A non-profit without a social media presence is invisible to a larger audience. To get the word out about your organization, you will need to build a presence on social media, especially on LinkedIn.
Why LinkedIn? Because it is a networking platform for business professionals who want to connect with like-minded people from their industry. It could be for recruitment purposes or to share their ideas, experiences, and stories for personal branding.
How is it any different from other social media platforms? The difference lies in the purpose the platform is used for. The platform is exclusively designed for business networking. So, as a non-profit, you will have a hard time growing your reach on social media without LinkedIn.
After reading this article, you will learn how you can use LinkedIn as a non-profit to grow your audience. Without further delay, let’s get into it!
How To Use LinkedIn For Non-profit
Using LinkedIn as a non-profit is not too challenging if you know what you are doing. It starts with setting up your LinkedIn page, optimizing it, and creating a buzz about your non-profit in the LinkedIn community of 1 billion users.
Imagine the kind of attention you can get with such a vast audience. But to build your presence and boost your organization’s visibility, you will need to set up a page.
So, follow these steps to create a well-optimized and attractive LinkedIn page.
How to Create a LinkedIn Page for Non-Profit
Before creating your page, explore other non-profit profiles with a good following and take inspiration. It helps those who are unsure of what goes on a page so they can prepare an impactful summary for the About section.
Once you know what you want your page to look like and what goes in there, follow these steps to create your page.
- Click on the “Work” tab located at the top right side of your home page.
- Now, click on Create a Company Page. In page type, select Company.
- Add the company details, your non-profit name, your website URL, your logo, tagline, cover photo, company type, company size, and industry.
- Before you launch the page, preview it and make sure it is good to go. LinkedIn will ask you to verify that you have the authority to create your non-profit page, in case you have authorized someone else to create a page for your non-profit.
- Lastly, after the page is created, edit your page’s About section, write the summary, and talk about the story, the achievements, and your cause. Don’t forget to include CTA for people who might want to talk business with you.
Note: You can assign admins if you want to who can operate your company page for you.
It doesn’t end there. Keep building your page for maximum optimization so it reaches the right audience interested in your cause.
There is a tool, “Build Your Page” that you can use to optimize your page. Just fill in additional details like location so people near you can easily find where your organization is located.
Profile Optimization Tips
Creating your LinkedIn page is simple. However, it is of no use if it is not visible to people. Profile optimization boosts your profile’s reach. A well-optimized profile uses SEO practices to increase the page’s visibility.
Here are some tips that will help enhance your page’s optimization.
- Use trending hashtags (#) with posts
- Add keywords related to “Non-profit” to your page’s “About” section.
- Make your LinkedIn page public.
- Use an attractive logo (size 300 x 300) and banner picture (size 1128 x 191) reflecting your non-profit theme.
- Post content regularly. It could be related to your organization’s events, news, achievements, and milestones. Share images and videos too, with captions.
- Collaborate with other creators and organizations and tag them in your posts.
- Get recommendations from other profiles to build credibility.
- Engage with other profiles and creators’ content every day.
Use LinkedIn Ads To Promote Campaigns
You can use LinkedIn to generate leads both organically and through Ad campaigns. Organic profile growth is slow, whereas sponsored content reaches your target audience quickly.
If you want to promote your upcoming fundraising events or any other business events, run LinkedIn Ad campaigns for broader outreach.
Review Your Performance Using Analytical Tools
Use the insights tool to analyze your posts’ performance. Are people engaging with your posts? You can track the impressions, likes, comments, tags, etc. of your page and posts to refine your LinkedIn strategy.
Create Engaging Content
Create a content strategy for your LinkedIn posts. Use different formats, like, text, video, images, etc. Explore and see what works and what doesn’t. If no one is engaging with your posts, that means it is either not reaching to right audience or your posts are missing their mark.
Create engaging posts that resonate with your target audience and compel them to engage with your content. People love stories, so publish content about your non-profit activities, news, events, and achievements.
Use Visuals to Grab Attention
An average human has the attention span of a goldfish, that is, 9 seconds. That means you have only 9 seconds to grab your audience’s attention and plain boring text won’t do that.
Visuals intrigue people. Infographics, videos, images, polls, carousels, and charts are the elements that catch the reader’s eye first. So, hook the audience with a powerful headline and visual to attract more people.
Don’t Forget CTA
Your LinkedIn posts should have a call to action relevant to your non-profit. It should subtly drive people to engage with your content and follow your page, which may evoke their curiosity and lead them to take the next action.
Post Content At the Right Time
It is important to post content at the time of the day when most of the users are active. According to the survey conducted by SocialPilot, the ideal times to post on LinkedIn are:
Monday: 6:00 am
Tuesday: 6:00 am to 8:00 am
Wednesday: 12:00 pm
Thursday: 02:00 pm
Friday: 08:00 am
Saturday: 04: am to 05:00 am
Sunday: 06:00 pm
Add Your Staff to Your Non-Profit Page
Adding your staff to your profile adds credibility to your company page. Moreover, if the profiles of your executives and other staff members are optimized, it builds your reputation. So, encourage your staff to optimize their profiles as well.
Get Them To Talk About You
Stories and posts coming from your staff will strengthen your LinkedIn presence. Encourage your executives and other employees to actively engage with your non-profit page, and share their work stories and experiences with their network.
It is an organic way to grow the visibility of your non-profit profile.
Connect, Communicate, and Network
LinkedIn is a networking platform, so it is best used to connect, communicate, and network with like-minded professionals. Some of the ways you can network with your target audience include:
- Use direct messaging to reach out to sponsors, donors, volunteers, and other organizations who might be interested in joining your cause.
- Share your achievements and successful non-profit events.
- Join LinkedIn groups with a cause similar to yours and engage actively with the members there.
Final Thoughts
LinkedIn is a community of 1 billion people networking on a global level. Out of those 1 billion people, you can certainly find a few thousand who are looking to join a cause you are contributing to.
With all the information that we have shared in this article, we are sure using LinkedIn as a non-profit won’t feel intimidating anymore.
However, using LinkedIn to promote your cause without any professional help can be overwhelming. It will take longer to grow your presence on LinkedIn if you do it alone, and you are more likely to make mistakes that can set you back further.
Let the marketing specialists at Sunan do the work for you. Our marketing experts have a knack for devising successful marketing strategies that can skyrocket your growth on LinkedIn.
Need help with building your non-profit organization’s presence on LinkedIn?
Schedule a demo today with one of our marketing specialists!
