Yes, it\u2019s true. When your organization produces content that really engages on social media, the social media gods will reward you. It\u2019s not just one social channel. Every major social media platform is aggregating, selecting and serving customized content based on user prior preferences. What\u2019s that mean for nonprofit social channels? It\u2019s time to be sure you\u2019re doing the real work of sharing content and engaging in conversations around\u00a0what your stakeholders care about most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the last six months, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram have announced major changes to the way that they provide content for users. Along with Facebook, they show stories and users based on the user\u2019s interests and historical interaction with certain content and friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1. The most engaging content on Facebook stays in front of your fans the longest, and is shared the most. Facebook will likely prioritize your content to your fans\u2019 feeds if your fans spend time reading it, interacting with it, and reacting to it. (For those who want to know details, Slate published a\u00a0lengthy article\u00a0about the inside workings of the Facebook\u2019s news feed algorithm team in January 2016.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2. Twitter\u00a0turned on its algorithmic timeline\u00a0in March 2016. Twitter now shows its users content they are likely to care about most at the top of their timelines. This is based on the accounts they interact with most, Tweets they engage with most, and user behavior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
3.\u00a0Instagram announced\u00a0that it is moving away from showing posts in reverse chronological order. Instead, Instagram is now showing users the content they are most likely interested in viewing, based on interaction with user and timeliness of the post. In other words, Instagram (owned by Facebook) now uses an engagement algorithm to serve posts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
4. This March,\u00a0LinkedIn revealed\u00a0that FollowFeed, which powers their newsfeed, \u201caggregates content created by entities in which they are interested. An entity can be another member, a company, an educational institution etc.\u201d In other words, FollowFeed algorithm is based on user interactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you still believe social media is about sharing what your nonprofit is doing, you\u2019re wrong.<\/strong> It never has been, yet so many organizations use it this way. Rampant misuse is fueled by the many overworked nonprofit staffers whose superiors tell them to \u201cget the word out<\/em>\u201d and \u201cshare our upcoming event through social media<\/em>.\u201d Copying a link, adding asking folks to do something, and pressing send is easy. Right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Time out of our busy work day to copy and paste, less than 3 minutes. Time spent re-engaging alienated fans? Far greater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Social media isn\u2019t an email list. It\u2019s social<\/em>. It\u2019s about both parties in the conversation.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n These changes to the social media algorithms are hammering home the need for engaging content and conversation. If your content isn\u2019t engaging, then your social media channel will never successfully attract or convert fans. If it was engaging but is no longer\u2026then you\u2019re likely feeling the effects right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s great that social channels are customizing our content to our needs. It only makes it more of a reward when you find that sweet spot as an organizational entity using social media. The intersection of organizational needs and stakeholder interest is the engagement.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yes, it\u2019s true. When your organization produces content that really engages on social media, the social media gods will reward you. It\u2019s not just one social channel. Every major social media platform is aggregating, selecting and serving customized content based on user prior preferences. What\u2019s that mean for nonprofit social channels? It\u2019s time to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":54,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communityorganizer20.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communityorganizer20.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communityorganizer20.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communityorganizer20.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communityorganizer20.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/communityorganizer20.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55,"href":"https:\/\/communityorganizer20.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions\/55"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communityorganizer20.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communityorganizer20.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communityorganizer20.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communityorganizer20.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}