4 Key Considerations when Structuring Social Media Teams for Nonprofits

The growing benefits of social media and its impact on how nonprofits can engage (new) supporters and optimize nonprofit fundraising opportunities cannot be stressed enough. And its influence only continues to grow as I’ve explored in our Social Media series. There has also been many reports like the Digital Persuasion, How Social Media Motivates Action and Drives Support for Causes which examined behaviours and motivations of cause supporters through social media and the 2013 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study which looked at social media metrics.

Recently I came across research that focused on the Structuring of a Social Media Team – the people behind every Facebook post and Tweet. The white paper is based on 2,714 respondents from corporate, nonprofit and governmental organizations and gave some excellent insight into creating a social media team. The following are 4 considerations are from the Ragan NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions survey that could benefit all organizations:

1. Multi-Tasking – It’s not surprising that many organizations are adding social media activities to employee’s tasks as 65% of those surveyed responded that they perform social media tasks on top of their regular duties. Expectedly there seems to be a shift of organizations realizing the value and importance of social media and dedicating resources with 27% working exclusively on managing social media and of those almost 83% work in teams of three or less. I anticipate that more and more organizations will create dedicated Social Media Teams to meet the needs of their communities.
2. Qualifications – 45% of respondents require a combination of experience and a degree with the top three majors being Communications (77%), Public Relations (76%) and Marketing (65%). A quarter of those surveyed were fine with just experience, while 18% looked at a candidate’s writing skills. When it came to experience 47% require one to three years while 44% required three to five. As a fairly new area to most organizations the research indicates there is an influx of newcomers and that having a good balance of experience and education backed by superior writing skills is the best fit for the role.
3. Interns – It can be risky leaving all social media initiatives to an intern and although ¼ of respondents have college or university, interns assisting with aspects of social media activities should be monitored and have their content reviewed. The top five channels they assist with include Facebook (78%), Twitter (69%), YouTube (29%), Blog Posts (28%) and Pinterest (22%). An interesting strategy from one of the respondents was having the intern perform a competitive analysis on how others are using social media.
4. Output – The responsibility of social media seemed to land (fairly close) between Marketing department (70%) and Public Relations (69%). Other ranking departments included Corporate Communications, Advertising and Customer Service. When asked about their experience and knowledge base, an overwhelming 64% felt it was intermediate but felt they had a lot more to learn and accomplish and 23% were beginners. It seems that those responsible for social media are busy and inundated as 52% responded they are keeping their heads above water but not by very much and 18% are doing poorly and are overwhelmed.

You can review the 18 page Structuring of a Social Media Team report in its entirety – including salary ranges – for more information on this increasingly important (and relatively new) business requirement.

____________________________________________________________________________________

For nonprofit, nonprofit fundraising, CSR business and other news, connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, Linedin, Google+ and Pinterest or subscribe to our RSS feed.

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.