Would non-profits profit from social media?

The nat­ural attrac­tion between non-​profit organ­i­sa­tions and social media tools has trig­gered a myr­iad of asso­ci­a­tions. Can these rela­tion­ships last?

By ANITA DEVASAHAYAM

The pro­lif­er­a­tion of non-​profit organ­i­sa­tions (NPOs) in recent years hints that a dis­cern­ing and civic-​minded soci­ety is on the rise. Par­al­lel to the rise of NPOs is the rise in use of social media among NPOs to drive mem­ber­ship, attract funds, and recruit vol­un­teers to char­i­ta­ble causes. Accord­ing to mar­ket ana­lyt­ics of social media sites, roughly 55 per­cent or 2.6 mil­lion Sin­ga­pore­ans are on Face­book (reported on Social­bak­ers’ web­site in Octo­ber 2011) and slightly over 930,000 Sin­ga­pore­ans use Twit­ter (reported by mar­ket ana­lyt­ics firm Syso­mos in April 2010). The lively inter­ac­tion of can­di­dates, cam­paign­ers and vot­ers on cyber­space dur­ing the 2011 Gen­eral Elec­tions is tes­ti­mony of a grow­ing cadre of a socially-​engaged com­mu­nity in Singapore.

The Sin­ga­pore Can­cer Soci­ety (SCS) and Ani­mal Con­cerns Research and Edu­ca­tion Soci­ety (ACRES) are among the many Sin­ga­porean NPOs that lever­age Face­book to extend their reach. SCS launched its Face­book page in 2009 in con­junc­tion with its Race Against Can­cer char­ity run. “Our tar­get was the tech-​savvy gen­er­a­tion or we would miss out on a sig­nif­i­cant slice of the Face­book pop­u­la­tion here,” said its direc­tor of com­mu­nity part­ner­ships, Jen­nifer Lim.

She added that SCS’s Face­book page saw enriched dia­logue between the Soci­ety and its fol­low­ers, prompt­ing the organ­i­sa­tion to cre­ate an online reg­is­tra­tion page for future races. SCS had 1,432 Face­book mem­bers and more than 7,500 indi­vid­ual par­tic­i­pated in SCS’s flag­ship Race Against Can­cer event. (At presstime, SCS deac­ti­vated its Face­book page to start anew).

ACRES too had seen a spike in activ­ity when it hopped on the Face­book band­wagon in August 2008. The page helped ACRES grow its pool of vol­un­teers for var­i­ous activ­i­ties to 20,000. How­ever, ACRES direc­tor of edu­ca­tion, Amy Cor­ri­gan revealed that the char­ity counted 100 faith­ful of the 8,571 (and grow­ing) “likes” on its Face­book page.

Both NPOs agreed that the num­ber of “likes” does not indi­cate sus­tained pub­lic engage­ment. Instead engage­ment is dri­ven by dynamic and inter­est­ing con­tent; and sup­port plateaus and con­ver­sa­tion is lim­ited to a cer­tain few.

“It is harder now to keep the page focused with peo­ple talk­ing about all and sundry. We need to respond in dou­ble quick time, keep trolls out and delete irrel­e­vant com­ments, and to do all of the above at the same time,” said Corrigan.

Lim con­curred, adding that time and com­mit­ment to keep SCS’s Face­book page “alive” is chal­leng­ing, espe­cially given that many NPOs do not have full-​time employ­ees on the job.

Help on its way

While observers applaud SCS’s and ACRES’s courage to embrace social media, other NPOs are less lucky. A report from Today Online found NPOs lacked the exper­tise, finances and man­power mus­cle to pur­sue social media. A straw poll across the Inter­net revealed sev­eral NPOs with dated web­sites and zero social media presence.

Ear­lier this year, the National Vol­un­teer & Phil­an­thropy Cen­tre (NVPC) stepped up to address this gap, award­ing a S$125,000 grant to global pub­lic rela­tions con­sul­tancy Text 100 to help NPOs reg­is­tered on its online dona­tion por­tal, SG Gives. Char­i­ties will be tutored and trained to use social media effec­tively under the “Dig­i­tal­is­ing Vol­un­teerism and Phil­an­thropy” (diVP) programme.

