Earlier this week, I was approached by a non-profit organization seeking to raise visibility through impactful story telling on social media targeting audiences outside of the country they operate in. The goal is to raise awareness, and by extension, to reach individual and large donors to provide long-term sustainability.
This can be challenging as the tactile element will most often be missing for a large percentage of the target audience. They may never have the opportunity to engage with the organization in their country of operation nor are they likely to experience direct benefits, outside of altruistic ones.
Here are several tips for bringing your brand story to audiences globally:
Local context. Ensure your social media talent is well versed in the culture and customs of the country for the channels they are managing – either by hiring locally if you have a decentralized structure or hiring someone with work experience in that country. If that is not possible, engage a staff member in country to assist with content generation and to review posts and editorial calendars.
Establish clear goals. Understand what business or organizational goals you are trying to achieve with your channels in each of your markets and how that ties into your content, campaigns and promotions.
Understand your audience. Do the research by developing personas to determine your audiences given your goals. Determine how and where they engage on social, how often and what media resonates most with them – videos, podcast interviews, imagery, infographics, etc. Plan to keep your engagement with them at their preferred level, not at your brand’s comfort level.
Create engaging stories. Most non-profit brands have a compelling story to share with their audiences. Within that larger story are many individual stories of the lives that have been impacted by the organization’s work. Similar to a television series, creating a story series across different media can pull your audience in and help them become personally engaged with your brand over time.
Educate on brand values. It is essential that your staff managing your channels understand your brand values, your positioning and your overall strategy so that they can develop and manage content that aligns with your overall image. It also helps to prevent any “going rogue” scenarios. Educate continually, not just once.
Experiment and innovate with types of content, medium of content, timing of content and channels to create the right mix for influencing the audiences you would like to reach. Encourage user-generated content from your audiences on how they have been changed or moved by the stories they have watched, listened to or read on your channels (impact campaigns). Always remember to be a ‘good neighbor’ in your industry by sharing valuable, informational content. This will help you become a go-to platform.
Most importantly, keep the channels active, from cover photo imagery, to posts to answering questions and queries. A simple brand like to a comment goes a long way towards establishing trust and mutual appreciation.
