Why LinkedIn?
In the modern digital age, an online presence is crucial for any organization, including nonprofits. LinkedIn specifically provides many unique benefits that make it a highly effective platform for nonprofits. Here are some of the key reasons a nonprofit should have a LinkedIn presence:
- Professional network – LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional networking platform with over 700 million users. This provides access to a huge audience of potential supporters, donors, volunteers, partners, and more.
- Establish credibility – A complete and optimized LinkedIn profile establishes credibility and shows your nonprofit is modern, tech-savvy, and professional.
- Share your mission – You can share compelling content about your cause and organization to inform and inspire your network. This builds awareness and enables you to get your message out.
- Fundraising – LinkedIn provides fundraising opportunities through company matching programs, sponsored content, and crowdfunding campaigns.
- Volunteer recruitment – LinkedIn is a great platform to connect with professionals and recruit skilled volunteers.
- Partnerships – You can discover and connect with other organizations and businesses to collaborate and cross-promote.
- Jobs & internships – LinkedIn is the top site for nonprofits to post and promote open job and internship opportunities.
- Analytics – LinkedIn provides data and analytics to give insights into your followers and the impact of your content.
In summary, LinkedIn opens up vital networking, messaging, and marketing opportunities that can significantly benefit a nonprofit. Establishing a presence signals professionalism, enables broader sharing of your mission, and positions your nonprofit to better leverage the platform.
Setting Up Your Nonprofit’s LinkedIn
To create an effective LinkedIn presence, here are some tips for nonprofits:
Company Page
Set up a LinkedIn Company Page to act as your nonprofit’s profile. Make sure to:
- Complete all fields – Include your mission, description, contact info, website, locations, etc.
- Optimize SEO – Use relevant keywords in descriptions, titles, and content.
- Link to your website – Add links to your site to establish domain authority.
- Upload media – Post photos, videos, publications to showcase your work.
- Follow other companies – Follow partners, sponsors, similar organizations.
Employees & Volunteers
Encourage teammates to create profiles highlighting their nonprofit experience. This adds more connections and amplifies your brand.
Content Strategy
Post regular status updates, articles, images, and videos to engage your followers. Share:
- Organizational updates & announcements
- Success stories & human interest stories
- Upcoming events & initiatives
- Volunteer highlights
- Campaigns & fundraising promos
- Relevant news & articles
- Video content
Expand Your Network
Proactively connect with supporters, partners, media, influencers, and similar organizations. Offer value by sharing content and insights.
LinkedIn Features for Nonprofits
LinkedIn offers great features tailored to help nonprofits achieve their goals:
Nonprofit Program
LinkedIn’s nonprofit program provides:
- Free job postings
- Grant finders tool
- Sponsored content discounts
- Fundraising campaigns
- Learning resources
Nonprofits can apply for this program to access these benefits.
Showcase Pages
Showcase Pages enable nonprofits to highlight specific initiatives, events, or projects to expand their presence and interest. For example, create pages for a fundraising gala, 5K run, awareness campaign, etc.
Measurement Tools
Analytics provide data on content engagement, follower demographics, page traffic sources, and more. This enables data-driven posting strategies.
Promoted Posts
Sponsored content allows nonprofits to boost high-value posts to reach larger, targeted audiences. This raises awareness at a lower cost-per-click than Google Ads.
LinkedIn Live & Events
Go live or webcast events like fundraisers, conferences, and workshops. This engages and captures more attendees. You can also create Event pages to promote happenings.
LinkedIn Groups
Join or create Groups in your cause area to tap into like-minded communities for sharing and discussion. You can also post jobs into relevant Groups.
Best Practices for Nonprofit LinkedIn
To maximize results on LinkedIn, nonprofits should integrate these best practices:
- Complete profiles – Flesh out descriptions, links, media, contact info, etc. Enable the “Open to” box.
- Consistent branding – Sync colors, logos, terminology across Page and employee profiles.
- Engagement – Post regularly, share others’ content, respond to comments and messages.
- Multimedia content – Use photos, infographics, charts, videos, presentations, etc. This performs better than text-only.
- Calls-to-action – Include clear CTAs in posts and profiles like “Donate Now”, “Sign Up”, “Get Updates.”
