The Wild West of Social Media: How Do You Glean Donor Data on Social Media?

You know your donors and prospects are active on social media, and you know you should track donor data in this ever-evolving media. But how do you know what to look for and analyze when it comes to social-media data?

On June 10, we'll host the Engage Virtual Workshop: Driving Donations With Data to help attendees come to better understand and work with their data gathering and usage.

The panel will consist of Page Bullington, director of professional services at Target Analytics; Roger Hiyama, senior vice president and managing director at Russ Reid; and Mazarine Treyz, author, consultant and "The Wild Woman of Fundraising and Social Media."

Here, Mazarine gives a preview of the social-media data best practices she'll share in the webinar.

FundRaising Success: Social media seems to be like the Wild West, in that there doesn't seem to be a lot of hard-and-fast rules (yet) about its use in fundraising. Are there ways to glean important, concrete data information from social-media channels?

Mazarine Treyz: Whenever you see someone touting the new, latest social-media platform, the message comes back down to "KNOW YOUR DONOR." Most of our donors are 40- to 70-year-old women. In that demographic, survey your donors and ask them where they're active. You don't have to be overwhelmed by the number of platforms.

For the most typical donor demographic, I would say that your best social-media tool is your email newsletter. So I do believe being able to create segmented messages to people who open certain emails or click certain links will be concrete data that is more valuable than, say, a Facebook like or a retweet.

I do know a nonprofit that is having great success with an automated series of follow-up emails to their donors, which results quickly in a second donation and greater donor engagement. This same nonprofit is having success with an earned income stream and advertising its offering using Facebook ads.

Personally, I've tried buying Google ads and Linkedin ads and using the Google grants for a nonprofit and haven't seen value in these ads or increased sales or donations.

Some databases allow you to track who opens and who clicks emails, which can help you understand what people care about.

FS: Is information gathering via social media, at its heart, the same as information gathering via other channels?

MT: I would say that information gathering via social media is difficult at best and exasperating at worst. It may be useful for some people to think of demographics of donors, who would be most interested in giving to the cause, but for the vast majority of small to midsize nonprofits, donor relationships are still made one by one, in person, and I don't see any amount of information gathering on social media replacing that.

FS: Can nonprofits integrate data gathered via social media with other data to form a more complete picture of a donor or other type of supporter?

MT: You can certainly add people's Twitter handles or Linkedin profile links to their donor records, and for your most loyal supporters, and major donors, this might be worthwhile. Maybe you could track if they get a new job, get promoted or have a birthday, and send them a little card around this happy occasion.

For the rest of your donors, I would say that your data might better be gathered in an online or offline survey, because at the end of the day, what matters most is what you do that the donor wants to see happen.

For most nonprofits, there are a variety of programs, and donors have many reasons for supporting you.

If you can crack the nut of what donors truly care about through surveys, and consistently speak to acting on their values, you can help them become a more loyal donor.

I hope you'll join us to hear more from Mazarine and her fellow experts at 12:30 p.m. Eastern on June 10. What can you expect to learn? You'll find out how to:

• know which key metrics matter most and how to apply them to your strategic planning;
• find and use analytics from your website, emails and social media;
• coach staff and volunteers to be confident in dealing with data; and
• measure the success (ROI) of your data gathering and usage.

This value-priced ($19.95) webinar also will include in-depth case studies, plus a downloadable, comprehensive study guide for use after the webinar and inclusion in follow-up online gatherings to extend your learning.

Click here to register. Hope to "see" you there!