Today, social media is a necessity for businesses of all kinds, including nonprofit organizations, but simply having a presence on a platform is not enough. The number of followers and the level of engagement per post (whether it be likes, comments, saves, shares or sends) sends a signal to our brain and helps us decide how we perceive the organization. When a post or account has higher engagement, it confirms in our mind that what we are viewing is accepted and liked among a group of people. Pretty important for nonprofit organizations!
A recent study published in Psychological Science,* a Journal of the Association for Psychological Science, confirmed this. The study demonstrates that people are more apt to interact with posts that have been endorsed/liked by a large amount of their peers — revealing a follow-the-crowd mentality. The study’s findings indicate the importance of elevating your organization’s social media presence and getting more engagement. Anyone who has worked on growing a social media account knows that acquiring an invested audience who regularly engages with your content does not happen overnight. Thousands of followers and hundreds of likes can take months (or years) for your account to achieve organically with the various platform’s different algorithms. Social media algorithms are what platforms use to sort posts in users’ feeds by relevancy, and dictates what appears in your followers’ feeds. Facebook’s algorithm, for example, highly prioritizes content from individuals over Facebook pages, which most nonprofit organizations have.
The easiest way to fast-track your social media’s success is to get your staff involved. By carving out a little time to engage with your organization’s social media, your staff can increase a post’s reach tremendously. This could be accomplished by having your team engage with your social media while scrolling during their morning coffee, in the evenings relaxing, or ten minutes during the workday that you specifically give them to engage. If done strategically as described below, this engagement could help your social media success. No matter how large or small your staff is, this time collectively spent could be extremely valuable.
Instructing your staff on the most impactful ways to engage with posts to increase your account in the algorithm is the key. Every interaction is weighted differently in its power to boost your post, whether it be a like, comment, save, or share. For example, on Facebook and Instagram, a like will have very little impact on a post’s reach!
Below are the most weighted to least weighted interactions within each platform:
FACEBOOK:
- Meaningful comment on a post. (Most Impact)
PRO TIP: Commenting with four words and an emoji is most effective. - Sharing a post to your feed, story, or to another account.
- Liking a post. (Least Impact)
INSTAGRAM:
- A save/bookmark. (Most Impact)
- Meaningful comment on a post.
- Sharing a post to your feed, story, or to another account.
- Liking a post. (Least Impact)
TWITTER:
- Retweeting the tweet. (Most Impact)
- Liking a tweet.
- Meaningful comment on a tweet. (Least Impact)
Share this engagement hack with your staff and look at your insights once a week to see if your platforms grow. You may see growth from enacting these practices if your staff engages using the highest weighted interactions, consistently participates in engagement, and the results are tracked over time. While this is a fast-track method of growing your social media, but like all good things, it takes time.
*Psychological Science, a Journal of the Association for Psychological Science. (2016, May 31). Social Media ‘Likes’ Impact Teens’ Brains and Behavior. Retrieved April 15, 2021, from https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/social-media-likes-impact-teens-brains-and-behavior.html