David Lian, Text100’s social media prac­tice lead for Asia-​Pacific, noted that char­i­ties had suc­ceeded in reach­ing out to vol­un­teers and donors via Face­book but cau­tioned NPOs against try­ing to imple­ment a “one size fits all” strategy.

“You need to think about the organisation’s goals, tar­get audi­ence, resources and cul­ture. Once aligned with the organ­i­sa­tion, the poten­tial in using social media as a com­mu­ni­ca­tions plat­form is amaz­ing. You can raise funds, recruit mem­bers, organ­ise vol­un­teer com­mu­ni­ties and inform the pub­lic of activ­i­ties via social media. But most impor­tantly, it is a tool to increase the reach of your mes­sage,” he added.

Con­tent & conversations

Char­i­ties such as the Amer­i­can Red Cross and Char­ity: water have man­aged to widen their reach beyond Face­book “likes” and Twit­ter fol­low­ers with edgy con­tent, sexy tweets and viral videos. Their Face­book pages are packed with rel­e­vant and cur­rent sto­ries, updates and events to keep their audi­ence engaged.

“Focus on get­ting con­tent right. When peo­ple visit your online prop­erty – whether it’s your web­site, Face­book page or Twit­ter feed – they are look­ing for infor­ma­tion, or an update of your activ­i­ties, or an oppor­tu­nity to inter­act. Every organ­i­sa­tion needs to under­stand what their audi­ences are look­ing for when engag­ing with them online and ensure they cre­ate rel­e­vant con­tent. The best con­tent will drive peo­ple to action, and, with plan­ning, towards the goals of the organ­i­sa­tion,” said Lian.

Both SCS’ Lim and ACRES’ Cor­ri­gan noted that in par­tic­u­lar, pho­tos of peo­ple, ani­mals and issues that struck an emo­tional chord drew the most atten­tion from its fol­low­ing. “We were able to as a result meet our loyal sup­port­ers to get their help on how to move for­ward,” said Corrigan.

Lim added that SCS took it a step fur­ther by cre­at­ing and post­ing a Web page on SG Gives’ por­tal to gar­ner sup­port for its fundrais­ing activ­i­ties. Social media tools do extend the NPOs reach but con­tin­u­ous engage­ment can only be dri­ven through com­pelling con­tent and conversation.

Veron Lau, vice-​president of Cat Wel­fare Soci­ety, who spoke dur­ing the launch of the Text 100 diVP pro­gramme at NVPC, stated that to have a com­pelling online pres­ence, you need to cre­ate a human voice and pres­ence; to tell sto­ries, not just a broad­cast tool for events and information.

“We must cre­ate talk­ing points to engage fol­low­ers; cre­ate offi­cial and unof­fi­cial events; con­nect peo­ple who you think should be talk­ing to each other; han­dle online flam­ings and dis­putes like a human being. Be brave,” she added.

Tips to extend char­i­ties’ reach

So how can char­i­ties extend their reach and spread their mes­sage? Here are five tips from Text 100’s Lian:

Tip #1: Under­stand your objec­tives and pur­pose – why do want to use to social media? Is it to raise funds, recruit vol­un­teers or build a community?

Tip #2: Cre­ate and mea­sure your social media activ­i­ties around your objec­tives. Suc­cess in using social media is not about the num­ber of likes or fans on your page, but rather results.

Tip #3: Get your con­tent strat­egy right by shar­ing rel­e­vant con­tent on a reg­u­lar and timely basis.

Tip #4: Get involved with the NPO com­mu­nity. Social media is not just about engag­ing your tar­get or extended audi­ence. You need to inter­act with like-​minded char­i­ties to move to the next level.

Tip #5: Focus on build­ing long-​term rela­tion­ships. The beauty of social media is that it allows your organ­i­sa­tion to build long-​term, high-​touch, per­sonal rela­tion­ships with your com­mu­nity. A com­mu­nity that shares your belief will be ready to sup­port your mission.