The February 26, 2020 Give Back Better webinar told the story of some tactics and tools for building an online presence across social media channels, with a particular emphasis on Kids' Chance of America (KCOA) social media and state resources. Fern Oram, Communications Coordinator, Kids’ Chance of America, wove these content topics along with Kids' Chance of CA (KCCA) State Representatives, Elena McLemore and Nicola Ratto.

Key Take-Aways

Social media boasts some pretty big engagement numbers:

• 3.5 billion users (Emarsys, 2019)
• 68% of U.S. adults report that they are Facebook users (Pewinternet, 2018)
• 3 hours per day is the average amount of time spent on social media messaging and networks (Globalwebindex, 2018) and that can make jumping into social media intimidating and challenging.

Two factors should be taken into account when considering adding social media to your organization’s mix. First—who is your potential audience? You’ll want to look at where your potential audience is employed, the goals of those organizations, social media channels where they are engaged, and what type of content seems to be relevant to them. Second—what are your goals? Are you trying to develop your brand, build your network, drive revenue, or promote advocacy? Thinking about who you are trying to reach with your social media efforts and why will go a long way in getting started.And, as you are getting started, think about choosing just one social media channel for starters. To set up your account, you’ll want to have at the ready:

• Profile image/Photo
• Bio/Business details
• Cover/Header image

Content

‍While almost anything and almost everything is content:

• Videos
• Photos
• Podcasts
• Announcements
• Press releases
• Newsletters
• Quotes
• Testimonials
• Charts/graphs
• Webinars

it’s only when your content adds value to your audience that you’ll really start to build that social relationship. Storytelling is one way to get started in developing content, as everyone has a story to tell and everyone likes to hear a good story. Remember—what’s the story you want to tell?When crafting your content, be cognizant that your tone and voice stay consistent with your tone and voice elsewhere (website, email, collateral). You always want your audience to recognize that it’s YOU when they are having these interactions. And how often are you crafting content to create this engagement? Again—take a look at your goals and audience to come up with the “right” schedule but add to that—what is your bandwidth in taking on this task? Social media is a continuous process that needs to happen with a certain amount of regularity. You don’t want it to be like that friend you only catch up with by exchanging holiday cards!At some point, when you have tested out the answers to some of your questions about audience and content types and frequency, you’ll want to again return to thoughts about your social media goals. What kinds of social media metrics will equate to social media success?

• Hashtag usage?
• Increase in followers?
• Click-throughs/types of traffic to your website?
• Increase in dollars?

Relative to Kids’ Chance social media in particular, your content can highlight student quotes, partner thank yous, and events. Sharing National posts, using KCOA hashtags #KidsChance and #MoreMoneyforMoreKids and following Kids’ Chance National, Kids’ Chance National partners, other Kids’ Chance state organizations, and your local partners are also easy additions to your content mix. If you are looking to automate these processes, check out online tools such as Trello and Hootsuite, which both offer free plans to get started. Last, but not least, download the KCOA Social Media Guide for even more tips.Picking it up from there, Elena and Nicole offered insight into the Kids’ Chance of California social media strategy which aims to increase awareness of Kids’ Chance of California by generating varied creative, informative, and inspirational branded content to share with followers. Their tactics include:

• Hiring a professional photographer and leveraging pictures for scholar photos, fact sheets, banners, conference presentations, social media, and website.
• Keeping in touch with students, getting testimonials and photos, and following them on social media.
• Incentivizing engagement through contests.
• Engaging board member and volunteers.
• Using storytelling in various ways.

In wrapping up, it’s quite obvious that social media is kind of a big deal. But remember, you don’t have to be perfect—you just have to start, which includes thinking about your audience and goals before, during, and after the continuous social media process. All along the way, try out the numerous tools (some free/some not) to help your efforts and track your results and visit the KCOA website to download our Social Media Guide. Most of all, think about the story you want to tell through your social media. . .and tell it!

Next Month

In March, we will discuss Return on Investment (ROI) for Your Events with Cheryl Doucette – Accelerator Program Manager.

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