41. A non-profit that wants personality
Can your social media strategy succeed without a marketing budget? 💸 Lucky for listeners, that’s Phil and Lauren’s specialty. In this week's episode, Esther needs help devising a marketing strategy for her non-profit organization. Our hosts explain how to authentically connect with an audience (spoiler alert: It all comes down to storytelling) so you don’t need to drop a dime.
Episode transcription
Phil:
Well hello there, welcome to Brand Therapy. I'm Phil.
Lauren:
And I'm Lauren.
Phil:
And you've made a great decision today that decision to listen to us to hang out with us today as we explore a brand new challenge faced by someone out there in the big wide world. Today, this individual named Esther, brings us a good little challenge to the table. This is a fun one.
Lauren:
She does because a lot of people will come to us and their challenge is promoting on social media to make sales, to get money, but she works in the nonprofit world so she's kind of dancing a fine line.
Phil:
And Esther takes this feedback and strategy like an absolute pro. She shoots back exactly how she's going to implement it and I think for anyone listening to this, you're going to get ideas. Even if it's a different industry, you're going to get ideas on how um, you can kind of switch up your method of storytelling. I think you're going to find it interesting.
Lauren:
Yeah. This episode is really great for anyone who is working in a very professional space who is kind of nervous to take chances and show your personality online.
Phil:
I think we should just jump right into it.
Lauren:
You're like enough with the description of, let's get to our conversation with Esther.
Esther:
Hi, I'm Esther, I'm a recent graduate helping a local skating club with branding and marketing strategies, which is really helping me start out in the field and I'm definitely learning a lot along the way. But one of the main challenges has been that it got me thinking about the difference between marketing. No, a community nonprofit versus a larger business. So I want it to be able to approach this in the most effective way and not just kind of plug it into a generic marketing strategy that wouldn't necessarily work best for the dynamics of this particular program, especially since it does have such a specific and localize audience. So I really wanted to kind of focus on that sense of community, but I'm not sure how to not make it seem really overblown with the advertising and whatnot.
Lauren:
Got It. And so could you tell me what a skating club is?
Esther:
Yeah, so it's just a local nonprofit sports organization. So we offer programs for all ages, teaching people how to skate or figure skating, things like that.
Lauren:
Oh cool. So it's literal, I was wondering, I was like, I said skateboarding because I know that cool people call it skating.
Esther:
Oh yeah, no, ice skating, what we do up here in Canada yes.
Lauren:
Perfect. So you basically I know hockey and skating can be a pretty expensive sport, right?
Esther:
Yeah, absolutely.
Lauren:
Perfect. So you just make it more accessible to the community who that may, uh, might not otherwise be able to afford to skate.
Esther:
Yeah. So we kind of do it. We're not interested in making money or achieving the highest level of excellence or whatever. We're just kind of providing a service to the community. Right.
Lauren:
Yup, definitely. Definitely. I've, I worked for a nonprofit, gosh, how long was it about six or seven years ago. But it's a nonprofit in the music industry, so people didn't realize it was nonprofit, but basically you just have to make sure that you spend whatever it is that you have left over, but spend it in a way that goes back to the community. So your challenge, it's figuring out a way to authentically market this skating club in a way that actually like resonates with your community instead of a mass broadcasting thing like any other company. Right?
Esther:
Yeah, that's it.
Lauren:
Perfect. What social media channels are you using right now?
Esther:
So we're on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook right now.
Lauren:
And how do you feel about how things have been performing?
Esther:
It’s not too bad. It's just kind of difficult to kind of create content that speaks to the nature of the program and you know who we are rather than just what we offer. They find in the past they've done a lot of like, this is our program, this is what you can sign up for. And I'm kind of just trying to hone in on, you know, a strategy that would kind of let people into our world a bit more and maybe personalize it a little bit.
Phil:
I love where your head is at because that stuff gets boring after a while, doesn't it? It's like this is what we have and this is what we offer. It's kind of, okay we get it and I would have responded before this if you really captivated my attention. Whereas you know, if you tell the story or maybe a perspective or a story that is the kind of thing that at work you might talk about at the water cooler or the kind of thing that you tell someone, hey, by the way, did you hear what happened? You know, those are the kinds of moments that actually resonate on social media. I love where your mind is at. Right?
