Boosting Your Outreach

Use Social Media Creatively to Boost Outreach

Social media, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and the other cyber venues help establish awareness about your nongovernmental organization and small business so you can boost outreach.

Due to cyberspace’s ability to disseminate your vision instantaneously, you can likewise boost awareness about your projects, services and products instantaneously.

However, your tweet or post must stand out from the multitude of similar actions if they’re to reach readers near and far and be successful, establish your brand, expertise, mission, and vision.

The solution is to be as creative as you can with your tweets and posts, messages, content and use of visual media. If you plan to take advantage of social media – and I hope that you’ve begun planning how to enter cyberspace – you and your staffs need to get much better at using social platforms and technologies to build lasting relationships with consumers, supporters and stakeholders. You must start creating truly innovative strategies. Just keep in mind that more than 1.4 billion users are on Facebook and over 645 mission use Twitter for starters. That’s a lot of targets to reach.

Here are some examples that I have found that should spark your creativity:

Hashtags

These symbols, also referred to as number or pound signs in the common world, are the devices that allow your tweet to go beyond the horizon. These signs accumulate in Twitter’s database, where they stay forever pinned to your message. They can be tracked and you can build a community of followers. The Twitter handle @ performs a similar function with the addition of directing your message to a specific target in addition to everyone in twittersphere.

I read that social media was “a twitter” during the blizzard of 2015 that slammed the East Coast. One fast food eatery, Five Napkin Burgers, decided to use the already trending hashtags and a photo of one of their delicious burgers. Now, who would think that anyone would go out in a blizzard just for a burger?

Lo and behold, people did. Capitalizing on topics that are already trending on social media is a great way to increase exposure for your posts, especially if you have a clever take on the topic. In other words, for greater exposure for your information, announcement, comment, service or product, combine it with popular hashtags. Marketers call this strategy “newsjacking” and use it as a way to be seen by everyone following the popular trend.

Staff Members & Employees

Recently, Mei Mei Street Kitchen in Boston was showered with awards and recognition for its creative ingenuity and use of sustainable ingredients. Two of its employees were featured in Zagat’s 30-Under-30 Awards. The restaurant management enthused about the award on social media, naming names and publicly congratulating their team.
Everybody likes to be mentioned in tweets and posts. Everyone likes to be in pictures. Promoting the people behind any organization or business is a wonderful way to humanize the experience for followers, supporters and customers. It gives your NGO or business a human face. Whether or not your team is winning awards, posting pictures from “behind the scenes” of your staff members or employees doing what they do or sharing funny anecdotes about them can make followers feel more connected to the business and the people that make it possible.

Engage Followers

Social media’s success in building your outreach is based on its ability to help you build and mold a community. The members of the community that you build or that you joined is that you have similar values and needs, and you share what you have learned and seen with your followers. In addition to sharing, you can also pull information by asking fun or serious questions, encouraging responses and engaging your followers.

Followers are more likely to remember the content of a post or tweet if they interacted with it in some way.
Social media is not merely about telling your followers what’s happening at your NGO or business. It’s also about listening to their feedback. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others are a great way to create a two-way dialogue with your audience. Ask questions about issues that are dear to you, projects or campaigns that you will launch, products and services that you’re offering to inspire followers to engage with your posts and to interact with you rather than simply scrolling down the page.

Health Problems

Recently, The New York Post printed a story about a woman who used social media to get well.

According to the newspaper, New York City teacher Kristen McRedmond, social media wasn’t just a way to distract herself from cancer treatment — it may have saved her life.

McRedmond, who works at Avenues, an elite Chelsea private school, was diagnosed with stage 4 colorectal cancer in 2012. “I was under the impression I had one tumor, and that was it,” McRedmond, a 37-year-old, told The Post. “They wound up finding spots all over.” She spent four years in and out of remission before things got worse in August.

Her only hope was to get her hands on an IV medication being tested at some hospitals on breast-cancer patients that her doctors hoped could treat her rare type of cancer. The only problem: Her insurance wouldn’t cover the treatment, and getting on a clinical trial would take more time than she had.

She estimated the medication itself would cost $50,000; any scans, bloodwork and additional treatment required would be extra. “I said, ‘My cancer is not going to bankrupt my family,’ ” insisted McRedmond,

She decided to take her message to cyberspace and spread it via social media not only for her benefit but also for untold, unknown others. Parents at the school, where she works, told others via social media, who told still others and the message soon reached critical mass.

McRedmond began treatment in October and hopes her experience will advance doctors’ understanding of how to treat colorectal cancer and solicit help.

Bad News Sticks like Glue

In reporting its latest quarterly financial results, Chipotle Mexican Grill ended up showing how its economic recovery is coming slower than many expected. One financial expert noted that social media is the culprit for the damage the fast food restaurant is still experiencing after making about 500 people sick in 11 states.

And while many newspapers headlined Chipotle’s report as “food safety woes take toll,” the perceptive expert suggested that Chipotle’s problem is social media, not the financial press.

“It increasingly looks like outbreaks of foodborne illness are much harder for a chain to overcome in the social media era,” financial expert Don Burrows wrote in InvestorPlace. “Intuitively, at least, it makes sense. And every time CMG struggles with same-store sales, it adds more anecdotal evidence to the case.”

Since the six outbreaks it experienced last year, Chipotle has been investing in both food safety and marketing programs. Analysts say it has won back most of its most loyal customers, but still have problems with customers on both coasts who have other fast casual options. Consumers have used social media to remind their followers of Chipotle’s grief more than the restaurant’s efforts to correct its mistakes.

If you have an example of a creative use of social media, let me know about it and I’ll help you spread the word about your success.

I’d like to invite you to visit my Thought Leadership website:

http://thoughtleadership.yolasite.com/

Bonus

Here’s a bonus resource for NGOs and small businesses. It is undoubtedly beneficial to use illustrations or photos to get your point across. You can take your own photo or draw your own picture. Hiring professionals to do so would be expensive as would be subscribing to a stock photo agency. But these websites of photos for your promotional or marketing campaigns offer free photos. Yes, free. Enjoy browsing these sites. Some offer paid premium alternatives.

Negative Space

http://negativespace.co/

Death to the Stock Photo

http://deathtothestockphoto.com/

Picjumbo

http://picjumbo.com/

Stokpic

http://stokpic.com/

Kaboompics

http://kaboompics.com/

Startup Stock Photos

http://startupstockphotos.com/