Does anyone manage social media or website for a small charity?

[LondonGrimmer]

If so, do you have any top tips please? I've taken on this extra job role recently with zero training and am just feeling my way around...but would really appreciate any help in term of increasing reach, extrapolating data from Facebook and Instagram and presenting it clearly to senior management quarterly, what are the main things to focus on etc?

I also get sent SEO reports from our website people and it's like reading a foreign language! Not sure which information is the best to focus on?

Thank you

Or maybe any articles to read or blogs/websites to check out?

I also get sent SEO reports from our website people and it's like reading a foreign language! Not sure which information is the best to focus on!

The SEO really needs to know this! Can you have a meeting with them and ask them to talk you through the latest report? (I’m an SEO & that’s exactly what I’d want you to do.)

@empresswitchdoesntburn SEO =search engine optimization yes? I will ask the website company if we can have another meeting. A member of their staff did come along to a meeting a few months back and talked us through some parts, but it didn't really sink in and now I'm on my own trying to understand it...

[quote LondonGrimmer]@empresswitchdoesntburn SEO =search engine optimization yes? I will ask the website company if we can have another meeting. A member of their staff did come along to a meeting a few months back and talked us through some parts, but it didn't really sink in and now I'm on my own trying to understand it...[/quote]
Search engine optimisation, yes.

I do the same job in-house & produce reports for people at all levels in our company, & making them easily comprehensible - with annotations & summaries where needed - is the absolute basic.

Ask your SEO people to recommend an article or a website for a total novice who wants to understand what’s going on, that’s something they should be doing for you. The thing about this job is that it’s quite easy to forget that what’s obvious to you isn’t so clear to everyone else. If you’re having a Zoom meeting with them perhaps also ask if they mind you recording it.

Re social media data, I’d start by focusing on getting an idea of benchmarks & trends - what you expect every month, which is likely to also vary by season - and highlight especially successful posts. If you can explain what made them successful (retweet by a high profile person, for instance) that’s a bonus. But right at the start it’s just about gathering data so you can get an idea of what’s going on.

Hope that helps!

Join Charity Comms and use their resource library.

Look at the SEO guide on Moz.

Do Google Garage training on web and search.

Hootsuite have lots of free social media training too.
For social, identify your primary audience and objectives and focus on delivering those.
Good luck.

What do they want to know? Do you have access to Google analytics? Do you use AdWords or just rely on seo? What about the content? Who manages the site?

Have a meeting with the agency and ask questions. They should be able to set up a regular report and give some info on the back of that (so explain the stats, any changes, what you can do to increase traffic etc...).

And yes - Google garage is good.

So you've took on the advertising for a charity and you have no experience in advertising?

OP, you have bloody got your work cut out.

Its really hard and you can do a lot of damage if you dont know what your doing.

Are you Facebook ads paid?

I now pay a professional to do my SEO and the difference he has made is astounding. You need to be able to pull key words from your site so it shows up on SEO in google. Google has to trust your site to list it higher so you also have to do a lot of work there.

Maybe get the SEO and ad campaigns for dummies (if there is one)

I initially thought I could do my own, I couldn't and nearly ruined my business.

regarding the Facebook and Instagram - you should be able to access that info through the Facebook business suite if you have them linked up. There is actually is technology you can add to Facebook/instagram ads and reach but that is way out of my understanding so I pay a professional to do it.

You can waste a shit load of money if you dont know what you are doing - like I did.

There’s a Facebook group called charity comms chat, lots of inexperienced and people who are experienced on there - really supportive community

Actually it’s called third sector pr and comms network 🤣🤣🤣🤣

If you have access to the back end of the site you can look at the seo / keywords in the descriptions.

It’s not a ‘wee easy’ job! But it’s not rocket science - and it does take time to do properly.

Most importantly - do you know your ‘kill’ protocol? I always have the instructions of how to take down the site taped to the inside of my drawer in case I’m not around and it all goes tits up.

Try Googling your organisation and your ‘competitors’ and see what happens. Do this in an incognito window. Check out their sites. Look at yours from a users point of view and see how easy it it to navigate and find information/contact details.

There are some great free courses online.

Have a look at FutureLearn and there's a really good one by Google.

https://learndigital.withgoogle.com/digitalgarage/course/digital-marketing?dskid=43700039200390687&gclid=Cj0KCQjwssyJBhDXARIsAK98ITSi4VDnJ9GIWjLOiH9gwZNiTPr7sJmwCPLTlc8XggiuFB-1btprI-EaAkHjEALww_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

www.futurelearn.com/subjects/business-and-management-courses/social-media

Also YouTube is awesome for bite size learning on any topic...

Particularly if you get stuck on using any tech as there's always someone who has done a step by step walkthrough

The nice thing about the Google course is that it's a recognised certification so also good for your CV

Ummm... Just give me a moment to try and take all this in please (and my heart rate to go down). Panicking a bit now...

