Social media for charities 101: LinkedIn
Posted on: June 16, 2022
LinkedIn has changed. It’s (arguably) the oldest social media platform in the world and if you haven’t visited it for a while, you might imagine that it is still the collection of online CVs, happy new job announcements, and occasional rants that it used to be.
Historically, LinkedIn’s problem has been that lots of people have an account, but they hardly ever use it. With few active users, having a company page for your charity may have seemed low priority.
But Microsoft snapped up LinkedIn in 2016 and has been investing in the platform’s growth ever since. These days LinkedIn boasts around 740 million users with 198 million active in Europe. The most active age bracket in the UK is 25–34 year olds.
Charities can use LinkedIn to influence or support workplaces, be a voice in relevant conversations, grow a community of professionals, reach and engage with staff and volunteers, and support staff with learning and development.
Influence or support workplaces
Most LinkedIn users go onto the platform to post about and engage with work-related issues. It is an opportunity for charities to influence workers and workplaces.
For example, mental health charities can use LinkedIn to talk about mental health at work. This is a great post from the Mental Health Foundation. It uses a poll to learn from the audience and start a conversation about looking after your mental health while working from home. Polls are a great way to boost reach and engagement on the platform.
Grow a community of professionals
LinkedIn users are more likely to be professionals with higher levels of education and income. Set up a company page to help with corporate partnerships, major donor fundraising, and influencing work as well as brand awareness.
Twitter is also a hub for professional social networking, but as many begin to view the constant ‘pile ons’ and negative behaviour as hostile, LinkedIn is seen as a viable alternative.
Best posting times will vary according to when your audience is most likely to be online, but as a rule, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are the best days. Weekends are very quiet!
As with any social media platform, posting consistently is important. Engaging content such as polls and conversation starters can be very effective.
Text-based posts also perform well. After the first 235 characters of a text post users are given the option to ‘see more’. Using a ‘hook’ in your first line will really encourage scrollers to engage by expanding the post.
LinkedIn posts can also include articles, documents, or job ads – all hosted within the platform.
Going Live
Video (including live content) continues to play an important role in social media marketing. You have to apply for permission to use the LinkedIn Live function on your company page.
Your charity’s page must have more than 150 followers and you must be producing original content regularly to be eligible.
Engage with staff and volunteers
The most effective LinkedIn strategy will also involve your staff and volunteers. If staff or volunteers have selected your charity as their place of work, they will be listed on your company page under ‘people’.
You can also actively recruit for staff via LinkedIn – having a great company page might be the thing that persuades the most talented charity professionals to apply.
LinkedIn now allows you to engage with staff posts as the company page so that you can react to, comment on, or share employee content.
Chatting with staff in this way supports your employer brand and when your team feel appreciated, they are more likely to want to share your page’s content.
Content has become more varied as the platform continues to go through what has been dubbed ‘Facebookisation’. We are beginning to understand the importance of bringing our whole selves to work and LinkedIn provides an avenue for expression and appreciation of that.
Transparency about who runs and works for charities could also play a big role in building public trust.
Staff development
LinkedIn merged with mammoth online learning platform, Lynda.com, in 2017 to form LinkedIn learning. It offers more than 16,000 courses and already has around 700 million users.
The course listings take ratings into account, helping to save staff time trying to find the best courses. There is also an option to create personalised learning content for your charity.
Individuals can purchase an individual course or get access to all courses for around $20 per month (£15 approx.).
Supporting charities and non-profits
There is specific support for the third sector via LinkedIn’s non-profits programme. The programme includes free live events, discounted or free products and they are working on creating a non-profit ads programme.
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