A new Dartmouth study suggests that nonprofits are turning to social media for marketing efforts and may be leading the adoption curve.
Blake Bowyer
Media Program Analyst
Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) might get overlooked as the most likely sector to hold the flag for social media marketing. However, while tried-and-true fundraising tactics like carwashes, yard sales, and craft fairs worked for your high school cheerleading team, the advent of Web 2.0 gave every smart organization a low-cost ace up its sleeve. And nonprofits aren’t exempt according to a recent study from the Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts, which says 89% of charitable and nonprofit organizations have at least one type of social medium (blogs, social networks, Twitter, etc.) in their marketing arsenal.
So what? Every person and organization on this planet is tapped into social media, right? Well, recent research digs up these mind-boggling numbers:
- Worldwide, 60% of execs and IT professionals "do not understand the potential social media offers employees or customers" (source: Avanade)
- Only 16% of the Fortune 500 companies have public blogs (source: US Web Central)
- Approximately 5% of small businesses use social media (source: eMarketer via Sage Research)
Even if doubled and tripled, those numbers are dwarfed by the uber-majority of NPOs looking to social media. It still seems counterintuitive, though. How has a sector that is resource-poor and overpowered – perceived as having a low level of operational savvy and a high level of marketing aversion – outpaced its for-profit, high-talent counterparts in a corner where 93% of consumers expect companies to have a social media presence? (Source: Cone)
If you think about it, often working on shoestring budgets and heartstring issues, the combination of nonprofits and social media makes perfect sense. Two of the biggest benefits of social media: efficiency and connectivity. Efficiency in the sense that any organization from your local pet shelter to Oxfam America can instantly establish a presence on many social networks and acquire followers, fans, and benefactors it might never reach traditionally. For free! (aside from time spent developing these marketing assets, which would be part of the overall marketing effort in the first place, right?).
Moreover, with that presence, a nonprofit can connect mano-a-mano with its benefactors – new and old. The primary advantages of social media include tantalizing phrases like "establishing a dialog", "participating in the conversation", and "flattening to the customer", which is all and well. But many organizations think that sounds great and never grasp how to use the power in those qualities. However, that dialog is inherent in most nonprofits, because they have stories to tell and in those stories exists value that is lost in mailboxes and inboxes. Through social media, nonprofits can directly spread their message, generate revenue, and recruit volunteers and help supporters do the same.
It’s no wonder that, in a sector where organizations are dropping like flies in the current economic climate, nonprofits are among the leaders in the adoption of social media. NPOs benefit since they are lean by nature when for-profits trim the fat only when revenues drop, which might account for the early-adopter role nonprofits have assumed in the social media milieu.
These two figures are worth repeating: 93% of consumers expect your organization to use social media and 89% of NPOs do. While for-profits are eating up the talk (HERE) of revenue model envy, they might want to take a cue from their cause-centric comrades before they go unintentionally nonprofit. Do you have a blog or are you just reading one?
Tags: marketing research, nonprofits, Social Media
