Nonprofit organizations must be diligent and conservative with their resources. Using those grant or revenue dollars to fund an elaborate advertising campaign is not always realistic. Social media, however, could be an ideal platform to help grow your nonprofit if it’s used effectively. Through content-driven story-telling on Facebook, Twitter, your company blog, and elsewhere, you can help generate ongoing engagement and increased conversations about your mission. This can be accomplished by systematically planning to tell your story, share successes, promote your supporters and support like efforts.

1.) Tell Your Story

Social media provides an interactive platform in which you can tell the story of your nonprofit business. Through a systematic approach to Facebook, Twitter and blog updates, for example, you can provide an in-depth, detailed background of your organization’s history and mission for your targeted audiences. Once those audiences are able to understand the reason and inspirations behind your cause, they will become more likely to get involved and support your efforts. Creating this content in shareable pieces and posts will also help facilitate your message being spread virally through social media channels and inevitably reach more people as a result.

2.) Share Successes

How has your nonprofit improved the lives of the people you are dedicated to serve and support? Sharing those individual stories through social media channels with pictures, testimonials and blog articles will help inspire future engagement. These emotional and uplifting descriptions about how your contributions made a difference in the community are also those most likely to be shared by others on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere. These are positive stories that people are excited to tell, which also helps spread the word about your nonprofit and how people can get involved.

3.) Promote Your Supporters

People aren’t investing their time, energy and money into your nonprofit in order to gain recognition. But at the same, sharing the story of your supporters through social media could inspire others who read or learn about those efforts to do the same. By understanding how someone’s efforts led to impacting the lives of others, specifically, you may be more likely to get involved. Encouraging those stories to be shared with your targeted audiences, or sharing them yourself, will help generate ongoing engagement and a conversation around your cause. As conversation increases throughout social channels, so does exposure and awareness.

4.) Promote Similar Efforts

What other organizations are dedicated to making a positive impact in the community that coincide with your nonprofit’s values and mission statement? Promoting those efforts with Retweets, Facebook shares and positive social media comments will help generate future support for your nonprofit in the long-run. By creating these social media relationships with other groups, the support they return will help you reach new audiences. It also demonstrates through social how much you genuinely care about the overall goals of your nonprofit, and builds brand equity along the way.