Esther:
Yeah. That's great advice cause it's, you know, we want to kind of attach it to some kind of external meaning, but you know, with a very kind of localized community, I'm finding it difficult to make it not seem too heavy.
Lauren:
Yup. Yup. Definitely. There are two Instagram companies that come to mind. One of them, Phil's can be rolling his eyes because I bring them up all the time. He's gonna be like, oh, she's talking about Everlane again. Here we go. But um, do you have you, do you follow Everlane on Instagram?
Esther:
I haven't heard of it no.
Lauren:
Oh look them up. So they're an ethical clothing company. They basically are completely transparent. So every t shirt that you buy, you know how much it costs, what factory it was made out with conditions of the factory were how much it cost to transport it to the US, how much they've marketed up and how much of their money they're making. They're completely transparent. But what they're really, really great at on social media is storytelling. So follow them and get inspired because they show not only what's happening their office like you actually get to know people in their office. But they also are really great at telling stories behind like the construction of every tee shirt that they sell and showing reactions from people and how much this tee shirt was, how much it changed their Wednesday or whatever it is. And I think for you, although you're not selling a product, you are selling a service. So use Everlane is an inspiration to figure out how to capture those stories about services you're offering.
Esther:
Okay. Yeah, that sounds awesome. That's kind of what I was thinking we should do or the direction we should take. So yeah.
Lauren:
Yeah, they're great. Yeah. And then another account that I love, I'm biased for loving them, but it's um, kitten rescue. It's literally called kitten rescue, but it's where we got our cat and they're so good at Instagram. They are so good. And they tell these like stories about every cat, like cat in their, everyday they have over a hundred cats in there. And then they talk about like things they're doing and the staff, how they're taking care of the baby kittens and which ones they saved from a shelter, blah, blah, blah. And I don't know how, but somehow there's only so much you can say about cats, right? There's only, there's a limit but they make every single story and post completely unique, completely engaging and so charming. So I would look to them and look to other animal rescues in your area because they're a nonprofit, they're communicating about a good cause or doing something for a very local community and they get really, really creative with how they talk about the cats are helping.
Esther:
Okay. So are you saying I should kind of make kind of personalized posts about maybe members who are willing to share some part of their experience or maybe words of motivation or something like that and just kind of connect it to the actual people who are impacted?
Phil:
Bingo. Bingo. Bingo. Bango
Lauren:
Definitely, definitely and you don't even necessarily have to set up a formal interview with them, but if it's a matter of going to a rink once a week and capture it and doing a boomerang of someone slipping and falling or you know, getting a quick quote from someone about how good their hockey game was or whatever it is. I think the less formal the better. And you can really, I mean with an organization like yours, you could make a story out of anything.
Esther:
Right. And those are the kinds of posts that are shareable too, right? I mean, people don't really click go on posts that are just, this is what we do or this is what you can register for today. Right. So I feel that would definitely help us get a lot more reach.
Lauren:
Definitely. Definitely. Don't talk about what you're selling, talk about what people get. So talk about, it's more about the experience through your club than like the actual services offered by your club.
Esther:
Right. Okay.
Phil:
Maybe we can go through some example posts. Maybe first tell us or describe a few posts that you've done that you think have been maybe positioned in this way or that have performed well. Let's kind of start there and maybe we'll, we'll carry this brainstorm.
Esther:
Okay. Well this is another question I had because we do have a few skaters that compete internationally who have gone through our program. So I have made a few posts just tracking them and their competitive skating and just saying you can tune in to CBC and watch some of our skaters live on television. So those perform pretty well because they kind of tie us to the broader skating community. So I wasn't sure how to really balance that with being very focused and communal and very much within ourselves. So I'm not sure if I can kind of merge those or if I should do both or pick one.
