How Boards & Board Members Can Leverage Social Media to Promote their Organization's Mission

• Date: 01 November 2020
• Author: Kristin Dyak
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/bl.30174
• Published date: 01 November 2020

6 BOARD LEADERSHIP

How Boards & Board

Members Can Leverage

Social Media to Promote

their Organization’s Mission

by Kristin Dyak

Kristin Dyak is digital marketing director at The Cyphers Agency, an integrated

marketing and PR rm based outside of Washington, D.C. In this article, she

discusses how board members can not only ensure their organization is effectively

promoting its mission on social media, but also to do so themselves.

Over the roughly 150 years that

boards have existed, the func-

tions and responsibilities required of

their members have grown in both

number and diversity. And though they

certainly vary from corporation to cor-

poration and nonprofit to nonprofit, all

share the essential need to establish,

update, and implement their organiza-

tion’s mission.

Although perhaps not top of mind,

one of the best ways to do this is by

efficiently and effectively leveraging

the power of social media—both as an

organization as a whole and as indi-

vidual board members. As a current

member of two boards, those of the

Chesapeake Chapter of the Public

Relations Society of America (PRSA)

and Broadway Crew, a promotional

staffing resource for Broadway-related

brands and events, I’ve helped imple-

ment social media initiatives and seen

firsthand how powerful a board’s focus

on this area can be.

With that in mind, here are my top

recommendations for boards and

board members seeking to amplify

their message through social media.

How Boards Can Ensure their

Organization Is Using Social

Media to Advance their Mission

Before you can determine where

you’re going, you must establish a

starting point.

To this end, it’s essential to take the

time to carry out a deep-dive audit of

your current social media accounts.

This includes taking stock of post

frequency, content categories and

subject balance, engagement rate, and

internal participation. These metrics

will create a baseline for your growth

moving forward and will also assist in

dictating your social media strategy

per platform.

This done, you should then turn to

your content and prioritize two things:

developing and consistently posting

the type of content that advances

your organization’s mission and,

equally important, tailoring it to each

platform and audience. For example,

your audience on LinkedIn and Twit-

ter may primarily consist of industry

professionals, meaning that standard

content categories for the network

are mission-focused industry news,

event promotions, and content from

attendees. Your Instagram and Face-

book followers, on the other hand,

are likely consumers of or general

fans of your brand/mission, for whom

posts that feature company culture

and new product announcements are

better suited. Overall, your content

should appeal to your organization’s

fans in addition to employees, industry

thought leaders, and board members

alike.

But reaching your audience doesn’t

necessarily mean creating a one-

way bulletin board of information,

as engagement can expand beyond

simply liking, commenting, and shar-

ing a post. For example, at PRSA we

created a contest on its Facebook

page in which chapter members who

engaged with the post were entered

into a drawing for a chance to receive

a free registration to a virtual indus-

try summit. This type of promotion

not only encourages interaction with

the content, but also shows that the

organization values involvement in

industry events.

It’s also important to remember

that your social media channels are

not simply megaphones for promot-

ing your content. If done properly,

you can utilize social media listening

to increase engagement within your

online communities; there are several

listening tools available that aggre-

gate content based on search terms

and relative hashtags. This can also be

done manually by searching terms and

hashtags, but I recommend using a

tool that encompasses the whole con-

versation and alerts you to real-time

trends. It’s valuable to participate in

these discussions from your organi-

zation’s accounts not only to express

your stance on certain topics that you

and your constituents care about, but

also because liking someone’s com-

ment may result in a retweet coming

your way given that engagement is

give-and-take.

In a more narrow scope, it’s worth-

while to follow, monitor, and engage

with content posted by your stakehold-

ers, employees, and industry partners.

An efficient way to do this on Twitter is

to create lists for each category. Scan

the list during your regularly scheduled

monitoring to sift through your main

news feed and interact with a speci-

fied group of accounts. On the other

social media platforms, I recommend

either saving links to notable accounts

in a document or as bookmarks in

your web browser. That way they’re

accessible and easy to click through

when browsing for engaging con-

tent. Encouraging your stakeholders,

employees, and industry partners to

tag you in their content, when appro-

priate, can also be a very helpful way

to ensure that you receive a notifica-

tion and are able to engage right away.

This level of engagement tightens the

digital community by showcasing a uni-

fied front with a parallel message.