Social Media Marketing in Non-Profit Sector

Introduction

This assessment is prepared in the form of an individual report on behalf of a social media consultant and also an e-portfolio is presented. The report highlights the perception of social media and its marketing strategies for non-profit organisations and their campaigns and social media activities. The report narrates the scope, features and characteristics of the social media marketing. It also relates with the engagement of consumers in the non-profit social media networks by evaluating and interpreting the data analytical report of Volunteer Scotland which is a non-profit charity. In the e-portfolio section, a visualisation of the social media content, a CTA template and a consumer persona is reflected with evidences of the type of social media engagements that attracts more and more volunteers or consumers to indulge in the charity campaigning plan and cause. To clear the conception, few market research reports, models and theories are included in the assessment below.

Individual Report

1. Social Media Marketing

The social media marketing in known as the utilisation of social media platforms & social media websites such as Facebook, Reddit, twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsApp, tumblr, WeChat, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Orkut, Tik Tok & so on for the promotion of any product or service or any such kind of facility on the online media platform. The social media marketing tool, nowadays has become more prominent & popular in business promotions and as a marketing technique and the results have also been found very favourable by using the social media for business marketing. The social media platforms can also bring a highly remarkable success rate in the business as it also creates a special devoted brand page in the social media which advocates and drives the sales and profits of that business (Al-Dmour et al. 2019). The social platforms act as a bridge to fill the gap and connect with the audience or consumers by the brands or organisations. The primary characteristics of social media marketing in business promotion and marketing context can be outlined as –

Social media content promotion which is the form of a platform for sharing the business contents and their related details for the readers to build a loyalty among the customers out there and the organisation.

Tracking competitors is always important as to keep an eye in the market provides valuable data ad research keywords for the marketing insights. Using the social media as marketing channel seems to work better for curating the links also.

Social media crisis management is nowadays very important to only focus on how to manage the brands on social media with all the traffic with useless, irrelevant and unnecessary links, social media disasters, promotions or contents to the audience (Carlson et al. 2018).

The scope of social media marketing recently have raised and increased up to 15-20 per cent through the allocation of social media advertisements and promotions of various brands and charitable issues of the non-profit organisations. In this era, there is no single person who doesn’t use any kind of social media and don’t know about social platforms and their uses and facilities. In the year 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic situation the best utilisation of social media has been seen for the purpose of providing medical facilities, ambulances, blood supply, hospital arrangements and many more. Social media marketing works as enhancers for both career & organisational growth and development (Cheung et al. 2020).

This section is the same as the first submission:

Please check that you have followed the assessment brief and the student feedback and marking sheet or revision week 13 for guidance.

Have you included:

1. Two definitions of social media?

2. Discussed characteristics of social media

3. Discussed the role/scope of social media within marketing? this information is located within week 1 a lecture

2. Social media application in Non-profit sector

A recent study presented evidences that in the year 2020; nearly about 3.6 billion people around the globe world-wide were estimated to be taking the advantage of social media platform and uses them as their method to connect with the people around. The non-profit organisations, the members neither focus on profits and losses nor on their personal benefits. They use eh social media to make people willing to engage in a collective manner in the profitless issues and address the values and beliefs (Chirumalla et al. 2018). Generally the social platforms are nowadays have been changed as compared with earlier days and have been improved with latest technologies that are used by each and every sector with ease and wide reach.

In case of non-profit organisations and charities, social media platforms have turned advanced and used more efficiently for communicating, collaborating, inviting and utilising all the organisational resources more effectively. The thematic analysis regarding the social media usage in the non-profit sectors revealed that slowly and steadily the non-profit organisations are embracing their possibilities that are generally offered by the social media in their functions (Colicev et al. 2018). The non-profit specially who lags behind just wait and watch the other non-profit organisations tat how they incorporate the social media platforms as the communication outlets for their daily operations, budgets and other activities. The Social media handles such as Facebook, YouTube, twitter, Instagram are the much used ways through which now both the profit-counting and non-profit organisations performs their tasks. These tools and other online websites & forums have the advantage in them to quick down the raising of fund and other awareness and instantly inform everybody about the issues including their opinions, feedbacks and suggestions gathering more knowledge.

