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Harnessing Authenticity: Elevating Nonprofit Social Media for Maximum Impact

• NonProfit Hub • Season 6 • Episode 1

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Join us on a whole new season of podcasts with Meghan Speer, as nonprofit social media strategist Josi Garfield shares her inspiring journey from public relations to founding Branch Out Social, where she now dedicates her expertise solely to helping nonprofits thrive online. Josi offers creative, practical tips for repurposing existing content, like mission statements, to keep your nonprofit's social media presence vibrant and effective. Discover the powerful resurgence of authenticity in digital content and why embracing genuine, less-polished posts could be the game-changer for organizations with limited resources. And learn how to maximize your nonprofit's social media engagement by choosing the right platforms and fostering meaningful interactions.

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Speaker 1:

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Speaker 2:

Welcome back to the Nonprofit Hub podcast. I'm your host, megan Spear. We are here for a whole new season of 2025 podcasts and kicking us off, I'm so excited to have Josie Garfield as my guest today. She is the founder of Branch Out Social and we're going to be talking about what it looks like to set your organization up for some social media success in 2025. Josie, welcome to the show.

Speaker 3:

Thank you for having me. I'm super excited to be here.

Speaker 2:

So some of you may have been in Josie's session at CauseCamp. She was with us this year in Colorado Springs talking about AI, but we're going to go a little bit back to her roots on the social side here today. So, josie, tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey in the nonprofit marketing space and with nonprofits.

Speaker 3:

Yes, I started well. I got a degree in public relations from George Mason University back in Virginia even though I'm from Utah and that's where I am located now and out of college, I got a job at a public relations agency in around DC and their main clientele were healthcare organizations and national associations. Main clientele were healthcare organizations and national associations. So that's where I got my first taste of nonprofit work and that was really great. They were my favorite clients out of the ones that we worked with there and I mostly worked with social media for them versus other aspects of PR.

Speaker 3:

And when I decided to break off and start my own agency, I did take clients from all industries, but ultimately nonprofits again ended up being my favorite, and so about a year and a half ago, I fully switched for nonprofits to be my sole focus, which also was really convenient and nice, because the social media for nonprofits is just different than for-profit organizations or product-based businesses and it was much easier to like niche in and do strategy. That's different for them versus people who are selling something or individuals or influencers and different accounts. So now most of my clients are local nonprofits here in Utah and, of course, since I'm an online business. I can take clients from anywhere, but that just happens to be most of the ones I have right now.

Speaker 2:

Okay, I love that. So that's what we're going to dig into today, because nonprofits in general and I realize I'm painting with a very broad brush, but do you have a tendency to maybe be a little bit behind the game when it comes to social media strategy? It took us a while, I think, to embrace the social media concept, and then we just stayed stuck in what we started doing back in 2012, 2014, et cetera. There are a number of nonprofits I'm not trying to call anybody out, I'm really not. There are a number of nonprofits, though, that I see their sole social strategy is just posting an inspirational quote every day. It has nothing to do with nothing, but that's something that worked for them back again 10 years ago, and so we're just tried and true sticking to it.

Speaker 2:

That's one thing I would love to get rid of in 2025. But talk to us a little bit about some of the actual trends that you're seeing in content for 2025 and moving forward. What are some of those trends that you're seeing of? Like, this is content that's working really well and nonprofits should consider, versus other things we might want to leave behind.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so this is like the greatest like trend to come back, but I feel like authenticity and just being really like real in yourself is back, which is great. Technically, it was like always there, but I feel like we did go through this phase of like weird gimmicks or like try this thing or like hide your hashtags or if you copy it from your notes it's not gonna work, like really weird things that really never had anything to do with anything, was just like click baity. But now it's more agreed that like people just want what's real, which is also really convenient, because a quick, authentic, not super polished video is much easier for nonprofits with small budgets and small teams to create than when very highly edited, very aesthetically pleasing videos were like all that was in. And so I'd say, for that authenticity and like just being real, and the biggest thing that will help you, no matter what the trends are, which is great to have, something that will always be good is that consistency is King and it does matter what you post, but at the end of the day, like you need to be posting so people know that your organization is still alive and still working. You know if they come to your social profiles and you haven't posted in months or years, they're going to possibly think that you're not even running. Or they come to your profile to get information on how to partake of your programs and services or how to help. Like can you imagine like a volunteer or a donor coming to your account and being like oh, I don't think that they're running anymore, or like I can't even figure out where I can give them my money, and then you get that help that you could have had. So always remaining consistent, and so I'll give some like ideas of like easy ways that you can do content First off, your website is a goldmine.

