Social media quick wins: The 30 Minute Strategy
Adopting social media into your communications and marketing strategy is not anything new for most charities, community buildings, and VCSE organisations, but maintaining and growing your profile can be a challenge. In this blog, I explore some these challenges and help your organisation tackle social media in a way that works for you.
Clearing up some common misconceptions right away, you do not need to be active on all social platforms immediately. Nor do you need access to professional photography or video. Posting daily is not a requirement, and neither do you need large budgets.
What you do need is; consistency and authenticity.
One of the biggest challenges many VCSE and community buildings have expressed regarding social media is capacity. Organisations without a dedicated communications or marketing person on the team often feel overwhelmed with the perceived potential of being active on social media platforms. Many are aware of the importance of having a profile visible and searchable online but having the available time to dedicate to social media promotion can be difficult.
Outside of capacity, another challenge is how small community buildings or VCSEs can compete with some of the most successful content creators and brands in the world and grow a community on their profile with a relevant and engaged audience.
What do you want to achieve?
The very first thing to consider before even thinking about platform selection is; what are you trying to achieve by using social media? Understanding this as soon as possible will help inform you on what platform is best placed for you to achieve your goals.
These goals could include:
- Promoting activities – events, classes, fundraisers, room hire opportunities
- Engaging local residents – building awareness, encouraging participation, showcasing local stories
- Raise the profile of your organisation – demonstrate community impact, increase local visibility
- Generate income – room hire enquiries, event bookings, new users and groups
Once you have established what you want to use social media for, you can start to think about platform selection, audience profiles, and wat relevant content could be created.
What content works best?
This is the fun bit! Once you have established your overall objectives, you can start to think about what type of content would help you achieve those goals. I recommend you consider five content pillars and place specific actions and activities within those pillars.
Pillar 1: What’s happening?
Here you can promote upcoming events, weekly activities, or booking opportunities.
Pillar 2: Behind the scenes
Showcase your volunteers in action, preparing rooms, building improvements etc. people enjoy seeing the human side of organisations.
Pillar 3: Community stories
This is great opportunity to demonstrate your community impact. Share interviews with community leaders, volunteers, or even showcase user testimonials.
Pillar 4: Celebrate success
Use this as a chance to highlight any successes e.g. funding targets reached, completed projects or events. It can even be an opportunity to share stories from the local community.
Pillar 5: Ask questions
The best way to engage your local community is to ask questions. Maybe you’d like to get some feedback on what type of activity your local community would like to see next or ask your community if they have a favourite memory about a community building – nostalgia is a powerful tool when engaging with a local audience.
Remember, social media is more than just posting content. It’s all about being social. Comment on locally relevant content, respond to direct messages (DMs), tag partners and local brands, by actively reaching out to people you will grow your social currency and build trust with your audience.
30-minute-a-week social media plan
By organising your social content into the above pillars, and knowing your overall goals, you will be able to start thinking ahead to build a realistic and actionable social schedule. Posting once per week consistently is much better than posting every day for a month, then going silent. By spending 30 minutes-a-week planning your content into a simple calendar and engaging with comments and community profiles, you’ll find social media becomes much more manageable and enjoyable.
For example: this is a simple monthly plan for social content posting
Week 1 – Promote an upcoming event/activity
Week 2 – Share a volunteer or community focused story
Week 3 – Post a photo of recent event activity
Week 4 – Ask a question or share a community success story
This simple plan can help keep focus on being active on your profile without the overwhelming pressure to post something new and creative every day. Move at your own pace and only increase this activity when you feel comfortable you can maintain the same schedule.
If you are running a community building in Hampshire, we are hosting a social media workshop specifically to help you with practical tips and advice on using social media to achieve your goals.