Social Media engagement – why it matters and how it’s changing

Every once in a while I come across news relating to social media marketing for nonprofits that I’m so excited to share I can’t contain myself. A recent infographic from Sprout Social (featured below) contains probably the most exciting news about social media that I’ve read in months. In fact I’d say that your strategic use of social media is perhaps at the most important crossroads since the tools entered our daily routines.

The primary word to focus on here is engagement – the potential for two-way conversation between the organization and your readers/followers. For years now we’ve been bombarded with the news of the astronomical growth of Twitter and Facebook to name just two. While that growth has been exceptional I’ve always wondered how many accounts are built, used once or twice and then left essentially dormant. I know this happens frequently on Twitter although it is harder to tell with Facebook. Do increases in the total number of registered users on social media channels truly matter if a large percentage of those accounts are never engaging with one another?

It seems that we’ve finally reached an important tipping point – actual engagement is now growing far more rapidly than new user registrations. As you can see below the gap grew significantly during 2013. In the third quarter while Twitter/Facebook registrations grew by 20% brand engagement increased by 178%.  This is an important change that all sectors of business need to pay attention to – not least of all nonprofits.

Graphic courtesy SproutSocial.com

For the full infographic please click here 

Why does engagement matter? Social Media by its very definition should be a starting point for conversation, exchange of information and relationship building. It really doesn’t matter if you’re a small local pet shop with a Facebook page or a large international nonprofit organization – every time a member of the public engages with you they are reaching out. It might just be to congratulate you on a campaign success story or asking what time they need to arrive at a location to volunteer some time, they may be asking who is the best person to email about developing a fundraising event, or they might just be saying ‘keep it up’. The point being if a potential follower, fan or donor contacts you via your social media channels then you really must reply. I’ve left comments on business pages and it truly makes a difference when the company takes the time to reply, completely impacting my perception of them.

Why is this an important change? We’ve reached the point where how we use social media whether as nonprofits or for profit companies we can change the future of social media. If the majority continue to use the medium purely as a broadcast channel saying ‘buy, donate, give, purchase’ it becomes little more than a less expensive form of advertising, however it doesn’t have to be that way. Of course finding new donors is very important but there are so many other opportunities to be explored. If social media is perceived by most as nothing more as a broadcast channel it would be unfortunate. 

Instead of the focus being near exclusively the one I mention above, what if two-thirds of your communication was informational? Asking questions of your audience, telling them how their support makes a difference, sharing changes you’re making to your organization, celebrating the success of others or simply asking what can we do better. All of these options and many more can each create a better chance for engagement and with that the platform for stronger bonds between the organization and the audience.

Then of course there is the other direction of communication that I touched upon – the questions your audience direct to you. They matter because the person took the time to write and they matter because how you respond or even whether you respond can impact that person and others by word of mouth or in the very public arena of Facebook by hundreds of views. Also interesting is to see is that nonprofits are under-performing in terms of response rates and times which must be addressed.

As you’ll also see on the infographic this opportunity is being wasted by many in no uncertain terms. If the fact that more than 80% of customer inquiries fail to receive an answer is true consider those implications? Imagine if your organization only answered one in five phone calls or opened the same ratio of letters.

Engagement is what anyone involved in social media strives for and the time has arrived to make good on that desire. Naturally it takes time to monitor and engage with your audience but these interactions can make a tremendous difference.

-Graphic courtesy of Sprout Social

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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.