At Blackbaud’s Conference for the Philanthropic Community in Austin this week, I got to hear Austin Graff share tips from his experiences with IJM (International Justice Mission) and Honest Tea.
He said two things that are super simple and super powerful for making sure your social media really connects with people.
How to know what exactly to post about
One of the “secrets” to effective social media is joining conversations instead of inflicting your message on others.
Austin said that each morning, he’d come into work at IJM and check Twitter’s home page to see what was trending. Facebook shows trends too. (I’d add going to Google Trends as well.)
Trends are what the most people are talking about. He’d then see if any had a natural, authentic connection to the work of IJM. If they did, he’d incorporate those in the messages.
How to make a big impact on Twitter
Austin also said since social media is about connecting humans with humans, each morning he’d review all IJM’s new Twitter followers. In looking at the bios, he’d look for keywords to help him know who in IJM should connect. He’d also favorite tweets with IJM or IJM hashtags just so people knew that IJM was noticing.
For more of Austin’s thinking, check out his blog: https://austinkgraff.wordpress.com/
