NGOAcademy Special: Social Media for NGO

Gray Ham
Digital Strategist, FCB Kuala Lumpur

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic.”
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke

Using Social Media &
the Web, to fulfil the
needs of NGOs.

A Brief History of
the Victorian Internet
• Railway Post Offices (1830)
• Analytical Engine (1837)
• Time zones (1847)
• Difference Engine (1849)
• Telegraph (1850)
• Noosphere (1922)
• Memex (1930)
• Project Xanadu: Hypertext (1960)
• Recommended reading:
• the information age, Dr James Sumner
http://bit.ly/1Ss8CZt
• Computer: A History of the Information Machine
ISBN-13: 978-0813345901
• Anonymous, 2011. http://bit.ly/1Ss9yxa

A Brief History of
the Internet
• DARPA: ARPANET (1969)
• UCLA-Stanford (USA), NPL (UK), CYCLADES (France), etc.
• X.25 & public data networks (1976): Bulletin board
system & FidoNet
• UUCP & Usenet (1979)
• The Internet began to penetrate Asia in the late 1980s.
Japan, which had built the UUCP-based network JUNET
in 1984, connected to NSFNET in 1989. It hosted the
annual meeting of the Internet Society, INET'92, in
Kobe. Singapore developed TECHNET in 1990, and
Thailand gained a global Internet connection between
Chulalongkorn University and UUNET in 1992.

The World
Wide Web
• “The Web: a collaborative medium, a place where
we could all meet and read and write.”
• “Semantic Web: a web of data that can be
processed by machines.”

Tweet Waves vs.
Seismic Waves
• Stanford.edu. (2018). Earthquake paper coverage. [online] Available at:
http://stanford.edu/~rezab/eqpress.html
• Tweet: https://twitter.com/reza_zadeh/status/917631468918136832

Meme is a shortening (modeled on gene) of mimeme
(from Ancient Greek μίμημα pronounced [míːmɛːma]
mīmēma, "imitated thing", from μιμεῖσθαι mimeisthai,
"to imitate", from μῖμος mimos, "mime") coined by
British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins.
… as a concept for discussion of evolutionary principles in
explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena.

Memes propagate through the medium of the noosphere, physically made of humans;
like how Earthquakes propagate through the medium of the lithosphere, physically made of soil.

Why are we on social media?
ICYMI, social media contains all one needs to know about human civilization … or at least those bits of it that the connected people know.
Except perhaps whether social media is the boon or the curse of the 21st Century. BTAIM, they’re not even sure exactly how it got started.
LMAO.
B4 there was Six Degrees, weblogs or My Space, it started with the first dial-up BBS launched by Ward Christensen and Randy Suess in Chicago
in February 1978 AD. These primitive online meeting places were independently-produced hunks of code that allowed users to communicate
through a central server where they could download files and post public messages. These text-only services quickly became popular with BFFs
through WOM, and through the 1980s and early 1990s various services – such as FidoNet – arose to link these BBSs together into worldwide
messaging boards. Meanwhile, commercial services such as CompuServe expanded into the public domain, offering discussion forums on all
manner of subjects … and a newfangled service termed “email.” FOMO brought thousands of Gen-Xers into the fold.
In 1997 the first site that everyone can agree was a SMP was launched: SixDegrees.com. Lasting only until 2001 due to a proliferation of SPAM,
it allowed subscribers to create an updateable profile of themselves, and then “friend” other users. FYI, by 2000 around 100 million people had
access to the Internet; all manner of users were utilizing chat rooms for discussion, dating and sharing. The first social media surge followed
shortly after with the launch of LinkedIn (2002) and MySpace (2003). But IMHO it was 2004 and the launch of Facebook by Mark Zuckerberg
and 2006 and the launch of Twitter by Jack Dorsey that established the “connected” world of social media. Today, on these and dozens of other
services (Flickr, Tumblr, Habbo, Sina Weibo, etc.) virtually any text, video, audio or image file can be shared on all sorts of devices, even mobile
ones … although TBH, it is becoming ever harder to separate the wheat from the chaff.
DFTBA … IRL.