Speaker 3:

Like if you've paid for a nice website full of all this information, you can use that in all of your content. Take your who are we, our mission and turn that into a post. You already have that great copy that you probably already paid for. You can use a lot of snippets from your website and turn them into social posts, because it's all information people would want, and maybe there's people who never make it to the website that they're really just looking on social. So it's fine to have that information in more than one place, even if they happen to see it on social and go to your website. Like it's fine, people probably honestly won't even notice that they've seen it twice. And like it's fine, people probably honestly won't even notice that they've seen it twice. And of course, you're not going to completely copy and paste. You can update it and update it for the platform and then another easy content.

Speaker 3:

People just like want to know what you're up to and what you're doing, and so you know if you're having a food drive or you're stocking the food pantry, like things that might seem boring to you because it's your everyday people who don't know how nonprofits like run. They don't know what's going on behind the scenes. Like they want that. So, even if it seems boring to you like film it and be like here's what our finance manager is doing today. Like here's what we have to do with behind the scenes, here's how you stock the pantry, here's what we do with all your donations. And that's a double whammy, because your donors are seeing what you're doing with their money, which will always make them happy, and they can see their impact. And then people who want to volunteer are also like oh, that's cool, like I think I would like to help with that, and so just some of that behind the scenes, and that's really easy because you can just put some text on your, your video. You don't have to do a voiceover if that's too much, or if you're a talker, do a quick voiceover and don't even worry about putting on fancy texts. I'd say always include your closed captions, of course. And so those are some easy ways to keep it consistent.

Speaker 3:

And then another way to make your if you're already creating content but maybe it's like falling flat, always try to wrap in some sort of storytelling. So I was speaking with a client or potential client a couple of weeks ago and they were like we feel like our social media page is just like a big thank you page. All our posts are just like thank you to this donor, thank you to this sponsor, and that's it. And so they felt it wasn't really representing their organization and like what they really do. And so if you use storytelling, you can do both things at once.

Speaker 3:

And so an example of that is, instead of being like thank you to this sponsor for helping us with our food drive, start out with saying our food drive raised this many pounds of food and with that, this year we'll be able to feed X amount of families and then wrap into that post like this wouldn't have been made possible without this sponsor. Blah, blah, blah. That way you've told the story and created a better visual of like, your impact and the help that the donor actually gave. And then it's not just a thank you, so it's also speaking to all your audiences, people who might need to come to the food bank, people who volunteer at the food bank and then, of course, people who might want to donate in the future, that they're like, oh, look at their impact. And so, if you can wrap in some sort of storytelling, tell a story of like, because of this program, this individual is having this outcome, and then this was made possible because of our volunteers, thank you, because of our donors, thank you. So those are two.

Speaker 2:

Did you want. I can keep going some more. I love that, actually. So let's dig into that one a little further, because one of the things that I think is a challenge for a lot of folks is they think through their strategy is that they are trying to speak to a variety of different audiences. Right, they do want to talk to the donors, because we all need more donors and more funds, but they do have maybe some sponsors, but then they're also it's also a profile for folks who might need those services, right, or who might need those programs or whatever the case may be. So I think what you just had to say is a really great point.

Speaker 2:

I want to dig a little further into it about how we craft messaging that does relate to more than one group, right? Because if you are to use your phrase earlier, if you are a product-based for-profit company and you are selling widgets, all you have to do is sell widgets, right? There's not that variety of different constituents. You're not trying to reach out and appease or connect with four different audiences. You don't have volunteers and staff and donors and sponsors and people who use the services. That's a lot of people to cover and make sure that they're resonating with one type of content. So what are some other ways? I know you just had a really great one in storytelling, but can you talk about maybe some examples of how to craft that message so that the platform is applicable to everybody, regardless of how they connect with your organization?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, of how they connect with your organization. Yeah, and this is one of the biggest things that I think separates nonprofits from other businesses and also media is because they have all these different audiences that they have to reach. So, first thing is, I would focus on what platforms you're on and who are on those platforms. So my agency specializes in Facebook, instagram and LinkedIn and our LinkedIn posts. We don't just cross post, like copy and paste, each platform, because on LinkedIn, we're facing less people who need our services, not to say that they're not on there, but that's really where you're like interacting with more, like large organizations and foundations and those people like donors and funders. That's where we're more facing them and so the content on there will shift. You know we can take a post of like you know if you need food bank services over here on Instagram, on LinkedIn, we might update that to be like would you like to help out? Like how can you have a part in this food bank that serves this many people of our community? And so I'd say know who's on your platforms. And so typically funders aren't scrolling on Instagram being like who can I help out today, but they might run into conversations like that on LinkedIn. So, linkedin, we gear that content more towards donors and funders and we change the wording and the call to action more towards that when Instagram and Facebook is where we see more people in the community who want to get involved, whether that's volunteers or people who need our services.

