Reputation management is an important component in protecting your nonprofit today and in the future.
Representing your nonprofit organization online, and telling your brand story is very important in today’s digital world. Doing so can help your nonprofit reach volunteers and donors that you wouldn’t be able to without the use of the web. Protecting your nonprofit’s reputation should be at the top of your to-do list when it comes to promoting online. So how does a nonprofit reach the most amount of people in the digital space while protecting their organization at the same time? In this week’s blog post, we explore a few tips and tricks that your nonprofit can incorporate into your reputation management strategy.
“Reputation risk is the greatest risk facing companies, with as much as 75% of a company’s value based on reputation” Economist Intelligence Unit”
Focus Your Promotional Strategy on Relevant Web Presence
One of the biggest mistakes that your nonprofit organization can make is thinking that you need to have a presence everywhere to be successful online. The real key to digital success is to focus on what platforms your target audience is using every day, and investing your efforts there. It is also important to consider how many platforms your nonprofit can handle managing daily.
To determine what web properties your nonprofit should have a presence on consider the following questions:
- Do your organization's target audience persona and analytical data support the use of a specific web property?
- How much time is needed over a week to run a web property successfully, and analyze the property with reputation management in mind?
- Where is your target audience the most active?
- What problems are your target audience primarily attempting to solve?
- Which social media accounts are going to provide your nonprofit with the most return on your investment, and time?
Did you know: There are over 100 social media sites in the US alone?
When determining where your nonprofit should have a presence it is important to remember that sometimes less is more. Focus some of your effort on finding niche properties that may provide your nonprofit with a more targeted reach. Whatever you choose make sure that your nonprofit has the bandwidth to monitor your presence on an everyday basis, and has the processes in place to put out a fire fast.
Monitor Your Social Media Accounts Daily
As I mentioned earlier in the blog post monitoring your web presence is crucial to reputation management success. Your nonprofit needs to make the time to check your social media accounts daily, and address all situations promptly. Make sure to check social media feeds, reviews, comments, and direct messages for problematic activity.
Listen to What Your Network is Saying, and Respond
How your organization listens and responds to your network can make all the difference in the success of your reputation management strategy. Keep in mind that the web is a great place to learn important information about your nonprofit’s brand, and how your target audience is responding to your mission. The first step in strategically listening to your audience is to create an engagement strategy for your nonprofit. An engagement strategy can help your organization identify conversations that are taking place around your brand.
An engagement strategy can also help your nonprofit be strategic about the way that you respond to conversations online. Here are a few tips for creating a great engagement strategy:
- Create a rubric that breaks down response types (negative, positive) by social platform.
- Brainstorm all possible concerns that your audience may have, and create responses before a situation arises.
- Acknowledge and thank your audience for positive online remarks.
- Understand the mediums that your nonprofit is using so you can craft responses that coincide with the platform's audience type.
- Do not argue with a problematic poster.
- Try and take all conversations that are negative offline to solve the issue.
- Consistently re-examine your engagement strategy, and adjust as social media platforms change, and your nonprofit changes.
Consider Investing in Reputation Management Tools
There are a ton of great tools available to make the process of reputation management easier for nonprofits. Here are a few tools that you may want to consider investing in:
- Google Alerts
- Mention
- Hootsuite
- Reputology
- Complaint Search Box
Final Thoughts
Creating a strategic digital marketing presence is one step that nonprofits cannot afford to miss. A good digital marketing strategy will allow your organization to reach potential volunteers, donors, and brand advocates. To be successful online, your organization needs to run the risk of putting your brand out there for others to see, and potentially criticize. Being prepared for the worst is key to being able to respond quickly, and eliminate a threat effectively.
Did you know that VolunteerHub can help your nonprofit organization create opportunity landing pages that drive volunteer and donor conversions? To learn more about how VolunteerHub can take your nonprofit's digital marketing strategy to a new level, request a consultation today.