Why are we on social media?
Social media connects people via their profiles to:
1. Each other (groups, hence tribes)
2. Brands and organizations.
But the news feed algorithm is where the magic happens.
Drive Community Growth by utilizing groups:
1. Join the biggest relevant Groups: Always listening,
keep an ear on the ground with your community;
2. Share your important content into these Groups
for more organic reach;
3. Only join Groups (or create a Group) using your
Page if it’s your official organization’s community.
You may utilize private groups (or messenger
apps) for Advocacy with Pods: influencer
collectives share post links with each other for
more organic engagement.

Considering the Overall Consumer Experience
Unaware
(Prospecting)
Awareness
(Fanbase)
Consideration
(Contact Form)
Converted
(Lead Gen)
Retention
(ARPU)
Advocacy
(Loyalty)
Marketing Front-Funnel
Drive conversion to
the website/app.
CRM
CRM Journey
1. Demographic Audience Segmentation:
• Language, Age Group, etc.
2. Psychographic Audience Segmentation:
• Purchase Funnel, Attraction visits, etc.
• Building geo-
demographic
awareness.
Retargeted consideration phase.

NGO Participants’ Digital Presence
Website Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube LinkedIn
Count 19 56 29 18 13 16
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
AVERAGE 4,040,608
14,233
followers
3,459
followers
1,958
followers
1,303
subscribers
279
followers
MEDIAN 3,946,770
2,956
followers
1,445
followers
443
followers
147
subscribers
180
followers
STDEV 2,646,192
41,999
followers
6,416
followers
4,868
followers
2,895
subscribers
384
followers
Lower number is higher
Alexa ranking.

Most-Used Social Media Platforms
(% used in past month.)
Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube LinkedIn
% Past Month 89 75 49 94 33
-
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100

New World Order on Social Media
Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube TikTok
Most popular
social media platform.
Most popular UGC &
influencer platform.
Most popular
KOL platform.
Most popular
learning platform.
Youngest platform*

Influencer Insiders
1. Discussion begins on Twitter,
2. Screenshots to Facebook,
3. Aesthetics on Instagram,
4. Explained on YouTube,
5. Hot-takes on TikTok.

Owned by Google. Owned by Facebook. Owned by ByteDance. Owned by Twitter.
Gray’s Hierarchy of Social Media
More Potential Reach.

First Recommendation
Reduce ambiguity, confidence towards your channels, and build Reach & Awareness:
1. Standardize your channel name, username, profile image, and cover image.
2. Verify your profile.

Drives traffic.

Second Recommendation
Decide where you’re driving your
audience from:
Building Reach & Awareness:
Better user journey (links).
• Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are good
platforms to drive traffic FROM…
• Through Paid Ads, or Organic content.
Decide where you’re driving your
audience to:
1. Driving audience engagement on-platform.
Recommended:
• Channels where analytics is available (Facebook), or
• If Facebook per se, then drive them towards a Group.
2. Fund-raising: Drive traffic to website, or fund
raising platform.
3. Driving audience for education off-platform.
Recommended:
• UGC-driven social media to join the global discourse
on your organization’s subject matter;
• Blog, for articles (or use Medium, WordPress, etc.)

UGC
User- Generated-Content

Third Recommendation
Consider video aspect ratios:
• Square (usable everywhere);
• Portrait (IGTV, Stories, etc.);
• Landscape (FB, YouTube, etc.)
Facebook
Feed + Story Ads
Instagram +
IGTV
Feed + Story Ads
YouTube
Video
IG Reels + TikTok + YT Shorts
Users naturally crosspost
content to/from TikTok as
Instagram Reels. Suitable
for short form content.
● 15-sec (All Story)
● 60-sec (All Max)
IGTV + new TikTok + YT Vid
For longer form videos, that
traditionally got uploaded onto
YouTube,
● 3-min (TikTok)
● 15-min (IGTV mobile)
● 60-min (IGTV desktop)

Long videos.

