Online Social Media Strategies - Storytelling
by Ashley High

The first steps in the social media strategy involve listening and participating, issues that have been discussed in previous blogs. The next step is to share your organization’s story. Choose a method that best suits your organization’s style, whether that means blogging, podcasting, sharing photos on Flickr, posting videos on YouTube or asking others to tell their own stories about their experience with your nonprofit.

Once you have started conversations with individuals online, share your story with them. An easy way to start is by letting others tell you stories, asking other bloggers to write something for your organization, or find people who are already telling stories about your nonprofit or the issues you support (look at all the listening techniques already discussed).

Blogging

·         Pick a topic you are passionate about

·         Engage and prepare your staff well in advance

·         Make sure you have blog material available and create a plan for regular posts

·         Set goals for your blog, whether it is visitors, subscribers, links, referrals, etc

·         Respect copyrights by citing sources (and linking to them when possible)

·         Find others who are blogging on the same topic and read and reference them

·         Do not over-edit. Decide what style connects best with your audience

Podcasting

·         Find out what your audience is interesting in hearing

·         Create unique content based on your organization’s specialty

·         Make a production and content schedule

·         Start with a lower budget equipment and smaller projects

·         Promote heavily: place your RSS feed for your podcast in every podcast directory on the Internet, including iTunes. Ask similar blogs and websites to post links to your podcast. Add your podcast landing page to social bookmarking services, etc.

Photo Sharing

·         Find an employee who loves taking pictures

·         Purchase a decent digital camera

·         Learn basic photo taking rules

·         Take lots of pictures

·         Upload the pictures to a public directory (Flickr, etc.), and then promote the album

·         Ask your supporters to comment on the photos or to share their own

Video

·         Create your own nonprofit video channel on YouTube

·         Film content that engages viewers and gives them opportunities to easily support your organization

·         Find an appropriate production quality

·         Decide whether to have a regular schedule or occasional posts

·         Recycle existing content or ask volunteers for help

Tips for Getting Your Supporters to Share Their Stories about Your Organization

Ask users to contribute: Promote your user-generated content, and supporters to contribute.

Allow things to be messy: User-generated content is just not going to be as organized

Know when to moderate: Although there should be freedom in content, do not be afraid to correct spelling errors, misleading posts, and other difficulties

Get your staff involved: Encourage community involvement by asking your staff to create content

Create tags and encourage users to adopt them: Teach people how to use the tags

Encourage corrections: Allow users to provide feedback

Create a question and answer section: Design a page where users can ask for help and find important information

Enable notification features: Let users know when their post is responded to

Host a contest: A competition will encourage participation. For example, see who can collect the most useful links, or refer the most friends

Create a space for content creation: Point out the area for content creation such as uploading photos and files, and tagging items

Make things personal: Give feedback and participate in conversations with your users

Give them a reason to participate. Provide users with some sort of motivation compensation for participating

Treat your users with respect: Realize that your users are also the owners of the blog

Information taken from: “Tactical Module 3: Sharing Your Story Social Media Style.” We are Media Project. www.wearemedia.org.

Information on Tips for Getting Your Supporters to Share Their Stories about Your Organization taken from: “50 Tips for Implementing User-Generated Content in Your Library.”

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