Lauren:
I think both. I like the idea of focusing on the big successful people but also the little guys who are just having fun and not very good at skating him on ever be professionals. I'm almost imagining an Instagram story where it's a journey of a professional skater through our skating club and it's number one, so-and-so joins at three falls a bit but really likes it number two, and three years later, they're starting to do their first triple axle or whatever the skating term is. And then go all the way to number six, they're on CBC tonight. Be sure to tune in. So I think focusing on the journey of a skater as through your, your club is cool but also just like skating and hockey, it's such a fun and literally physical thing that I think a video that's just a few seconds long would do probably much better than an overly promotional like still photo.
Esther:
Right. Okay. That makes sense. Cause yeah, we're trying to kind of might maintain that wholesome vibe. But we also want to say, look what you can achieve and whatnot. So yeah, it's hard to find that balance.
Lauren:
Yeah. What do you mean by wholesome?
Esther:
Just the fact that you know, it's local. It is a nonprofit, so we don't want to be in your face with the advertising. So just keeping it we post a lot of pictures of the kids themselves or you know, the kiddy competitions and whatnot. So kind of appealing to parents in a way.
Lauren:
That's so fun. I think that's, that's great. Yeah.
Phil:
When you're stumped for ideas for content, a good a group of people to reach out to for some inspiration. Are those parents, the parents or the, the, the kids who already have made the decision to put their kids in skating. And I'd love to hear their perspective on why they did that, why they continue to do it. And parents are really passionate. So there's a really kind of cool narrative in there as well. So the minute you get stumped, even when Lauren and I find this within our own business, the minute we get stumped, we start to ask questions to the people around us and to the people that pay attention to us to listen for those moments. We can share stories.
Esther:
Okay, so what kind of motivates them and why they kind of still care?
Lauren:
Yeah. Well, what you could do is you could actually approach three parents or four sets of parents and say, Hey, for our social media, we're following the journey of young skaters and we would love to feature your kid if possible. Would you be able to, whenever your kid's talking about skating or talking about our club, could you ask them questions, film it, and send it to us? Or if you, if they're competing or if they're playing a game, would you mind capturing video and sending it to us?
Esther:
Okay. So video is kind of something that you should tap into?
Lauren
I think so, and I wouldn't say this for every brand, but in your case it's very active. Very physical, lots of movement. And so I feel like it would be a kind of a missed opportunity not to primarily do video.
Esther:
Right. Okay. Yeah. Cause I have created a lot of those still image photos with, you know, a slogan or something like that and I don't find that those get a lot of reactions. So maybe that is definitely a good approach.
Lauren:
Yeah. Cause I think people want authenticity. People want to know what they want to feel, what it's like to be part of your skating club. And so kind of promotional posts with the slogan, while sometimes effective might not be as effective as literally a short five second video that kind of captures the energy of the ring and that feeling and has sound like background sounds. I feel that kind of puts, puts people into the environment instead of making them fill in the blanks.
Esther:
Okay, cool.
Lauren:
I'm trying to think of other brands that are like entertaining. What are your, some of your favorite brands, Phil?
Phil:
Honestly, I'm embarrassed, embarrassed, hands to this. If you go to my discover page on my Instagram, it's all videos of Cardi B or golden retrievers. That's what engages me most on Instagram. But I actually follow a lot of puppy rescue, animal accounts as you said. They know what sells and I don't mean actually selling, but I mean what grabs people's attention. You know, cause they got, I mean they've got a great thing to work with but actually so do you Esther, children and uh, yeah that's animals and children. That's you know, conventionally that's what advertisers use to sell products. So you've got a really good subject. Be grateful you're not trying to sell insurance or something.
Esther:
Yeah, you're totally right about that. Yeah, I did have another question if that's okay. Go for it. What do you guys think about like hashtags? Cause I've been kind of struggling with that as well. I find it really broad hashtags don't really help in this kind of situation. We kind of have to find like niche groups or niche local communities that would be following a certain hashtag because we can only really market to a certain demographic.
