Social media has become indispensable in our daily lives and its significance has increased dramatically over the years. This has influenced the way research dissemination and development communication happens worldwide. While the charm of relying on traditional media such as radio, television, and newspapers for development communication has not completely subsided, the demand for an organisation to be active on social media has intensified. It can be an excellent medium to connect and engage with donors, academics, researchers, and community workers in the digital world.
During my year-long experience as Communication and Research Uptake Officer at TPO Nepal, I learned the following about handling an organization’s social media:
- Communication strategy: Before you log into your organisation’s social media account for the first time, you need to have a clear strategy in place. This strategy should guide you as to when, where, and how to post updates about your work. Consult with the organisation’s decision-makers or communications team to plan the details.
- Content variety: A long feature story might work to tell your audience about your organisation’s latest innovation, while question and answer stories might be the best content when you introduce a new team member to the audience. You can post press releases, Q&A stories, listicles, feature stories, blogs, and media reviews to create variety.
- Social media channels: There is an array of social media channels to engage with the audience such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc. Each have their unique structure and require content in a particular format. For example, YouTube is a great platform to increase your organisation’s visibility through videos of case stories, expert interviews, etc. Twitter is an engaging platform for academics, researchers, and policymakers, and you can include pictures, links, and appropriate captions, all within the 280-character limit. Understanding each of these channels and shaping your content accordingly is the key.
- Picture power: Instead of writing a thousand words, why not choose a powerful picture that says everything. Posts with pictures guarantee more audience engagement. Instead of just copying the website link, I tried disseminating vacancy notices through attractive pictures, with a link to website for details. This ultimately generated more traffic to our website and followers shared the picture more often than previously.
- Understanding your audience: There is no social media without an audience and they differ with each social media channel. It is crucial that your social media feed is tailored to the audience. What you write should be based on your organisation’s social media goals and, more importantly, what your audience want. Recently, a blog post about depression written from the client’s perspective was a big hit on our social media channels, which led to an increase in the number of people seeking counseling services at our organisation. The reason for this was that the author put herself in the shoes of a person suffering from depression and people were able to relate to every word of it. It’s also imperative while writing to keep your reader’s capacity to understand in mind. Because once you post the content, you won’t be there to explain it to them, what’s on the page is all they have.
- Communicate with your audience: Don’t just update, communicate! This could be through the timely reply of messages and comments. People in distress have benefited from the prompt reply of queries to our social media about our organisation’s toll-free phone-counseling service.
- Keep posting: There is a shortage of content every now and then, but your strategy should cover what to do during those times. You can post daily, weekly, or monthly as per your strategy, but keep posting.
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