How Do I Develop a Social Media Strategy?

One often overlooked method for promoting your church or nonprofit is through social media marketing.

In this day and age, there are a variety of ways to accomplish this. From Facebook to Instagram to Twitter, there are numerous platforms your team can use to get your organization known on social channels. Social media can help your organization connect with the community and maintain your online presence.

To make the most effective use of social media, it’s important to come up with a social media strategy

What is a social media strategy?

A social media strategy is a summary of the goals your church or nonprofit wishes to accomplish by using social media and the tactics you will use to reach them. In a strategy, you’ll outline the platforms you’ll use, what kind of content you’ll create, and the responsibilities for each member of your team.

Why is a social media strategy important?

If your team dives into social media without a strategy, it may not be as effective or produce the results that your church or nonprofit is looking for. A well-thought-out strategy will keep you on track and reaping the benefits of effective social media marketing.

So, let’s look at how you develop a social media strategy.

Step 1: Define Your Goals

Before you can begin marketing your organization on social media, you have to decide what you’re hoping to achieve.

Do you want to:

• Have an active account on 3 different platforms?
• Increase traffic to your website by 20%?
• Connect with 10 potential volunteers or future church members?
• Average 100 likes, comments, or shares per post?

When setting your goals, there’s no wrong answer. Just consider what’s in the best interest of your church or nonprofit.

Also, try to make your goals specific and achievable. If you set a goal to have 500 followers or friends in your first week, you may quickly become discouraged if you fail and it won’t be a good indicator of how your social media accounts are actually doing.

Step 2: Determine Your Target Audience

In all forms of marketing, you need to determine who exactly you’re trying to reach. For nonprofits, you may be looking to connect with volunteers, donors, and other people who want to support your organization’s mission. For churches, you may be searching for prospective visitors and members in your community.

Recognizing who you’re trying to reach can help you create content that interests and engages them.

For example, here at Yemba Digital, when we write content, we focus on the people we want to serve—churches and nonprofit organizations. We try to use specific language that caters to our clients and create content that we think would be helpful to them (like church and nonprofit website trends).

Step 3: Begin Creating Content

Social media posts can include a wide variety of content. You can post videos, images, graphics, or announcements. When choosing what to post, think about what your target audience may want to see.

For churches, you may want to frequently post photos of your congregation on Sunday mornings or at church events. This can help your audience feel more connected with your church and get a good sense of your community.

For nonprofits, you can post videos of the work your organization is currently doing. Or, you can post your staff’s headshots and bios to show potential volunteers and donors exactly who they’ll be working with.

A great way to create frequent content for your social media is by writing blog posts. Blog posts are great content because you can post them on your website’s blog and publish a link to your social media accounts.

Just remember: when making content and writing blog posts, think about what your target audience wants to see or try to answer possible questions they may have.

Step 4: Create a Content Calendar

As you create content to publish, it’s important to also make a calendar to keep your posts organized. You’ll need to keep track of what content you’re creating, when you’re publishing it, and who’s in charge of making it.

A content calendar will ensure you always have fresh content ready to be published and will encourage you to keep the content ideas flowing.

When scheduling your content, try to keep it on a consistent schedule. Posting irregularly won’t keep your audience’s interest.

Your church or nonprofit can check out HubSpot’s free template to get started planning your content.

Step 5: Track Your Performance

To really determine how your social media presence is doing, you have to track your performance.

Many social media platforms will let you have a ‘professional’ or ‘business’ account. This gives you access to insights about your post. It shows metrics like how many shares your post has and how many accounts have engaged with it.

Here’s an example of insights from our Facebook page:

Looking at the goals you’ve set for social media, analyze your metrics and see how your accounts are performing. Are you exceeding expectations or falling desperately below the line?

Check your metrics regularly. This information will help you determine what your team is doing well and what may need improvement.

Step 6: Make Improvements

After comparing your performance to the goals you set at the beginning of your strategy, it’s time to improve your social media strategy.

If your accounts aren’t doing as well as you anticipated, don’t lose hope! Effective social media marketing can take time.

Look at your metrics and see what posts aren’t engaging well with your audience. If you notice a trend that your photos aren’t receiving any likes, but videos are consistently being shared and engaged with, consider focusing on videos rather than photos.

Remember that not everything has to be fixed! If your team notices that event announcements are doing well on social media, keep posting them. Learn what your target audience likes to see and cater towards them.

(Steps 5 and 6 should be repeated regularly to truly optimize your social media reach.)

Need Help?

Developing an effective social media strategy can seem overwhelming at first—especially if you don’t have any experience with social media.

Our team at Yemba Digital can help your church or nonprofit break into the social media world and connect with your target audience.

Whether you just need consultation to get started or you want our team to create, publish, and analyze the content for you, we’re here to help! Check out our social media services and get in touch with our team today.