The social media acts as a predominant marketing and communicating tools in case of non-profit organisations also. Social media marketing has made it possible for the non-profit organisations to increase their presence in the community, their efficiency, impacts and effectiveness to add more supporters. The integration of people and non-profit organisations are made easier only through the social media marketing techniques (Dolan et al. 2017).

This section is the same as the first draft. It is vague and some of the information is not relevant.

You should focus upon the following areas:

What is social marketing and how it differs from for profit marketing

Identify some of the challenges non-profits organisations face when using social media

Explain how non-profit organisations in the UK are using social media with relevant references – this information is contains within lectures 2 a and b – have you reviewed these lectures?

3. Consumer/volunteer engagement in non-profit organisations via social media networks

If it’s only one thing to reconcile in the past few years then it could be the use of social media and its effectiveness’s to move and direct people to take the necessary actions in every sectors including the non-profit sectors also. Starting from adding more volunteers to reach new people on a wider scale, mentioning the social handles of the non-profit organisations and fundraising on their behalf, the social media acted as a powerful tool to help and boost the non-profit sector in broadcasting their missions and visions, increasing the visibility among the communities and gain more supporters for the cause are remarkable (jmir.org, 2018).. Social media hashtags are the most applicable means or measure to connect people who use social applications and these are best done by the volunteers by creating unique and attractive hashtags for any event or issue raised by any organisation

Social media networking is to ask people and invite them to join and share their experiences and involvements on their own social media handles tagging the organisation so that more and more people can notice the and feel to join also in the journey (Liu et al. 2021).

Few studies have revealed that the social media platforms allow the interactivity between people in both groups and individually. A study on the usage of social media by the non-profit sectors reported only a little of 5 per cent of the non-profit organisations are not using any of the social platforms. The remaining uses the social media are used for marketing (up to 92.5 per cent), fundraising (up to 45.9 per cent), market research (up to 24.3 per cent) and program delivery (up to 34.5 per cent) (Nikunen et al. 2017). A study in the year 2009 provided metrics that some popular social media platforms have been seen to be fruitful in connecting and involving consumers and volunteers where the finding says that Facebook (87 per cent), YouTube (49 per cent), Twitter (59 per cent) and LinkedIn (33.9 per cent) were in the top list (Nikunen et al. 2017).

It is important that there should be a two-way communication and not just only one-sided content because feedbacks, suggestions and advises are important to understand that what people are thinking and also provides unique ideas sometimes (Muninger et al. 2019). So to activate the two way communication signup links and bio-links of the post must be mentioned without any secured protection so that people can connect.

Some additional content has been noted - you could focus on one of the papers discussed within week 4 seminars such as Dean (2020)

4. Persona Development

Volunteer Scotland is a non-profit charitable organisations working for children and volunteering day-cares or orphanages in Scotland and also work to preserve the rich heritage and culture such as libraries and museums of Scotland (sciencedirect.com, 2020). They use social media also to promote their causes and promote their campaigns regarding the issues and charities which they do using platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, twitter. These pages recently posted information and updates about the Covid-19 2020 pandemic also. Volunteer Scotland manages various types of charities, and does partnerships with other charitable trusts and non-profit organisations for raising any concern and camps about it the respective concerns (Scuotto et al. 2017).

Volunteer Scotland volunteering reports

In the previous year, their annual report says that they have volunteered for the Covid-19 related researches around the world and provided the needed services to people. In March 2020, Volunteer Scotland’s main focus was to –

Increase their helping hands for the people in the Covid-19 period creating a baseline involving the adult and energetic volunteers. At the time of Covid-19, the percentage of involvement of people for volunteering has increased by 26 per cent from the previous count (volunteerscotland.net, 2020).

Their campaigns spread good healthy habits and well-being to the challenging situation and also motivated to obey the rules laid by the government and healthcare organisations for keeping the safety standards at good level (springer.com, 2020).

They educated people also regarding how to be safe by maintaining the social distance and wearing masks and face covers so that it can guide people on the healthcare front. Including to all these they also educated people to deal with mental health and loneliness.

