Social media, like anything else, is a tool for you and your organization to use. It is not an end unto itself. As a result, we need to be intentional about how we use it to best serve our audience and our organization. I believe this is applicable regardless if you are a day school, a synagogue, a non-profit, or any other institution.

There are three major elements in thinking through a social media strategy, they are:

Who: who you are serving and want to reach.
What and Why: what are trying to accomplish and why that is.
Value: what you are doing for them to make their lives better.

Each have their own series of questions and I’m going to walk you through them. In this post, I’m going to give you the big questions.

Ok? Let’s begin.

WHO

The essential question is this: Who are you serving and who do you want to reach?

These populations are not the same and understanding them and the difference between them will make all the difference. You serve a collection of different types of people, perhaps certain age groups or generations, perhaps you serve people of different professions. These various circles will overlap, and will not always need the same thing.

Who you serve is a description of the present, it is not about idealism but rather, an objective outline of the needs you are currently serving.

On the other hand, there is the aspirational question: who do you want to reach? This is an entirely different question! This question is about growth and change. It should be answered in a similar way as the one before. Map out the various circles of folks you want to reach. Be specific, the example of “young families” is meaningless unless you think hard about what that ACTUALLY looks means.

WHAT/WHY

The essential question is this: What do you want, what are your goals, and why do you want that?

With any tool, focusing on your goal cannot be understated. If I have a nail in a piece of wood, there’s little a screwdriver can accomplish, when the hammer is the right tool. What is it that you want to do? What is the endgame here?

Social media is about being social, so perhaps your goal is to build relationships between members/constituents? If that is the case, it will require a different approach than if you are trying to teach your people about the music of your community.

Next, exploring why you want to accomplish that thing is essential. Why do you want to do this? What is the benefit of your end user? If someone does what you ask them to do, does that meet your goal?

This is a good practice in general and is especially the case in terms of social media. You might end up creating content that doesn’t meet your goals and does not reflect the style and needs of your institution.

VALUE

The essential question is this: What is the value that you are giving to those you reach?

A ridiculous amount of organizations do not provide value for their constituents on social media. What are you doing for your audience? We end up asking our people to do a zillion things instead of providing value. Come to this! Sign up for that! This is not providing value.

Let’s be clear, asking is also important, but it is out of balance with the benefits that you should be offering. The model, taken from Gary Vaynerchuk, a marketer and business person is this: give, give, give, and then ask (with no expectation that they will say yes). Rebalancing to this will do wonders and none of us are doing a good job.

The truth is, and I’ll take congregations as an example, we rarely think about what value we need to give and instead focus on what we need from our people. This shift, in social media particularly, though true everywhere, will drastically change your impact.