Phil:
Broad hashtags. You might as well not use hashtags at all. You don't want to use kind of broad hashtag and we would define broad as anything above, honestly 150,000 posts. So by tagging a post with a Hashtag that has a total number of posts, which you can see on Instagram, you just type the hashtag in and it will show you total number of posts. Anything above 150,000 starts to become very difficult to rank by using those. The whole reason we use hashtags is so that the content you're posting becomes discoverable and if there's too many attached to that, there's just a good chance you'll get beat out by bigger accounts and by just the, the enormous quantity of other posts that are using that. So I would encourage you to stay between 15,000 that's just enough that other people are looking it up and checking it out and it you're more likely to rank on the lower total number of posts. So keep it between 15,000 and 150,000 and you're good to go.
Esther:
Okay. Yeah, I always see those blocks of hashtags from other Instagram posters. That just makes me laugh.
Phil:
Yeah. If you keep them within that range and you actually track how well you do, so a lot of people forget that they just stick hashtags on there that they just think of randomly. But another way to do it is like if you have one hashtag that's relevant to what you're posting, type it in. Let's say for example it has more than 150,000 then find one that doesn't find one that's within that range. Maybe you add a word to that Hashtag and it makes it a little bit smaller. You can use Instagram, you know, search tool to find related hashtags that might perform better for you. Am I increase the likelihood of ranking?
Esther:
Okay. That sounds good.
Phil:
Cool. How are you feeling about this little strategy that we've, uh, we've devised?
Esther:
I really like it. I think it makes a lot of sense actually and I think it'll definitely help me pick things up and get pretty creative with it. So I'm excited.
Phil:
Wonderful. What will be your next steps that you'll take in terms of action?
Esther:
I think I will definitely start using video and start getting some personalized stories. I'm thinking kind of like a humans of New York feel in some respects, just kind of the posts that have a really shareable nature and kind of can spur reactions outside of people directly involved with the program. Um, that might be a great way to spread awareness and uh, pull more people into our world.
Phil:
I just know that you're going to have success with this. You're the right woman for the job here and I feel you've got a very clear kind of strategy moving forward. You're very clear on what needs to get done and we love when that happens. You said humans of New York and Lauren and I both, you can’t hear it because nods aren't audible, but we nodded. We're like, yes. Any thoughts Lauren, before we let Esther go to town?
Lauren:
No, I other than have fun with it, have fun and be kind of goofy and be playful. Like yes, you're a nonprofit, but I think you can still be passionate, personable, so don't hold back.
Esther:
Okay. Thank you guys so much for your help. It's been really fun.
Phil:
Our pleasure. We've loved having you on brand therapy, Esther, and we wish you the best of luck. Make sure as you move forward with this, you're a part back on how everything goes. We look forward to hearing from you.
Esther:
All right. Thank you guys.
Phil:
Thank you. Have a good day and chat with you soon.
Esther:
Bye. Bye.
Phil:
Oh, she really took the strategy and put into words exactly how she was gonna implement it. I feel so completely confident that she's got a handle on this.
Lauren:
Yeah, I think she almost just needed permission in a way. Like she knew what you wanted to do and gs kind of need permission to go for it without compromising the professionalism of her organization.
Phil:
Yeah, and we find that sometimes, right? Sometimes the ideas are already in your noggin, but it's a conversation with someone else that prompts that kind of action in a way. This is, you know how we work with our own clients sometimes for like accountability partners. It's like you get the idea out there, you talk about it and you're very clear on what you need to go and do. Esther, you're so smart. We love chatting with you. Thank you for being on this episode and we'd love to hear what you thought about this episode #brandtherapy. I'm a@philpallen on social media.
Lauren:
@thelaurenmoore
Phil:
on social media and if you enjoyed this episode, make sure you let us know. We'd love to hear if you've taken the time to listen. We want to hear from you. Don't just listen passively, take this moment in time to send us a tweet. Let us know. You think in, you know, if you're a fan, you can always go to the iTunes store, leave a review that helps other people discover this podcast. Now we're on Spotify. The world is wonderful, and next week we'll be back with a brand new episode. Why don't we, Lauren?
Lauren:
We sure will!
Phil:
Well, until then, thank you for hanging out with us today on Brand therapy. We'll see you next time.
What advice to you have for Esther? Comment below!