Speaker 3:

And one thing that is hard with product-based businesses, you can do engagement on your own and go find a profile and be like oh, this is a mom, she has a couple of kids, like widgets might be her thing. You can't go to a profile on Instagram and be like you know, I think this person's experiencing poverty or I think this person might need this kind of help, especially with nonprofits who are addressing more sensitive issues. You can't see that visually and so you can't always like find those people manually like that. So when I create content, I usually just have like a dual call to action, which I don't know if on like social media, like standards. That's usually probably not what people say, but usually I'll put things like if you need help or if you would like to help, this is where you find that information or comment keyword and we will send you the link and I like keeping that open or send this post to someone who you think could use this service and things like that. So I'll keep like a dual call to action.

Speaker 3:

And then a lot of my clients have a lot of educational content, which is great because that can benefit everybody. That's great. So most of my a lot of educational content, which is great because that can benefit everybody, that's great. So most of my a lot of my clients are dealing with, they address poverty issues. So we've I've done like a reel.

Speaker 3:

That's like what is the cycle of poverty, and that was great because we were first explaining that to people who have no idea what that is and how people get stuck in poverty. So it's raising a witness to those who may be experiencing it and maybe feel shame or they don't know where to go, they don't know how to get help and if they didn't know about this cycle then they might not have known that there's so many factors at play that aren't their fault and that they need to reach out for help and that there's a way to break this cycle. So great for reaching our potential clients, clients, and then also great for educating the general public that there's big factors at play and there's a lot that goes into, you know, breaking the cycle of poverty and getting out of poverty, and here's how you can help. And here's how those you may know that are experiencing it, that you thought maybe not my thoughts, it was their fault, or like they just had to deal with, like, oh, there's stuff that I can do to help, and then that educational piece of content is also great for those donors so they can also see like, oh, this is a big issue. Maybe I didn't realize that this was an issue in my community. We would like to help.

Speaker 3:

And so, yeah, educational content and storytelling if you can just explain what you're doing and like explain the deeper parts of the issues that are so close to you. So sometimes you have to step back or even bring in someone, maybe like a new volunteer that knows nothing, just like ask them questions or like figure out what they don't know and what they don't understand. And then you're like, oh great, if they didn't know that the majority of our audience or potential audience probably doesn't. And then you have all these ideas for content. So, yeah, to summarize it like educational content is really really good. And then just having like a dual call to action so that you're always having the door open and people can always find if they want to help or if they need the help.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. I want to circle back to something you said at the beginning of that segment, and that is knowing who your audience is and where they are, because I do think a lot of folks still have that kind of blanket. Here's the post for Monday, and it goes to everywhere, right, regardless of who the audience is. But then I also get a lot of questions from folks about hey, do I need to be getting onto TikTok, do we need to be embracing blue sky or whatever the newest buzzword platform of the moment is? So how do you recommend folks go about figuring out where to be and who are the audiences that are on those platforms right now?

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

So there's a lot of good resources and blog posts from like Hootsuite, sprout, social organizations like that that have like large amounts of data readily available and they almost always put out reports. I can probably find the one for this year and we can link it in show notes or something, yeah, of the demographics on each platform. So if you know your audience well and your demographics, then you'll be able to be like, okay, well, we are trying to reach men and women adults 40 to 60. And then you see the report and you're like, oh, okay, most of them are on Facebook, so let's focus on that. So, and then you see the report and you're like, oh, okay, most of them are on Facebook, so let's focus on that. So that's usually. I'll use those reports that have access to more data than I do to see, okay, here's the trends of where different demographics are hanging out. So that's where the first place that I'll start, and then you might know your audience really well If you have a nonprofit that deals with a lot of people in person, and so you nonprofit that deals with a lot of people in person, and so you know the age and the demographic and the life circumstances of your audience in person. So then you already have that information yourself, so you can also look at these reports and be like, okay, this is where they're hanging out.