I've only got 6hrs a week (which is in addition to my normal hours, both min wage) to continue to run the 6 x FB pages, an Insta account, and now our website hosts are emailing me monthly SEO reports with no annotation or guides and I'm feeling completely out of my depth!

When I say small local charity, I mean tiny (fewer than 60 employees). We're a children's charity so no competitors really?

Just sorting my kids out and will have a look at all your questions, links and suggestions later - thank you all so much!

Obviously they're not expecting the full works for a tiny charity so take baby steps!

Try not to get completely overwhelmed by what organisations with huge social media budgets do.

First step is really just to get to grips with what they do already. How to use the various social media channels they use, how often they post and what about.

Once you've got to grips with that then maybe start looking at whether there's an efficient way of posting to the multiple channels to save yourself some time (e.g. Hootsuite or similar) if they don't already use something like that.

Then look into clarifying what it is that the charity wants to achieve - is it awareness, donations, volunteers?

Investigate social media strategies and calendars - lots of articles and YT videos about social media strategy.

Once you've done this you will have ideas about how you might want to tweak what they're doing to get better traction.

All of this is one step at a time though....so first week is getting to grips with what they have and what they already do.

As I understand it, you’re not expected to actually do the SEO, just to understand the reports and deal with the social media?

Remember the best way to eat an elephant is one mouthful at a time! 🐘

@Nightmanagerfan wow Google Garage looks amazing - thank you! Have also had a quick look on Moz. Fab.

@KittenKong thank you. Not sure the CEO even knows what they want out of this new role. Tbh I've been helping out with the social media pages since Covid but in an unofficial capacity.

I don't have access to Google Analytics. We don't have a Google account I don't think? No Gmail or YouTube or anything.

We're a small non-profit with zero budget for advertising or marketing. Never paid for ads.

No idea of a kill protocol as website is managed by a company for us. I don't have access to our website but an admin in our organisation does, so she can update the news section or add job ads and things. Perhaps I need to ask for access?

Systematically work through Google Digital garage. Join FB fundraising chat. I see charity comms is recommended too. They have an on demand
The most important thing is having objectives. You will not be able to do all you need to, so being hyper focused will help. Do you have any help with content?
Are you also llooking after the GGoogle PPC ad grant?

DM me if you like, I am small ccharity income engagement lead and dappy tos hare our basic templates and frameworks to help you if you like.

Don't worry OP. Your employers could indeed employ several people to do all this and spend thousands a month. But they're not, they are paying someone minimum wage for 6 hours a week. You must remember you can only be expected to do what is reasonably achievable in 6 hours. Please don't become a slave and martyr to it, just because by nature this role has limitless potential. Just make sure boundaries are drawn and respected from the beginning and expectations kept in check.

The fact is they have a tiny budget for this so they won't expect the level of expertise PPs are referring to.

The website hosts are just clicking send on the SEO reports because they've been asked to do so and it takes them one second. It is not intimidating. Put it back on them and ask them to do a bit more to help you. If they won't you can easily move to new hosts - there are so many out there and will offer more for lower fees no doubt. If you call them and become acquainted they may well be happy to help you out, especially as it's a charity.

I think the PP who mentioned you tube means for you to watch videos on there to learn from... search SEO on YouTube for starters.

@Evesgarden no chance of spending a shit load of money...our budget is £0 We don't pay for ads anywhere. I have been looking at Insights on our FB pages/Insta and feeding back to senior management for about a year now.

I did Facebook Blueprint training last year but seem to have forgotten most of it. And find a lot of the content is aimed at businesses who are looking to increase profit/customers, hence me posting here for tips specifically for those who are in the not-for-profit sector.

@Cheermonger thank you! Have joined that Facebook group

@wheresmymojo thanks so much for those links - brilliant. Not sure how much time I'll have to do the meatier courses but will try and cram them in.

Love the elephant tip! We've been posting on FB once a day, and have noticed that our home-made/local/organic posts are most popular (rather than a share from an external page/site). Our aims change frequently depending on what we need.

@EmpressWitchDoesntBurn thanks for all the help too. Yes you're right - I'm just expected to understand the reports and help increase traffic to our website. Feedback to senior management quarterly with data...but I need to understand it first.

@travailtotravel no help whatsoever with content and I don't know what Google PPC ad grant is?! Thanks, I may take you up on the offer of a PM

@whatisheupto thanks so much for your sage advice and wisdom. It's so hard not to give up lots of my free time doing it as I'm incredibly passionate about our charity's aims and started off life with the organisation as a volunteer....so old habits die hard (hence spending my Saturday on Mumsnet resesarching help!). But you and others are right; I need to have boundaries and set expectations when I'm (meant to be) spending 6hrs a week and getting paid minimum wage. You're so right that the web hosts aren't taking much time emailing the SEO report.