Volunteer Scotland analytical data reports

According to the report based on the analysis done by Scottish Household Survey (2007-2017) summary report which was updated recently in 2019 data of formal and informal volunteering services provided by the non-profit organisations of Scotland, Volunteer Scotland has been labelled as the top of all the charitable non-profit organisations. Few of the reports are:

This report says that in between 2007 to 2017, the volunteering participation rates have been flatlines from 27 % to 28%. However the strategic significance reveals, it has been decreased from 31% in 2008 to 28% in 2017.

The current number of volunteers in 2016 has been changed as compared with the past volunteers and non-volunteers according to Scottish Household Survey 2016.

The regularity and occasionally of the volunteering rates somewhere have slightly increased or somewhere it has been seen to decrease with intensity of high in maximum times.

Scottish Household Survey 2017 reveals that there are many groups and organisations that have supported Volunteer Scotland many times like Children activities associated groups, Local groups, Sports and recreational groups, Religious groups, Elderly groups and so on.

The most participated activities by the various groups are like general help, fundraising, committee works, advices, assistances and administration works too. These groups also helped out in managing, organising and coordinating with people, IT support, counselling, providing transportation and many more according to the report by Scottish Household Survey 2016.

These reports of Volunteer Scotland revealed the persona of their social media development status and presented their image as a non-profit organisation helping people out there and volunteering various kinds of charity campaigns with a dignified persona.

You have included market data on volunteering from Volunteer Scotland. This data is out of date and not the relevant date for this section. The data you should be using is week 9 seminar preparation – you can use the information contained within the table without actual reviewing the data metrics.

You can use Gen Z content form week 3 and social monitoring and listening from week 8.

5. Social media campaign to improve social media engagement

The social media campaign can be created targeting the generation Z from the non-profit organisation Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) of Scotland which works as Scottish religious charities, universities schools, grant giving type of charities and some other kinds of major care providing charitable trusts. The campaigns of OSCR are focused on serving people; spreading equality and giving comfort to the needy people out there (Nikunen et al. 2017). OSCR is a registered charitable trust under the registrar of Scotland‘s charities. There total number charities registered under the laws and regulations of Scotland are 25,245 in number. They manage various types of charities, provide guidance on campaigning details and do partnerships for raising any concern and camps about it to make people aware of the condition and organises fundraisers for helping to the respective concern. Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) or Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO) also works and campaigns for issue such as preserving the heritage and rich culture of the Scottish region (oscr.org.uk, 2020). They use social media also to promote their causes and promote their campaigns regarding the issues and charities which they do using platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, twitter and they have a YouTube channel also where they uploads videos about their activities, organised charity programs and much more (Saura et al. 2017).

There are a lot of things which can be done to attract more and more social media engagement of people regarding the charity campaigns done by the foundations. It is important to make sure that the social media posts must be active and frequent with regular posting because social media moves very fast and to be on headlines regular posting in necessary.

Making people engage with the issues that will attract more relatable trends or issues increases the engagement. The potential support and involvement strengthens the reputation too.

The social platform pages needs to be created linking with the foundation web page so that people can identify with contents that generates respect for the brand by using different analytical tools linked together. This will also bring the mark of genuinity to the social media campaign and the analytical tools will monitor the involvement of people to count the engagement. As an example some of the analytical tools are like Google Analytics, Twitter Analytics, Hootsuite and many more.

It is necessary to create a content which will bring attention of people and will promote more of the cause so that more people add them up as volunteers for the cause. The content which will be posted must be clear in the concept and in simple but catchy language and should be using attractive and emotional term.

Adding to this, needed to do is posting the content on all the social pages, websites and other mediums where it can be displayed socially on the electronic media walls for grabbing more attention of public and encourages them to join with the initiative.

The monitoring of the responses, progresses of the sharing of the content post and adding more people in the journey. Communicating with the people who are commenting and advising will make people feel related and involved in the campaigning.

These few actions can enable the self- created social media campaign enhance the experience of how to utilise the electronic media platform for spreading good deed charity works and campaigns for various issues and concerns including fundraising also.

This section is the same as the first draft

The content on OSCR is not relevant for this report.

