3 Steps to Post Intentionally on Social Media as a Groundup

How can you bring your groundup’s social media presence to the next level? Almost everyone has some form of access to social media at their fingertips whether it is Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, even TikTok. It can still be daunting when we are thrown into the abyss of the big term “Social Media” even though it is part of our daily lives. So how can we make use of this tool to leverage reach and resources in simple and direct ways?

Through social media, groundups can increase awareness as it is an avenue to reach more volunteers, donors and boost their credibility. Looking into ways to differentiate your groundup’s socials while deciphering how to achieve and retain followers, we have identified 3 steps that your groundup can take.

When you post more meaningfully and intentionally, it becomes a lot more manageable to translate your groundup’s story, and the work that you do, into coherent content for your audience to grasp the true essence of your groundup’s initiative. Let’s grow together!

1. Create your brand - Tell your story

Branding is more than just your groundup’s name. It includes being clear on what your groundup represents. This would comprise identifying your vision, and letting it guide your postings in telling your groundup’s story. For example, if your groundup’s vision is to raise awareness for a certain cause, your posts would be mostly informational and specific to your cause compared to another groundup, who might wish to focus on garnering support for their initiative. Their posts may lean towards a more engaging tone and content to increase participation and involvement of their audience.

The next step would be knowing who you want to reach out to. Your target audience might include the type of volunteers you want to appeal to (ad-hoc or regular, age group, commitment level) and the people you wish to help. Identifying the target audience helps in raising the awareness of your groundup in a more efficient way. The tone of your message should aim to appeal to your identified target audience. An example would be posting in a more serious tone if your groundup’s target audience includes potential agencies you wish to partner with.

A big part of creating your brand is to storytell in a way that your audience can easily understand what your groundup is about. One way of doing so is to have different posts to tell different aspects of your groundup’s story. For example, having one post dedicated to conveying your mission, vision or goals, followed by a series of posts to introduce your groundup’s core team, regular volunteers or those from the community that you serve. You can even use Canva to create visuals to help make your story more compelling. Putting faces to your core team can provide a personal touch and help your audience feel more connected and inclined to be a part of your initiative. Including testimonials from your volunteers will also give greater insight into the work your groundup does!

2. Create your plan - Turn your goals into action

Now that you have thought about your groundup’s story and planned how you want to tell it on social media, it is time to create S.M.A.R.T. goals! What are S.M.A.R.T. goals? It is an acronym that can guide your goal setting, designed to foster clear understanding of factors that contribute to achievement. S.M.A.R.T. goals put into place areas that your groundup needs to focus on to reach your goals. 

Examples of common types of S.M.A.R.T. goals:

• Increasing something: eg. number of volunteers, publicity reach, number of members, variety of activities
• Improve something: eg. structure of your groundup’s activities or resources available to meet the needs of the community your groundup serves

S.M.A.R.T. goals can help you sharpen your social media content and help further the vision and mission of your groundup, by assisting to identify what your groundup wants to achieve on their social media accounts. An example would be to track the number of people your posts are reaching through Instagram tools or the rate of increase in your followers.

A big question is: How do we know what to continue posting and what needs to be changed? In other words, how do we test how well posts are doing? It is usually measured through the number of interactions with the posts. This shows you whether your reached audience is reacting to what they are seeing - look at the number of accounts reached, video views, reactions , comments, shares and even new followers. These are simple but reliable indicators that are provided on the social media app itself. It helps knowing the type of content your audience relates to when your groundup is thinking of developing social media content.

3. Create your community - Engage your audience

Your groundup’s social media account is essentially a digital gathering spot for your community, so when you think about what to post, you have to think about how it builds on the relationships with your audience and followers. Effectively connecting with the people you are reaching, can come in many forms some of which might look like:

Let’s get your groundup out there! One way of reaching more people is the use of hashtags. Think of what hashtags relate to the content you are posting, the demographic of people you wish to reach, and lastly, your groundup’s cause. Another way is to work with other groundups! Our Collaborate page offers a list of groundups that you could potentially reach out to connect with. It could be with groundups who have a similar cause as you. That way, both of your groundups can support each other with different resources and reach both of you already have. On the other hand, it is beneficial to work with groundups who have a different cause but complements your groundup.
 

An important strategy is to make use of available tools or apps as a guide. One useful tool is a Social Media Content Calendar that we have available for groundups. A Social Media Content Calendar would provide an overview of the month’s social media posting schedule. This would be helpful in having a bigger picture of the story that you are telling your audience, breaking it down into bite size and logical flows that would help your account maintain its presence and yet not overwhelm the audience. Another functional app is an Instagram layout planner such as Preview to help with the visual aspect when they are viewed on your profile as a whole. There are many platforms available to edit, plan and organise your social media posts, so make the most of them!

A guide on using Groundup Central’s Social Media Content Calendar: 

As mentioned above, a Social Media Content Calendar provides a big picture of the month’s social media posting schedule. This helps with intentional planning to make sure your account maintains its presence and yet does not overwhelm the audience. It provides a direction for your groundup - having different types of content for different days. Posting without this direction could end up with a confusing and disorganised social media account, with content being posted without aligning with your groundup’s brand, goals and vision. In our Social Media Content Calendar template available, we have provided a generic structure, as well as a sample that your groundup can choose to follow closely.

To Wrap Up

Using social media is a fun way to connect with people from the community, it helps you build relationships and relate to like-minded individuals who support your cause and the work that you do. When you post more meaningfully and intentionally, it provides them with knowledge on who you are, what you do, and what you are hoping to achieve. When you convey this information effectively, they can better relate with you and be more inclined to support your initiative.

About the authors:

Hazel was an Intern at Groundup Central. With hopes of tackling existing inequalities in the society, she wishes for more people to be aware of the underlying issues.