4 Insights from 2013 Social Media Marketing Report Nonprofits Can Learn From

I have written extensively in our Social Media series for nonprofit fundraising about the incredible impact that social media has had on marketing initiatives for all business sectors. It’s tremendous presence has resulted in many in-depth reports and research that nonprofits can access to strengthen current and future strategies including the 2013 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study, Digital Persuasion, How Social Media Motivates Action and Drives Support for Causes and the 2013 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report. Another report was recently released titled the 2013 Social Media Marketing Industry Report that was based on a survey of 3,025 participants and sponsored by Social Media Examiner. Although the report is not specific to the nonprofit industry, the results provide excellent insight that nonprofits can benefit from.

1. Benefits – The top two benefits in social media marketing were increased exposure with an overwhelming 89% of respondents and increasing traffic with 75%. Not surprising is that among the many benefits of social media, ‘improved sales’ ranked lowest with only 43% of respondents and 57% reported it has not helped them improve sales. Based on these results, nonprofits should regard social media marketing as an opportunity to increase cause awareness and drive supporters and (potential) donors to their website. Although increasing donation revenue is the ultimate goal, social media can be used to help build the relationship that may eventually convert someone into a donor.
2. YouTube – An incredible 69% of respondents plan to invest more time and increase their presence on YouTube. Clearly the focus on visual content is growing as revealed in the study Into Focus – A Benchmark Guide to Effective Nonprofit Video. Although budgetary constraints and lack of human resources were cited to be nonprofit’s biggest challenges, it’s important that organizations make videos their top priority otherwise their content will be overshadowed by competing content that includes videos. As I wrote in the post, 6 Steps to Producing Successful On-Screen Nonprofit Videos, it doesn’t have to be difficult or expensive.
3. Facebook – Although 49% of respondents selected Facebook as the most important social network, interestingly only 37% felt that their efforts were effective. Further analysis revealed that B2C organizations were more likely to agree that it was effective (44%) compared to their B2B counterparts (29%). 44% of businesses with more than 1,000+ employees also felt their Facebook initiatives were effective, while only 29% of self-employed marketers felt the same way. Certainly Facebook continues to dominate the social media landscape, however it’s important to ensure that investment made on this platform are effective and producing the desired results. You can review 4 Tips to Improve Facebook Content to Strengthen Edgerank and Nonprofit Supporter Engagement for more information on this topic.
4. Blogging – Blogging is the 4th most commonly used digital marketing tool with 58%, behind Facebook (92%), Twitter (80%) and LinkedIn (70%). 62% of marketers want to learn more and 66% plan to increase their blogging activities this year. Blogging is definitely an excellent tool for organizations to connect with the public and vice versa. It also provides an on-going source of fresh information and allows for a more broad perspective of the organization to be revealed that may serve to solidify the organization as an expert in its field. Also noteworthy is that only 28% of respondents have mobile optimized blogs, relatively low considering that mobile is growing incredibly fast and is expected to overtake desktop usage very soon. Better get on that one ourselves. Review 7 Tips for Successful Nonprofit Blogging and 6 Pointers for Effective Blogging for the New Nonprofit Blogger for more insight.

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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.