Increasing Engagement with Social Media
By Maggie Frasure, The Colorado Trust
Colorado Healthcare Communicators, a professional development group for people who work in communications for health care related organizations, offers monthly program breakfasts focused on different communication topics. Maggie Frasure is a member of the Board of Directors.
With a seemingly-endless array of changes and advances, social media is a hot topic for communications and marketing folks in all types of organizations. While some nonprofits do not have staff resources to dedicate solely to social media, this doesn’t mean they shouldn’t play in the social media arena. Facebook is one easy way for nonprofits to begin using social media, and the February Colorado Healthcare Communicators program focused on how to make the best use of it.
Brandon Zelasko with SE2 presented tips from the Facebook campaign for Project Health Colorado, a grassroots and mass media campaign designed to generate conversations about health care in Colorado. Facebook is one tool being used to increase engagement with a wide audience. Project Health Colorado has increased conversations and awareness around improving health care for Coloradans by using promoted posts, Facebook Ads and plenty of graphic design elements in their Facebook posts.
Marla Rodriguez and Olga Dow from 9Health Fair also presented information about how they are using Facebook to increase conversations about access to health care in Colorado. 9Health Fair, is a volunteer-based organization that provides community health fairs, classroom programs and monthly health tips. 9Health Fair improved their Facebook presence through trial and error. They learned that the key to a successful Facebook campaign is building relationships with Facebook “friends.” When they first launched their campaign, they were posting very formal posts. When they began using a more conversational tone, asking questions and posting photos, their numbers of friends increased along with engagement when their friends began sharing their own opinions and asking their own questions.
Facebook is relatively inexpensive compared to other forms of traditional marketing like television, radio or billboard ads. Using Facebook, organizations can reach new audiences, generate real-time conversations and drive traffic to their websites for free. Facebook also has paid ads that organizations can run if they want to increase their numbers of friends and spur engagement and interaction from users. Organizations choose how much to spend on ads and what audiences to reach based on gender, age, geographic location, interests and more.
The social media landscape, including Facebook, changes rapidly but the core concept of engaging in conversations remains the same. Whether you have 50 friends or 50,000, Facebook is a useful tool to generate conversations, listen to constituents, ask questions and build relationships to advance your work.
What are ways your organization is using social media to increase engagement and raise awareness?
