Social Media Best Practices

Benefits and Considerations

Social media can be a powerful tool to:

• Reach audiences and connect with community
  • Nearly 73% (246 million!) US residents use social media
  • Users spend an average of 2 hours a day on social media
• Tell a story about your organization that builds over time
  • On social media, every post is an opportunity to tell a new chapter of your story
• Drive action
  • After email, social media is one of the most effective ways to get people to actually take an action — like clicking a link to learn more about volunteering

When getting started on social media, be sure to consider:

• Social media takes time to do well. While it can be tempting to make sure your organization has a presence on every social media channel, you can be more impactful if you’re realistic about the resources you have available and focus your attention on the channel(s) that will have the greatest reach and impact with your priority audiences.
• Social media is most effective when connected into a broader, cross medium strategy. The digital landscape is becoming increasingly fragmented. While social media remains one of the most direct ways to expand your reach and put information directly into the hands of communities, it’s important to be mindful of the risks and quickly-evolving nature of the social media landscape today.

Social Media Strategy Basics

One of the first pieces of developing a social media strategy is deciding which social media channels are the right fit for your organization. We do this by asking:

• Which channel(s) will best help us reach our communications goals? For example, if your goal is to get more volunteers signed up, what are the channels that have high click-through rates that we can use to bring people to our sign-up form?
• Where are our priority audiences spending their time? For example, if your most important audience is Tribal Nation community members in a rural area, Facebook’s high adoption rates in Indian Country and rural communities might make it a priority for your organization.
• What capacity do we have to maintain social media channels? For example, if you have one communications staff member who can only dedicate a few hours per week to social media, you might hone in on 1-2 channels and prioritize those that don’t rely on time-consuming video content.

After you decide where you’ll prioritize your time on social media, it’s time to consider:

• Content pillars: What are we posting? You can organize your content in terms of “content pillars,” or the different themes that your organization consistently posts within on social media. For most organizations, it makes sense to choose 3-4 content pillars that will help you brainstorm content ideas. For example, that could include themes like Community Events, Education, and Partner Amplification.
• Editorial calendar process: When are we posting? Creating an editorial calendar for social media posts helps you plan your posts in advance, coordinate with team members to gather information, and ensure you’re sharing a consistent and diverse array of content on your social media channels. An editorial calendar can be as simple as a spreadsheet that your team can all access.

Visit this link to download the editorial calendar template.

Social Media Tips and Best Practices

For post captions/copy

• Get their attention. Start posts with a compelling “hook” or statement to pull people in.
• Say what needs to be said—and not much more. This can include storytelling and speaking to people’s emotions and motivations, but keep it short and sweet.
  • “Ideal” Instagram caption: 130-150 characters
  • “Ideal” Facebook caption: 250 characters or less
• Remember that you’re talking to real people. Use approachable and warm language.
• Make it skimmable. If you need to have a post with multiple paragraphs, break things up into separate lines with spaces between to make it easy for readers to skim.
• Use hashtags sparingly. On Facebook in particular, only use hashtags when they’re connected to larger campaigns (such as #NativeVote). Avoid using more than 3.
• Tag or mention relevant people and organizations to help build community around your posts.

For social media graphics

• Identify one clear headline. This should be the most important information that draws people in.
• Keep it simple. Don’t try to say too much in a graphic; use the post caption to add in detail. An exception for this might be an educational Instagram carousel, which uses the graphics as the main vehicle for conveying information.
• Use a consistent, recognizable visual format (colors, fonts, etc.) across graphics.
• Avoid URLs and QR codes in graphics shared to social media — these won’t be clickable or usable for folks who are already on their phones.