Social media presents a unique opportunity for NGO workers. It’s an affordable, accessible way to reach supporters all over the world. Because it’s easy to use social media, too many NGOs think they don’t need a strategy. They often add duties to an existing position or give them to a young worker because of their age. However, using social media for marketing is very different than using it for fun. There needs to be planning and analysis that includes targeting posts, developing campaigns, assessing impact, and more. Social media should tell the story of an NGO, give information, and present opportunities for connection and participation. Here are 10 social media tools that NGO workers should consider using:
HootGiving
Launched in 2008, Hootsuite has grown to over 18 million users. The B corporation partners with brands to develop social media strategies and integrate tools like Adobe and Salesforce. From one platform, you can manage all your social media channels. Create and schedule posts to multiple networks, plan campaigns, monitor everything, and analyze your impact. Hootsuite also offers educational resources like courses and certificates.
If your nonprofit is interested in working with Hootsuite, you can apply for a 50% discount. If you’re not sure if you want to commit yet, check out their list of available plans, compare their features, and get either a free 30-day trial or a free demo, depending on the plan.
Buffer
Used by brands like Spotify and Food52, Buffer is all about growing your audience and building your social media brand. From one dashboard, you can plan and publish content on Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram. As a team, schedule, customize, and monitor content for each channel you use. Buffer also offers in-depth analytics, so it’s easy to see how your audience is receiving your content, who that content is reaching, and what engagement is like. Creating and sharing customized reports of the results is simple. Other features include apps and extensions that streamline your social media strategy and make it easy to connect Buffer to other apps.
Buffer offers 50% discounts to registered nonprofits. To apply, you’ll need to provide official documentation. Once approved, Buffer will apply the discount to all future payments. Plans are available in Publishing and Analytics.
Airtable
Using a low-code platform, Airtable lets you build collaborative apps. Over 250,000 companies in virtually every industry use Airtable to customize their work, collaborate, and get great results. Build databases, create apps, organize campaigns, and report on outcomes. Marketing teams, product teams, HR, finance, and sales can all benefit from Airtable’s offerings. Everything is designed for customization and to reduce repetitive tasks and data. You can create different views for different purposes with filtering, sorting, and grouping tools. Choose from 50+ pre-built apps to make your data more accessible and engaging. For better streamlining, Airtable also offers automation tools and integration with hundreds of other apps and services.
Airtable offers a 50% discount on the monthly cost of Plus or Pro plans to qualifying organizations. Want a sneak peek of what Airtable can offer a nonprofit? Check out what Search through the nonprofit templates, which include needs like volunteer management, nonprofit program management, nonprofit grant tracking, and much more.
Later
Later is an all-in-one marketing platform for the top social networks, including Instagram. With this platform, you can plan, publish, and analyze all your content. Features include a visual planner, which lets you plan a month’s worth of social media posts and publish them at the best time, and Linkin.bio, which transforms your Instagram into a tiny website with analytics. Later also offers hashtag tools, training, guides, and workshops.
Later offers 50% discounts on annual and monthly subscription plans for qualified non-profit organizations, as well as a 100% discount on the Growth monthly plan for nonprofits focused on anti-racism. If your nonprofit wants to grow your Instagram marketing, Later is a great tool. It’s the #1 visual marketing platform for Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. It’s also a member of the Instagram Partner Program and a Pinterest Marketing Partner. Brands that use Later include Patagonia,
SmarterQueue
Regular posting is essential to a successful social media strategy. SmarterQueue lets you manage everything in one place, including scheduling and tracking posts. The tool can boost traffic and revenue by 10x while saving you 8+hours a week. Features include automated queuing and posting, Evergreen post recycling (you’ll always have content that can be reused again and again), a single inbox linking all your social media accounts, and detailed analytics. You can curate your content, search for royalty-free images, bulk import, post videos, and more.
Nonprofits, charities, and educational organizations get 50% off. To qualify, you’ll need to send SmarterQueue a copy of your official non-profit documentation.
Awario
Awario is a “social listening” tool. What does this mean? It gives brands access to the data that matters, including audience insights, what’s going on in the news, and what competitors are up to. The dashboard and Mentions Statistics report let your organization see how audiences are responding to your campaigns. Awario also helps you monitor major journalists and media outlets, which isn’t something we saw with other social media tools on this list. Nonprofits need to stay up to date on news, so this is a very helpful tool. The Leads module is also great as it makes it easier to find potential donors online. The Sentiment Analytics tool tracks negative mentions of your organization so you can quickly respond. Nonprofits also benefit greatly from relationships with influencers, so check out the Awario Influencers report.
Awario offers 50% discounts on the Pro, Enterprise, and Custom plans to qualifying nonprofits.
Canva
Perfect for nonprofits interested in the power of visual content, Canva offers a host of tools. They have over 420,000 templates, 75+ million images, millions of graphic elements, thousands of fonts, and more. Create everything from Facebook posts to posters to reports. The Canva for Nonprofits program makes it easy to build consistent campaigns with the Brand Kit, which saves all your logos, colors, and fonts as presets. Because Canva is so easy to use, anyone on your team can contribute. You can add edits and comments, as well, so the design process is collaborative.
If your organization is accepted into the Nonprofit program, you get access to Canva Pro for free! Premium elements are still charged per element because Canva uses outside contributors. That payment is a royalty for the contributor.
Typito
Videos are a very effective way to reach an audience on social media. Text or graphics on their own can’t tell a story in quite the same way that video can. There’s a higher potential for engagement and emotionally impacting your target audience. Typito makes it easy to create powerful videos with tools like professional text effects and graphic overlays. Choose from a variety of motion graphic templates for events, news, travel, and 50+ other categories. Easily optimize videos for social media platforms, get access to 600,000+ high-quality images, and customize everything. Other tools include a meme generator, an online Instagram video editor, an online MP4 splitter, and more.
If you’re a registered nonprofit, Typito offers a 50% discount on annual subscriptions.
Sendible
Sendible is an all-in-one social media management platform. It offers a host of tools and services such as scheduling content across multiple networks, monitoring brand mentions, reporting on insights, and more. Over 20,000 brands use Sendible to streamline their social media process. Whether you want help with publishing, listening, collaborating, or reporting, Sendible has tools and advice. Their help desk is packed with information, so if you have a question, odds are it can be answered there.
If you’re a nonprofit, Sendible offers a 25% discount on all the annual plans. If you want to pay for a monthly plan, you can get a 15% discount. To apply, simply email the Sales team with your account username (you have to sign up for a plan first), email, and your organization’s website. If Sendible can’t tell you’re a nonprofit right away, they’ll contact you for more information.
MeetEdgar
Founded in 2014, MeetEdgar is all about saving your team time while keeping your social media feeds active. Recycling social media updates is a very effective strategy, but without automation, you have to manually load them into scheduling tools over and over again. MeetEdgar does it for you. It works for Facebook pages, Facebook groups, Instagram feeds, Instagram stories, Twitter, and more. Whether you want to share a blog post once every week or promote a campaign every other day, MeetEdgar does it for you. There’s an endless library of evergreen updates organized by category, so you decide what (and when) content gets shared. Your organization will never run out of things to post. MeetEdgar also tracks your history and performance data, so you know what content resonates most.
If you’re a nonprofit, you get a discount on the $49/month tier, so it costs $37 a month or $392 for the year. Fill out the form (note that it doesn’t work on mobile) and provide proof of your non-profit status, including a copy of your 501(c)(3) or your country’s equivalent.
