[reprinted from our blog, Anticipate!]

If you are a CEO or VP in your organization, you are likely becoming engaged in or contemplating engagement in social media. Younger people in your organization may be encouraging you; some may even be putting on the pressure.

Does it make sense for your non profit to embrace social media as an integral part of your communications and engagement strategy? Probably, but only if you are diligent about being strategic about it all. Without a clear strategy, social media is little more than cool stuff, and cool stuff will sidetrack us, if not confuse us, if we go forward without a vision and strategy.

Here are some suggestions as to how to give due diligence to the social media question.

Get familiar with social media. You can learn a lot in a short time through some very excellent and brief videos that explain Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Wiki sites, Ning communities, RSS, and so forth.  It helps to understand the highlights of these applications. Learning about them will whet your appetite for social media strategizing. You can access some quick learning at our sister site, www.thebigchange.ca. We have a social media resource section on that site that can help you as well.

Understand what social media can do and what it can’t. For example, while there are exceptions, social media is not known to be a significant donations generator directly (though that will change over time), but as an adjunct to a fundraising or marketing campaign it can be a great ally. Social media is also excellent in terms of connecting with others who share your interests, causes, geography, and so forth. For example, if you have the email addresses of your donors, Facebook can search for them and display which ones have a Facebook page. You can do the same on LinkedIn, MySpace, and other applications. Universities are doing this to find alumni and then communicate with them, engage them in discussions, etc. After all before you can raise money from people, you have to know where they are, get to know them, and find ways to have a relationship.

Understand what you want to achieve. Are you trying to increase brand awareness, expand your donor base beyond your local area, promote volunteerism, engage community leaders in discussions about social issues or priorities, collaborate with other service providers? All of those things and more can be supported by social media. Being crystal clear about your intentions or desired outcomes will help you figure out which tools to use and how.

Are you going to invest some resources in social media? Social media is far more economical than traditional media. In fact, many companies are using social media for more and more of their advertising. It is less expensive but also the ROI is quite good (watch this ROI video called Socialnomics). That being said, it does take resources: design, content generation, and regular updating need to occur. You have to work at growing your “friends” or members. Having a Twitter page with only six followers doesn’t look good. There is a lot of activity on social networks. You have to stand out, offer compelling or intriguing content and do it often and when you are not putting up content, you must be working to grow a following or to network with others.

If you are a control freak, forget social media. Social media is about being out there communicating with others – it is about being social! If you are in dialog with others; if you are getting a following, people will spread the word and create a buzz about your brand. You can’t control what they say though. So if you are risk averse about this, either find a way to get more comfortable with it, or just don’t go there.

Your employees are already out there in social media land. Don’t think that not being on Facebook or Twitter or elsewhere in social media land somehow mitigates risk to your brand. The Internet is the new public square and people will talk about you whether you are there or not. Many employees will list where they work on their profiles. Some will create social media sites to help support their work – yes, without even asking. Whether or not your organization is doing social media, it is a good idea to have social media policies in place that address risk. Our resource section on theBIGchange website has a link to a great piece on social media policy. Click HERE to go there.

How will you measure success?
Social media, like every other business activity, should be measured. The key is to measure the right things. To do that you have to know what is reasonable to expect from your social media activity. For example, if the purpose of your Facebook or Twitter account is to increase traffic to your website or blog, then you will want to track how many visitors come to your website from those sites. Are you looking for how many friends or followers you have? Are you looking for fundraising leads? Or is the purpose of your social media activity to enlist volunteers or collaborators? Of course, the metrics you use relate back to the purpose behind your social media presence.