Speaker 3:

If you put out any surveys, you can also ask that. I would always ask how did you find out about us? To see if it was happened to be on social media and maybe it was on. Maybe you get a bunch of answers that it was on a platform that you didn't really think people were on, but you were just putting content out anyway and then I think not regardless of where your audience is at. But you have to not take on too much and you have to pick marketing platforms that are actually doable for you. So TikTok we don't know what's going to happen with it, but that one takes a lot of time If you're not good at video.

Speaker 3:

If you're not good at video, it takes a lot of time because you just have to put out so much content and so quickly to really grow on that platform that if your team is stretched really thin and that's just going to cause more stress and you're not going to be able to do it, just don't mess with that platform If you happen to be good at video or someone on your team is really good at video and you like to chat a lot or you just like take a lot of good video, then maybe Instagram reels and like YouTube could be your thing. If you happen to have access to like podcasting materials or whatever and you talk like. I would pick what is going to like be easiest for your team to really commit to, so that the consistency is there and you just can't be everywhere and you don't need to be everywhere, and so pick the ones that you'll actually be consistent at and then people will be able to find you over at. But it's hard when you like you don't need to be on every platform and not every platform is for you, and so most nonprofits I do think a good like minimum is meta, facebook and Instagram, which is easy because you can pretty much cross post, pretty easily do it out those much, and then LinkedIn, because that's where the funders are.

Speaker 3:

Personally, I think Twitter slash X is dead, and so I wouldn't miss that. If you want to get into threads, you can usually really easily take your normal Instagram post and like, pull out a smaller portion of it and then put that into threads. That's also like a low lift kind of way to get into threads. Or if your organization, like, was really into Twitter and was really good at Twitter, then hop on threads and hop on blue sky and, as those take off more, maybe you'll get the same kind of traction you had before. Blue sky and as those take off more and maybe you'll get the same kind of traction you had before. So, yeah, we can, we'll find one of those reports where you can see where your audience is and then also just picking the platform that actually is going to be like doable for you. Yeah, and any platform that you are consistent at, you should be able to find your people.

Speaker 2:

I am curious because one of the things that you said in that there about TikTok was if you have a lot of time to chat back. So let's talk a little bit about the actual social element of social media. Right and that has been a hill that I have been fighting on for over a decade now of social media is meant to be social. What are some tips that you have for folks about actually engaging so that social is a two-way conversation? Right, because it's not just a public billboard? Yes, you're putting content out, but the goal, right, is to engage in those conversations and really connect with folks. But we all know that the haters are going to hate, the trolls are going to come out. So what tips do you have for folks about engaging? When is it good to acknowledge those things? When do we ignore them? What are some good guidelines about how often we should be responding to messages or connecting back? What does that look like?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So with my clients, engagement is like half of the picture. So when I have incorporated more engagement and it's been so cool to see that like the engagement's like the whole half of the piece, the accounts were growing with good content, like okay. But once we really started engaging and prioritizing that, that's when they really grew a lot more. And so engagement is huge and it's really important and it's also a way that people know that you're real and that you're actually there. And it is two way like social is social and so if you're not talking back to your audience, then like they'll be disengaged and they'll probably stop following.

Speaker 3:

So I have some good examples there's a nonprofit that I follow that's about preservation, and there was a really important building in my city that had like a threat of being torn down and they constantly post updates. But some of the updates were really jargony and so they would give the update and I commented and I was like okay, but like what does this mean for the building? Kind of be like should I be worried? Should we like like what should we do? And they never responded and so that was like rough for me because, like I obviously was invested in their mission and I wanted to do something about it, but then I never heard from them and people are really busy, so I'm not like mad at them per se, like they probably didn't have the time, but I think we should always be responding to messages and to comments like as quickly as possible. I don't think you need to be on guard and like as soon as it comes in, you need to reply immediately, like it's okay. If it works better for your schedule, maybe you put like 10 minutes a day to just check on the notifications and see. And so what I will do for a good engagement is follow like-minded organizations or the representatives and officials in your community or the city accounts in your community and comment on posts that are relevant for you, because people will see that. And so what if the food bank said something and you're a diaper bank, and so then you commented on the food banks post and someone who's going to the food bank sees that and they also need diapers and automatically like people can find you better and they see that you're engaged in your community, because we know that the more partnerships and the more we can collaborate together, the more impact we can have.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and then I will also say, often there's also some organizations that will put out content that, like you can be, you should be a part of that conversation. There was one of my clients fights poverty and there was like a hunger institute that they were doing all these studies and like trying to figure out how they could address hunger in the state, and they would post questions where they'd be like what do we think about this or what could help. And our client, my client, had like tons of experience and first-hand data and so we would like comment in that, and so then we were a part of conversations online that like we should have been. And then also, it's good to keep an eye on your dms, because instagram especially anytime someone tags you, it like creates a dm, so then you can be sure that you're seeing that and reposting. And then, as for the like, the negative comments, you can always turn commenting off if things are like getting out of hand, which is nice, that you can just like stop that in its tracks.

