5 Nonprofit Social Media Trends Taking Over In 2020

Do you stay awake at night wondering how to keep up with ever-changing social media rules? Then you're not alone. According to a Forbes article by Natalie Norcross, the struggle to keep up with trends is one of the biggest challenges for marketers today.
 

For nonprofit fundraisers like you, finding, engaging and retaining donors on social media are also big challenges. That's because you must compete with hundreds of other nonprofits and brands for your donors' attention.
 

But with social listening tactics, you can stay ahead of the curve. By listening, you can observe what your donors and prospects are doing on social and find out which current behaviors, trends, and attitudes they'll soon embrace or abandon.
 

In this post, we'll give you a head start to achieving your social listening goals. By taking the following five nonprofit social media trends into consideration, you will be able to create a better social media strategy and get improved results.

Strategy 1: Nonprofits will emphasize interpersonal interactions

After reading social media statistics like "2.45 billion people use Facebook every month, Instagram attracts 1 billion monthly active users and Pinterest magnets over 335 million users monthly", it might be easy to think that the goal of social media marketing is to attract a majority of these monthly visitors to your social profile.
 

But nonprofits have begun to realize that having a million Twitter followers doesn't necessarily translate to getting a million dollars in monthly donations. In 2020, the march to abandon such a vain objective will begin.
 

And nonprofits that want to see returns from their social media campaigns will prioritize engagement. Social comments and shares, not likes, reign as the preferred metric for donor engagement.
 

Social content publishing is no longer a sufficient tactic. More generous methods of interaction - like sharing and commenting on the posts of donors or influencers - is leveraged by nonprofits to drive engagement and build an authentic image.

Strategy 2: Nonprofits will leverage the influence of board members and employees

Who works at this nonprofit? Are they skilled and truly willing to save the world? Will they use my contributions smartly? These are some of the questions that prospective donors might raise when they discover a nonprofit on social media.
 

And since they aren't likely to email you these questions, it's better to proactively address them through your social media profile. Start by encouraging everyone in your nonprofit to be proactive with social media. Board members and senior executives should lead with posts, images, and videos that capture their enthusiasm about the issues that your nonprofit is handling. Junior staff members can share images of work scenes and clients' success stories. Then, your nonprofit can link to their posts and share it to gain increased transparency and more authenticity.
 

But you must also create a social media policy to guide the behavior of your staff on these platforms. Everyone must know the rules contained within. Also, your policy must be flexible enough to enable periodic amendments.

Strategy 3: Nonprofits will diversify their use of social media platforms

A wise man once said, "The only thing that's constant is change." But he was wrong. In the world of social media, rapid change, not change, is the only thing that's constant.
 

From MySpace to Facebook and now, TikTok, free social media services come and go nearly every day. While some die and get famous media funerals, others leave without a trace. Others can introduce new algorithms that might render the platform less profitable.
 

That's why nonprofits must expand their efforts to build digital assets on more than one or two social media platforms.
 

Also, nonprofits that diversify in 2020 will have access to more prospects. For example, TikTok and Snapchat can open the doors to prospects who were not too excited about Facebook or Instagram.

Strategy 4: Nonprofits will focus on authentic influencer marketing

According to a Forbes article by Enrique Dans, "... social networks are filled with imaginary people whose followers, likes and comments are paid for and who have absolutely zero influence... Then there are the cases of influencers with unsavory associations or who are just idiots getting brands into trouble, metrics that don’t add up, saturated social networks and fatigued users…"
 

Dans' statement reflects the intensified scrutiny that influencer marketing has been subject to over the last two years. And for good reason.
 

But for nonprofits, influencer marketing still represents an immense opportunity to get their messages in front of prospects who wouldn't listen to them otherwise. But if not handled strategically, your nonprofit might waste its budget on fake influencers or influencers with poor engagement levels.
 

Rather than working with a celebrity influencer whose ethos or following doesn't suit the values of your cause, go with a micro-influencer who believes in your cause. This usually results in more authenticity, credibility and ultimately, better results.

Strategy 5: Nonprofits will diversify their content type

The possibilities for marketing content on social media are becoming endless. In 2020, Nonprofits will create and distribute more diverse content types - text-only, text and image, videos, stories, audio, etc. - to satisfy the diverse appetite among their social media communities.
 

The demand for highly personalized content and the difference between platforms are the biggest drivers for this trend. Nonprofits eager to benefit from social content will, therefore, adopt an effective content creation, marketing, and analytics system.

Want to learn more about using social media for your nonprofit? Then subscribe to our blog today and join your fellow nonprofit leaders in getting updates on the latest trends in fundraising and donor relationship management.

03/03/2020