You need to focus on one non-profit organisation and explain their objectives and their benefits.

Create a strategy by going through the 7 stages as indicated in week 9 slide 3

Why this campaign would appeal to Gen Z

Conclusion

The report above highlighted the perception of social media and its marketing strategies for non-profit organisations and their campaigns and social media activities involving two major non-profit charitable organisation Volunteer Scotland and Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR). Both are non-profit charitable organisations working for children and volunteering day-cares or orphanages in Scotland and also work to preserve the rich heritage and culture such as libraries and museums of Scotland. Both the organisations have their own websites to give a brief and detailed knowledge about what they do, how they perform, what they expect and what their motives are, including to this use Facebook pages, Instagram handles, twitter channel & LinkedIn profile. Non-profit activities such as event promotion, charity advocacy, inviting volunteers and many more things have been changed have become easy with the use of social media marketing strategies. Lastly the conclusion from this report is that social media platforms have a major role for campaigns of the non-profit organisations.

References

Al-Dmour, H.H., Algharabat, R.S., Khawaja, R. and Al-Dmour, R.H., 2019. Investigating the impact of ECRM success factors on business performance. Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics.

Carlson, J., Rahman, M., Voola, R. and De Vries, N., 2018. Customer engagement behaviours in social media: capturing innovation opportunities. Journal of Services Marketing.

Cheung, M.L., Pires, G. and Rosenberger, P.J., 2020. The influence of perceived social media marketing elements on consumer–brand engagement and brand knowledge. Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics.

Chirumalla, K., Oghazi, P. and Parida, V., 2018. Social media engagement strategy: Investigation of marketing and R&D interfaces in manufacturing industry. Industrial Marketing Management, 74, pp.138-149.

Colicev, A., Malshe, A., Pauwels, K. and O'Connor, P., 2018. Improving consumer mindset metrics and shareholder value through social media: The different roles of owned and earned media. Journal of Marketing, 82(1), pp.37-56.

Dolan, R., Conduit, J., Fahy, J. and Goodman, S., 2017. Social media: communication strategies, engagement and future research directions. International Journal of Wine Business Research.

jmir.org, 2018. Creating Engaging Health Promotion Campaigns on Social Media: Observations and Lessons From Fitbit and Garmin, available at: https://www.jmir.org/2018/12/e10911/

Liu, K., Kosaian, J. and Rashmi, K.V., 2021. ECRM: Efficient Fault Tolerance for Recommendation Model Training via Erasure Coding. arXiv preprint arXiv:2104.01981.

Muninger, M.I., Hammedi, W. and Mahr, D., 2019. The value of social media for innovation: A capability perspective. Journal of Business Research, 95, pp.116-127.

Nikunen, T., Saarela, M., Oikarinen, E.L., Muhos, M. and Isohella, L., 2017. Micro-Enterprise's Digital Marketing Tools for Building Customer Relationships. Management (18544223), 12(2).

oscr.org.uk, 2020. Publicising that you are a charity, available at: https://www.oscr.org.uk/managing-a-charity/trustee-duties/good-governance/

Saura, J.R., Palos-Sánchez, P. and Cerdá Suárez, L.M., 2017. Understanding the digital marketing environment with KPIs and web analytics. Future Internet, 9(4), p.76.

sciencedirect.com, 2020. Setting the future of digital and social media marketing research: Perspectives and research propositions, available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401220308082

Scuotto, V., Del Giudice, M., Della Peruta, M.R. and Tarba, S., 2017. The performance implications of leveraging internal innovation through social media networks: An empirical verification of the smart fashion industry. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 120, pp.184-194.

springer.com, 2020. Social media marketing strategy: definition, conceptualization, taxonomy, validation, and future agenda, available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11747-020-00733-3

Vieira, V.A., de Almeida, M.I.S., Agnihotri, R. and Arunachalam, S., 2019. In pursuit of an effective B2B digital marketing strategy in an emerging market. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 47(6), pp.1085-1108.

volunteerscotland.net, 2020. For Volunteers: We want your next volunteering experience to be a great one., available at: https://www.volunteerscotland.net/for-volunteers/

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