- Hashtags – Leverage relevant hashtags like #nonprofit, #fundraising, #volunteer, #donate, etc.
- Paid ads – Test boosted posts and Sponsored Content to affordably expand reach.
- Retargeting – Use website pixels to enable targeted ads to site visitors.
- Sales Navigator – Try this premium tool for searching profiles, connecting, and monitoring leads.
Applying these best practices will help nonprofits get more from their LinkedIn presence and strategy.
LinkedIn Advertising Options for Nonprofits
Beyond organic content, LinkedIn ads offer great exposure for nonprofits on a budget. Options include:
Sponsored Content
This allows promoting organic Page posts to a wider audience with targeting like job title, industry, skills, etc. Nonprofits receive discounted rates.
Sponsored InMail
Send targeted one-to-one messages to high-value prospects to drive specific actions like donations, event sign-ups, downloads, etc.
Text Ads
Text ads can be displayed on the LinkedIn feed or in the right-hand column. You can control targeting, timing, and placement.
Dynamic Ads
Automatically show personalized ads to website visitors when they’re active on LinkedIn. Great for retargeting.
Message Ads
Attention-grabbing sponsored messages that stand out in the LinkedIn inbox. Useful if you want guaranteed views.
When launching ads, focus on clear messaging and targeting ideal supporter personas. Test different objectives, formats, and designs. Use analytics to optimize based on performance.
Measuring LinkedIn Success
To assess the impact of their LinkedIn presence, nonprofits should monitor:
Follower Growth
How many new followers is your Page acquiring weekly/monthly? Growing your community size expands reach.
Post Engagement
Tracks likes, comments, shares, clicks on Company Page posts. Are people interacting with your content?
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
For Sponsored Content and ads, CTR reveals how compelling your promotions are. Higher is better.
Web Referrals
How much website traffic is being driven from LinkedIn? Are your posts and profile driving actions?
Leads & Conversions
Key conversions like newsletter sign-ups, donations, event registrations. Are LinkedIn initiatives contributing to KPIs?
Regularly monitoring these metrics ensures your LinkedIn presence is making an impact and enables optimization. Data will prove the value of investing time in LinkedIn for nonprofits.
LinkedIn Strategy Tips
Here are some additional tips for developing a high-impact LinkedIn nonprofit strategy:
- Showcase employees – Enable teammates to share authored articles on their profiles.
- Join Group conversations – Provide helpful insights and perspective, don’t overly self-promote.
- Use LinkedIn Elevate – This free tool shares the best-performing updates with team members for reposting.
- Collaborate on content – Work with partners or sponsors to co-create content and cross-post.
- Go live often – Stream events, workshops, and talks to engage supporters.
- Follow competitors – Monitor their content strategies and campaigns for ideas.
- Share News articles – Comment on and post recent news related to your cause or industry.
- Encourage employee advocacy – Train staff to share nonprofit posts with their networks.
- Personalize outreach – When connecting, reference shared Groups, interests, associations, etc.
- Use hashtags – Explore trending nonprofit hashtags as well as niche cause communities.
- Retarget website visitors – Convert high-intent traffic with customized LinkedIn ads.
Executing on these tips will take your nonprofit’s LinkedIn game to the next level.
Dos and Don’ts
To close out, here are some dos and don’ts to keep in mind:
Do:
- Post multimedia content daily
- Engage with your audience
- Use employee accounts to share updates
- Join relevant Groups and discussions
- Measure performance and optimize
Don’t:
- Only post links and text pitches
- Buy fake followers or connections
- Automate outreach messages
- Over-promote or blast irrelevant content
Stick to best practices that provide value to build relationships and amplify your mission and messages. Avoid tactics that look spammy or salesy.
Conclusion
Establishing a thoughtful LinkedIn presence delivers immense value for nonprofits through increased awareness, networking, fundraising, recruiting, and brand credibility.
Dedicating resources into organic and paid initiatives on LinkedIn can pay dividends in the form of new supporters, partnerships, leads and expanded reach.
Monitoring performance and optimizing based on data enables nonprofits to refine their approach and justify their LinkedIn investment.
Overall, LinkedIn should be a vital part of every modern nonprofit’s digital strategy and online community building. It provides access and exposure to key target demographics that can propel a nonprofit’s mission and impact.