality content – 42%
• Lack of budget for direct expenses – 37%
• Lack of clear strategy – 31%
• Inability to measure effectiveness – 25%

Each of course are genuine concerns, however by re-engineering your organization’s entire approach to social media and communication in 2014 you can certainly overcome some of these challenges. Mapping out a clearly defined list of objectives, measuring points and benchmarks with website performance, donor engagement/growth and social media analytics can make the time being spent become more productive and efficient.

The report also supplies deep data concerning the demographics of the study by sector and location along with more statistics about email marketing that are certainly worth your time.  The entire report can be downloaded at the nonprofitmarketingguide.com site and I hope you find it as informative as we did.
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Miratel Solutions is a Toronto call centre, eBusiness, and letter shop mail house specializing in professional fundraising services including telephone fundraising, online fundraising, lottery services, donation caging, donation processing and other donor management services. We are committed to our CSR business values in all contact centre services and mail house operations and advancing the missions of the nonprofits we proudly serve.