Speaker 3:

If you have content that you think is like on the border or might get that, like I, one of my clients, we were posting like an online poverty simulation where we were taking people through, like how this went, and we wanted conversation in the comments, but we just had a disclaimer in our caption that, like, hate speech wouldn't be tolerated and different things wouldn't be tolerated and that if you commented that like like, we just weren't going to put up with that so you could either hide those comments, delete those comments or turn them off.

Speaker 3:

But we just had a warning that like, like this isn't the place for that, that's, we're not going to put up with that.

Speaker 3:

And so I feel like, with that disclaimer, anyone who maybe sees that like they, they could get mad, but like they can't get mad at you for deleting those comments, because we said, like sure, this isn't, that's not what we're going to put up with. So I think if it's like a comment, like one of my clients is an arts festival, and so sometimes we'll get comments of people that were like oh, I didn't like it this year, or like I didn't like this, and those that are more customer service based, I think it's good to leave them there and have your good response so people can see, like okay, like someone did have an issue, they brought it up and they responded, and so they can see that you're responding and that you're attentive and that you're listening, and that's really good, and then always keep an eye on the comments. I've had one that, like people are like oh, where can I find my closest food bank? And if we hadn't responded to that, this person would have gone unhelped, which is like our whole purpose. Sure, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, that's great. So, Josie, if somebody is listening to this and they're thinking man, I would really like to either learn more from her or I know you have some packages specifically for maybe smaller nonprofits that can help with this. Talk to us a little bit about Branch Out Social. How do people find you and what are some of the services that you guys offer?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn Josie Garfield, j O S, I, no E, and then Garfield spelled the normal way and on Instagram at branch out underscore social. And I do have great packages, so I have one. Now that we're talking about strategy, this is great. I have a one-time offer that is just laying out your whole social strategy a big, deep dive on your audience, your content pillars, what you should post about how often you should post all the foundation that you need to then do your social media on your own. And that also comes with 12 posts like created image caption for you to post at your own pace. You have a jumpstart with that content so you can see that in action.

Speaker 3:

And then, really new this year, I have a new offer called cause driven content, and it's just a monthly custom content package where clients give me the post theme. So we have an upcoming event, or we want to highlight this team member, or we want to highlight this service. They give me all the information, any pictures we need your branding, your tone and voice, so we know how to make the content sound like you. We deliver the content to you and then you post it on your own. So it's very hands-off for my team, which helps keep it really low. Ticket for those smaller organizations that just don't have the time to worry about social media.

Speaker 2:

Don't have to know how you know, might not have like graphically inclined those kinds of pieces. Yeah, and it's great Cause?

Speaker 3:

I don't. You shouldn't spend time trying to learn a bunch of things that you're not going to use in the long run or that aren't part of your job description, because we want you focusing on your zone of genius and like what you really need to do to push your organization forward. So it's nice to offload some of that social media to experts that make sure your content's optimized and everything for the platform. So those are the two that I have. Both can be found on my website, which is branchout-socialcom.

Speaker 2:

Perfect. Well, jessie, thank you so much for joining me. I am excited to have these practical tips for folks to really start this year off on a good note and get their social strategies in order. Again, you can connect with Josie on LinkedIn. She is the founder of Branch Out Social and I'm sure she would love to talk to you. If that's something that is on your goal list for 2025 is to get your social strategy in order. Josie, thanks so much for being here. We really appreciate you taking the time today. Yes, thank you. This has been another edition of the Nonprofit Hub podcast. I'm your host, megan Spear, and we'll see you next time. Bye.