Guest blog: Social media for foundations and non-profit

Social media, who doesn't know it these days? Various platforms on which people can share everything. From photos and videos to a complaint, nowadays everything is shared. Companies also eagerly take advantage of this. Promotions, sponsor messages, everything is used by a company to create as much awareness as possible. But where the large companies can buy sponsor messages or give things away through like & share campaigns, it is much more difficult for a foundation to determine the right content for the public.

Social media for a foundation

What will yield more likes, how do I get more awareness for the foundation Follow the Wish, how often can you post something as a foundation, which platform should you focus on and is it perhaps not an idea to spend money on sponsor messages? These are questions I've been running into lately. Since February I have been doing an internship at the 'Follow the Wish' foundation and everything that has to do with social media has become my task. Now I can be found on social media most of the day, but this was very different than just keeping up with my own social media.

What can I post, what can't I post, for what purpose am I going to post this and many other questions run through my head. I'm not the only one, more people are walking around with these kinds of questions. Fortunately, there are blogs and articles that contain tips on how to best deal with social media. But not all tips work for every kind of business. The non-profit sector is a completely different sector than most companies are in. Also checking with other companies how they deal with social media helps. But a foundation like Follow the Wish is still different from any other foundation.

The experiences of the Follow the Wish foundation

After some research and experimentation, it is clear that facebook and Instagram should be focused. The reach of these platforms is much greater than, for example, Twitter. In addition, it is possible to reach a target group via Facebook and Instagram. In this way you reach the people you want to reach and the chance of an extra like on the page is greater.

But the question remains: What should I do to ensure that the Facebook page continues to be followed actively and that more people end up on it? One tip that certainly works is posting regularly. Because there are regular posts on your Facebook page, it is more interesting for people to follow the company, in this case the Follow the Wish foundation. The use of visual material also always works well. The famous saying A picture paints a thousand words is 100 percent true. A post with only text is quickly boring for people, while people get stuck with images and still go and see what it is. And finally, change is a key word that should not be forgotten. Change can be in anything, but it is mainly applied in the type of post. Just self-promotion or just information, that gets boring after a while. So be creative and try to come up with a new kind of post every time.

There is still much to learn for the future. Especially with all the developments regarding social media. But so far, the Follow the Wish Foundation is not doing badly. Recently there have been a number of developments. More and more posts are coming and also regularly. A lot of visual material is also used. There is a photo for almost every activity and it is therefore well used. In addition, there is still a lot to learn in the field of visual material, for example in the form of films. The change is also welcome at the Follow the Wish foundation, for example look at this blog. A blog is very different from a photo of a nice outing.

What always works is if as many people as possible like, share and respond to a post. So I say: share, like and comment!

Marjolein Vielvoije 18 July 2017