While it seems like social media has been around forever, many nonprofit organizations joined in slowly and with trepidation.
The Philadelphia Foundation is a 100-year-old organization and takes pride in the gravitas of its role in the city. Deciding if social media was appropriate for the brand and the audience was a challenge. How and what to do was even more of a debate.
The Foundation decided that it would focus on Facebook for their foray into social media. We developed a content plan rooted in the Foundation brand and organizational strategy. As much time was spent deciding what they wouldn’t post as much as what they would. From there we developed a social media policy for staff and delivered a team training. After presenting the new plan to staff, we created a Social Media Task Force to help research and select content for sharing.
We then hit a roadblock that plagues many organizations – the logo was horizontal typography and didn’t work as an avatar. We advised creating a wholly new social avatar using philafound.org, the well-known URL. By using the subordinate color of the brand, we distinguished it from the organizational logo and created a noticeable icon for small screen viewing.