If you’re an experienced marketing pro, social media is already on your radar as a valuable communication channel for acquiring donors and spreading awareness of your cause. But you can also use social media platforms to strengthen another facet of your support base — volunteers.
Your existing volunteers are some of the best marketing tools in your toolkit for boosting volunteer opportunities and adding to your ranks. Social media allows them to advocate for your volunteer efforts in their own words, adding authenticity to your approach.
Whether you’re bolstering a volunteer force to get out the vote for an election or recruiting for an upcoming fundraising event, social media can mobilize new and existing volunteers for your cause. Let’s review how to best engage and connect with these audiences.
1. Encourage volunteer-generated content.
A major value proposition of social media is its two-way interface. While emails and direct mail are one-way communications, social media allows users to interact with your organization and each other, fortifying a communal, trusting atmosphere online.
Moreover, remember that there’s strength in numbers when recruiting and managing volunteers. Your organization can only post so much, but user-generated content on social media can fill in the gaps. Using cause- or campaign-specific hashtags or encouraging volunteers to follow trends shows potential volunteers the sheer volume of people engaged with your cause while inspiring them to get involved.
Besides hashtags, here are some other social media features that can empower volunteers to create user-generated content:
- Interactive story prompts and features, especially ones like the “Add Yours” sticker on Instagram, allow volunteers to express their passion for your purpose while amalgamating responses in a convenient place for users to peruse.
- Livestreaming, which allows your organization to host genuine, spontaneous conversations with volunteers. Some platforms even allow followers to request to join the livestream, adding another interactive element to the experience.
- Content challenges, which incentivize volunteers to post about specific aspects of your organization, such as their favorite memory of volunteering. This encourages others to join in to win a prize, increasing the total volume of volunteer stories around your cause.
2. Create sub-communities on social media.
Though social media is useful for engaging large groups of users, it can also target specific groups for more concentrated volunteer mobilization messaging. Communicating with smaller groups can feel more authentic and meaningful compared to the overwhelming discourse of general social media platforms. Plus, these intimate settings help volunteers — who are often more approachable and relatable than the organization as a whole — inspire others to sign up for shifts or simply become more involved in the community.
As the most popular social media platform for nonprofits, Facebook is a good platform to start with. Facebook Groups allows organizations to create public and private groups where volunteers can post, like, and comment on other content. Also, the Messenger feature is directly integrated with Facebook so volunteers can have one-on-one conversations.
Once you’ve established your Facebook presence, you can branch out into other community-based social media platforms, such as LinkedIn or Reddit. Just remember, you’ll have to actively moderate these groups to mitigate harmful content, so start small and expand to new platforms sustainably.
3. Leverage partnerships with thought leaders.
Many public figures have gotten their start on social media, and the same is true for people in your organization’s niche. Online thought leaders not only grow their audience by posting on social media but also build their reputation by collaborating with other respected figures online.
Your organization can mobilize and recruit volunteers by partnering with a thought leader who can stress the importance of your cause from a different angle. Even better, if one of your volunteers is also a thought leader, they can speak to their experience working with your organization and resonate with potential volunteers.
Successful social media collaborations require some unique approaches, so follow these tips to maximize your partnership:
- Research the thought leader intensively. While you likely know the highlights of a thought leader’s career and views, you should thoroughly vet them before attaching your name to theirs via a social media partnership. Search back through their online archive of posts and other publications to ensure your values are aligned.
- Stress the mutual benefits of collaborating. When you pitch potential collaborations with thought leaders, highlight the advantages your organization can offer them. For example, let’s say you represent a local Legal Aid society and want to livestream a panel with a well-known lawyer. In your pitch, mention that this exposure positions the lawyer as a socially responsible advocate and could secure future clients for them.
- Align on your expectations. Before the partnership goes live, provide expectations about content. For example, a local mayoral campaign could break down the candidates’ policies and provide a political campaign advertising kit.
4. Create short-form content
As a social media creator, you need to create clickable, digestible content to keep your existing audience engaged and get new eyes on your work. That’s where short-form content comes in.
Short-form content is undoubtedly king with many social media audiences (especially younger users). Studies show that TikTok audiences for nonprofits increased by 112% in 2023, far faster than other social media platforms that prioritize long-form content.
There are some unique aspects of short-form content to be aware of before adding it to your marketing plan. Follow these best practices as you get started:
- Focus on authenticity. Following trends certainly helps catch your audience’s attention, but what really makes you stand out online is the unique flair you bring to your videos. Build on your genuine brand persona through short-form content — it’ll reflect your organization’s authentic intentions and attract people who truly resonate with your cause.
- Remain flexible. While short-form content can pay off in the long run, it can be difficult to plan and execute videos before trends die out. Build flexibility into your content calendar so you can pivot quickly and capitalize on trends. For instance, instead of planning an exact video idea far in advance, you might just generally plan to film and post a short-form volunteer recruitment post relevant to current trends.
- Encourage user interactions. Social media algorithms generally boost content with many interactions to reach new audiences. Asking your followers to interact with your post by liking, commenting, and sharing the content can go a long way in signaling to the social media platform that users enjoy your content.
It’ll take time for your social media profiles to develop a devoted following, but once they do, you’ll have a low-maintenance, high-yield volunteer engagement tool to leverage. As you grow your other digital marketing channels, like your email list, cross-promote your social media profiles to boost your following and mobilize more volunteers.