Fourth Recommendation
Organic Instagram Marketing
• Instagram Explore page remains one of the final frontiers for organic reach.
In lieu of Paid Media support, we should utilize all organic marketing strategies.
• Engaging content obviously performs better: engaging is defined as being able to
encourage the audience to like, comment, or share.
• Geotags, account tags and hashtags are additional ways to extend the reach of your
content within the Explore ecosystem.
• Recommended: 3-10 popular hashtags (can be checked on Instagram) or a maximum of
30. While useful for branding, branded hashtags do not contribute towards discoverability
of content, due to low utilization beyond own channel.
• Note: This is not a substitute for minimal Paid Media support (minimum spend, US$1
daily,) which is all that’s required to nudge the post in the right direction.
• This helps teach the Instagram algorithm what your Post is about, without relying entirely
on visual recognition (AI isn’t very good at guessing) to figure out which audience should
see the Post.
https://blog.hootsuite.com/get-brand-instagrams-explore-page/

#Hashtags

Fifth Recommendation
How to Share Links on Instagram
1. The Instagram bio is the only place on the Instagram profile to share a clickable link.
• Links on posts which aren’t clickable, do not contribute towards post performance. It may be detrimental
to the brand, casting an image that the brand doesn’t understand Instagram.
• We can check if there is actually any traffic coming from Instagram,
via web analytics.
2. If there are multiple important links (e.g. Facebook Page, YouTube channel, Campaign Landing page, etc.)
then a “Link Tree” is recommended:
https://linktr.ee (very popular with influencers.)
3. Instead of using an external service, a one-page collection of links. Advantages: web analytics, and digital
marketing pixels for audience retargeting.
4. Paid Media allows for posts with links (Link Ads and Carousels) to appear on the Instagram Feed (similar to
Facebook’s News Feed.)
Facebook works better in pushing traffic towards e-commerce, etc. Feed content on Instagram (especially if it’s
Organic) should focus on building:
• Brand Awareness, and
• on-platform Engagement: likes, comments, shares.
https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/8-ways-to-share-links-instagram/

What should we talk about?
(How to Measure Success?)

Sixth Recommendation
Plan your content and schedule it in advance. Use scheduling tools such as:
• Facebook & Instagram: Creator Studio
• Twitter: Tweekdeck
• YouTube Studio
• Buffer: All platforms*

Content Pillars
Engagement Consumption Traffic
Occasions Festive
Educational
Video
Educational
Blog/Thread
Event Fundraiser
Commemorate days
of the year that are
relevant to your
cause/org.
Commemorate
festivals that are
relevant to your
target audience.
Longform videos,
preferably with
(multi-language)
subtitles, and supers.
Longform blogs, with
links, embedded
multimedia, etc. and
sources cited.
Online or physical
events, to be
promoted at least a
month in advance.
Drive urgency by
stating a deadline,
with “stages.”
Wikipedia or
https://DaysOTtheYear.com
https://publicholidays.com.my
Consider shorter “summary”
videos on other platforms.
Link to them from other traffic
driving platforms.
Ticketed or un-ticketed.
Consider a landing page with
an embedded DMP.
Once a week. Ad Hoc Once a month. Once a month. Ad Hoc Ad Hoc

Content Calendar
When to post?
The best times to post on social media overall is 10:00 AM on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.
• The best time to post on Facebook is 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
• The best time to post on Instagram is 11:00 AM on Wednesdays.
• The best time to post on Twitter is 8:00 AM on Mondays and Thursdays.
• The best time to post on LinkedIn is 9:00 AM on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Source: https://blog.hootsuite.com/best-time-to-post-on-facebook-twitter-instagram/
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
T1 T2 T3
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
First quarter of the new year; also
Lunar New Year.
Second quarter is likely devoted
to Ramadan & Raya.
(Also Gawai & Ka’amatan.)
Third quarter of Patriotic months.
Final quarter of exams
/ school holidays & XX.XX sales.

