How nonprofits can utilize social media insights

The world of social media is always a buzz, and as a nonprofit, it’s an important tool to use to harness the attention and engagement of your donors. If your nonprofit organization is on social media, then you have access to free analytics. These social media insights will help you as you continue to connect with donors online in an authentic and meaningful way. Social media insights and analytics reflect your top posts, audience information, and track engagement. On most major platforms you can find analytics or insights within your Account Settings. 

Before we jump in, one thing to note is engagement vs. impressions. 

• Engagement: the number of people who click, like, comment, or share one of your posts. 
• Impressions: the number of eyeballs that see your post. 

The social media insights provided by major platforms are far from perfect when it comes to data reporting, but! Here are major takeaways to look for: 

TOP POSTS 

• Your top post is measured by the number of impressions that your post received. 
• Reflect on the content of that post. Did you share a photo? Were you discussing a relevant topic? Was it lengthy and informational, or short and sweet?  
• Make notes on what this post contained to see if you continue to find similar patterns with other posts. That will tell you what your audience gravitates towards.

AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHICS 

• Where are your users based? Knowing the location of your followers is useful if you aim to reach a broad audience. You can further segment your posts to speak to specific cities.  
• Perhaps you’re a small, local organization and you see that a lot of your followers are from a distant city. That might be an opportunity to gain funding from a new market you hadn’t thought to explore. 
• Age and gender may impact the nature of your mission and what you promote as well.

ACTIVITY 

• Profile visits and page followers show you how many people are subscribing to your content on a given platform. If you’re not getting many followers, then it’s time to share more!  
• Days and times give insights to when your followers are most active. Note this as times to post if you want to get your content in front of your followers. 

If you’re just getting started analyzing your social media insights, the best thing you can do is go into each platform and familiarize yourself with the layout. Find where the information of interest to your lives. Then, you can start setting benchmarks for your organization to look for patterns and positive or negative changes that might come about on your page. 

Keep posting, keep sharing, and keep your social media pages up to date with all that’s going on at your organization. It’s likely where someone will land first when they want to learn more! 

Here’s where you can find insights within each platform: 

FACEBOOK 

TWITTER
If you’re managing multiple Twitter accounts, this guide will provide some ease. 

INSTAGRAM
It’s likely that we track our Instagram likes closely, but have you looked to see what time your followers are in the app the most? Open up those insights!

PINTEREST
Pinterest is great for visuals. If you’re an organization who loves to share photos on Instagram consider using Pinterest as well to garner a new audience.  

LINKEDIN
LinkedIn is more of a business-forward platform but still one that your organization should have a presence on. This is a great way to share your mission’s work, end-of-year reports you’re proud of, case studies, and employee highlights. It’s also the best platform to use to connect with and learn from peers.

TIKTOK
If your organization is using TikTok, the first step is setting up a Pro Account. Here’s a further look at what the insights look like within the platform. 

Finally, if you don’t already, follow us on:
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest!