Social Media Stats To Know

4.76 billion.

That’s the number of people worldwide using social media. That’s quite a large number!

Odds are your audience of current and potential supporters are using at least one social media platform. Social media is a fantastic outlet for educating people, engaging and mobilizing them to take action. But you also have to know how people use social media.

The above link is full of important data points related to social media. I have taken five and shared with you ideas and tips that will help your nonprofit use social media effectively.

Social Media Stats To Know

Stat: The average social media user spends approximately 2.5 hours daily on social media.

Tips for your organization: That’s a LOT of time every day! It means

• You need to post daily on your social channels.
• In fact, you need to post more than once on your channels. People check in multiple times a day.
• Spending that much time means people see a LOT of posts. You have to make sure your posts stand out in the feed so a user stops the scroll, reads and maybe takes action.

 

Stat: Sprout Social’s 2023 Content Benchmarks Report found that the top five most engaging types of in-feed social content are short-form videos (66%), images (61%), live videos (37%), GIFs/memes (32%) and text-based posts (32%).

Tips for your organization: Look at what people like to interact with.

• How’s your video game? People consume a LOT of video every day. Get your phone out and start recording!
• What should you share? How about demonstrating impact, stories, social proof, interviews, behind the scenes look for starters.
• When it’s not text-based, you have a better shot of stopping the scroll. A video/image/picture/graphic/meme will stand out when users are scrolling thru their social media feeds.
• Live video is great for engagement! People watch and leave comments which your organization can answer in real time while you’re filming!
• Does everything have to be a Spielberg production? Absolutely not. Recording videos with your phone is fine. In fact, people will view it as real and authentic when it’s unedited and maybe there’s a small mistake or two.

 

Stat: Viewers find short-form videos 2.5 times more engaging than long-form videos.

Tips for your organization:

• Use a variety of types of video (and content) to keep people coming back and watching.
• Plan the videos in advance! If your audience wants shorter videos, you can’t let a speaker drone on and on.
• People are very busy and have a million things coming at them every minute. Not only should your videos be short but you want to have an opening that captures a viewer’s attention right away. This way they stick around for the whole show.

Stat: YouTube has 2.5 billion monthly average users.

Tips for your organization: That’s a LOT of people searching for videos to watch!

• Google is the number one search engine. Know what’s number two? YouTube! People are constantly using YouTube to search for videos. That includes potential supporters of your organization.
• Your nonprofit has to have a presence on YouTube. People may be searching for keywords related to your mission and work. You’re missing out on opportunities for them to find out about you.
• Like I mentioned above, share a variety of engaging videos. Use YouTube to educate, demonstrate impact, story tell, introduce your staff/donors/volunteers/Board members, share how you change the lives of people in your community. Get users to watch more than one video about you.

 

Stat: The average Facebook pages fan engagement was 0.07%.

Tips for your organization: If your page had 1,000,000 followers, almost no one is engaging with your posts. So is Facebook dead? Nope.

• Facebook has been pay-for-play for the last few years. Want people to see your ad and interact with it? You gotta pay by purchasing ads.
• Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily. Facebook has a couple billion users. Their ad program is pretty darn good in terms of targeting the audience you want to get in front of.
• The cost to post ads isn’t very high. Might be something your organization should consider in order to help drive more traffic to your website.

Don’t Ignore It

When it comes to your fundraising campaigns, direct mail is still king and email is an excellent way to get in front of donors.

But don’t sleep on social media! People aren’t just checking out posts. They’re replying, commenting and sharing posts with their personal network.

That means plenty of chances for you to connect, develop relationships, drive traffic to your website and encourage people to get involved.