Seventh Recommendation
Drive Membership & Leads Gen with automation instead of Manhours. Social
Media these days is “pay to win,” to consider the daily minimum budget:
US$1

Implementing Marketing Front-Funnel Logic into KPIs
Irrelevant metric. Can be bought (media support)
Click-through Rates & View-through Rates
Engagement Rate = (Likes+Comments+Shares)/Reach
Follower/Viewer/Subscriber Growth
Twitter Trends, Trendsmap, etc.
Reach
Curiosity
Resonance
Fanbase
Talkability

In-base Marketing: DMP & CRM
Digital Marketing Pixel
• Visitors who click through a link to reach the website, are
probably curious about the brand, bought into the
campaign RTB, or a product USP…
• By placing a DMP onto every web/landing page (blog
articles, product pages, contest T&Cs, customer login
pages, etc.) Ad units on social media, etc. can be
optimized towards specific objectives: conversion.
• By knowing who has visited the website before, and cross
checking against CRM system data, we can drive them
towards completing certain objectives: E.g. Exclude in-
base customers, therefore only non-customers to
complete Leads form or Registration.
Customer Relationship Management
• The moment someone inputs their data as a Lead, their
data can be utilized for:
a. Audience lookalike retargeting, or
b. Manual conversion via an Agent.
• Once a Lead has been converted into a Customer, their
user behaviour can be tracked for further segmentation,
and a better understanding of audience preference for
upgrades, add-ons, churn, etc.
• Depending on where they are on their user journey (new
customer, early adopter, loyal customer, frequent
complaints, etc.) we can periodically speak to them with
various Direct Marketing messages.

Eighth Recommendation
• Maintain brand consistency, not just with logos, but with a preferred
typeface and colour palette; with a Visual Style Guide.
(Hire a designer.) also Photography & Videography.
• As well as a “brand persona” with a Writing Styleguide.
(Hire a copywriter.) also Content Writing.
• Having a good website, alongside your social media presence, will
build confidence, and allow you to shine a beacon into the darkness.
(Hire a webmaster.) for SEO, etc.

Ideal Aspect Ratio
Platform Object Ratio Width Height
Facebook
Photo 4:3 1200 900
Carousel 1:1 600 600
“Ideal” 300:157 1200 628
Twitter “Ideal” Photo 2:1 1024 512
Instagram
Square 1:1 1080 1080
Landscape 27:20 1080 799
Portrait 4:5 1080 1350
LinkedIn
Post Header 7:4 700 400
“Ideal” 1:1 800 800

Basic Visual Design for Social Media

Free Resources
https://dafont.com https://pexels.com https://unsplash.com https://pixabay.com
Archive of freely
downloadable fonts.
The best free stock photos
& videos shared by
talented creators.
The internet’s source of freely-
usable images. Powered by
creators everywhere.
Stunning free images & royalty
free, high quality stock images,
videos and music.
• Please do not download and reupload content from others; even if you credit them, it’s theft.
• Only use platform-native “share” functions.

Free as in Freedom,
not Free Beer.
Free software is a matter of liberty, not price; all users
are legally free to do what they want with their copies
of a free software (including profiting from them)
regardless of how much is paid to obtain the program.

Rebel Software
Guardian Project creates easy to use secure apps, open-
source software libraries, and customized solutions that can
be used around the world by any person looking to protect
their communications and personal data from unjust
intrusion, interception and monitoring.
The Onion Router. Browse Privately. Explore Freely. Defend
yourself against tracking and surveillance. Circumvent
censorship. Just like Tor users, the developers, researchers,
and founders who've made Tor possible are a diverse group
of people. But all of the people who have been involved in
Tor are united by a common belief: internet users should
have private access to an uncensored web.

Appendix: Glossary of Terms
• Posts: a specific permalink on a social media platform that may contain a combination of
hypertext, images, and/or videos, that is published by an individual or brand via their owned channels.
(Not all posts are mentions.)
• Mentions: a post or comment that literally states the brand. (Not all mentions are posts; some are comments.)
• Reach: the literal number of people who may have seen the post.
• Impressions: the number of times a post has been seen, including multiple times by a single person.
• Impression Rate: the number of times (on average) that a single person has seen a post.
• Engagement: active interactions people may have with a post (likes, comments, shares)
• Engagement Rate: the number of engagements (on average) a post has had after exposure to the audience.
• Views: a passive interaction people may have with a video post.
• View-Through Rate: the number of times a significant portion of the video has been viewed (on average)
after exposure to the audience.
• Sentiments: (usually binary) measure of whether a mention/post has a positive/negative opinion of the brand.
• Net Sentiments: the average sentiment after totalling up all the positive and negative sentiments
in a specific time period.

NGOAcademy Special: Social Media for NGO

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