April 30, 2025
UPDATED FROM A RESOURCE PUBLISHED IN 2022 IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE MICHIGAN COMMUNITY SERVICE COMMISSION
What is Social Media?
“Social media” refers to online tools that allow for the creation and sharing of information, ideas, opportunities, and communities. Today, some of the most prominent social media platforms are Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and more.
Social media is a powerful tool for communication and connection, and is an extremely useful method for connecting with volunteers and the community. By focusing on the “social” aspect of social media, organizations can use their existing communities to share stories about the work they do and grow their volunteer base.
Benefits of Social Media
Using social media to connect with volunteers is a quick and easy way to do outreach because most social media platforms do not cost any money to use and are fairly simple to navigate.
They give your organization the ability to share its vision, mission, goals, and needs with a with your followers, and opens the doors to new audiences of potential volunteers. The openness of the internet means that anyone with an internet connection can learn about and connect with your organization.
Some other things to consider include:
Social Media is Fast
Because of the instantaneous nature of the internet, community members can know about what’s going on in your organization immediately after you announce it. Anyone who sees your posts, photos, or announcements on social media is already plugged in to your organization.
Social Media Offers Many Ways to Communicate
Because of all the different forms social media takes, your organization can choose which way it feels is best to communicate. Perhaps you are running an event for which you would like to have volunteers. You could post the flier, write up a post, or share a video describing your needs. The wide range of mediums lets you communicate your needs in different ways.
Social Media Can Help You Connect with Younger Demographics
Many users of social media are younger, and so whether your organization specifically offers programing for youth, or your organization just wants to do outreach with younger audiences, social media can help. By connecting with younger audiences, you can also extend the reach of your messaging, because social media users can share your calls for volunteers with others, doubling the reach of your communication.
Working With Algorithms for Outreach
What is an Algorithm? An algorithm is a mathematical tool that social media platforms use to sort what gets shown to a user and in what order. If a user likes cats, and clicks on a lot of posts about cats, the algorithm learns this, and will start to show more posts about cats. Because these posts are now getting more views and appear to be popular, the algorithm will begin to show it to more users. Your organization can use these systems to reach a broader audience.
Social media algorithms typically boost the posts that experience the most user engagement. For example, more of your followers will see a post that has 20 comments and 5 shares than a post that has 10 comments and 2 shares. Although this may seem like a small, trivial factor when looking at the millions of social media overall, it can prove to make a huge difference in terms of organizational growth and both reaching and recruiting more volunteers.
Make Posts Interactive
To gain more interaction on your social media posts, create posts that invite viewers to engage or share their opinions.
On posts that share volunteer experiences or information on past events, include prompts like, “Share your best volunteering (or organization) memory!” If your organization runs a community garden, ask, “What’s your favorite time of year in [the community garden]?”
This can encourage users to engage with your post and boost your content to a wider audience. As more people comment on the post, more people are likely to see it.
Use the “Story” Function on Instagram and Facebook
The Story feature, or other temporary highlighted post features on other social media platforms, allow users to post stories that get temporary highlighted status that then disappear after a set time period. The “news-of-the-day” aspect of these posts can boost your organization’s visibility. It also is an easy way to showcase activities as they happen in the moment, creating the sense of live engagement among community members who may be interested in volunteering.
Since sharing volunteer experiences is important both in engaging active volunteers and recruiting new ones, the Story function can be valuable.
Connect with Pages that Will Share Your Content
Whether it’s interested community members or other local nonprofits that work in parallel, connecting with as many pages as possible increases the possibility for cross-sharing posts, leading to broader visibility to potential volunteers by being connected to the networks of other local organizations in your city or area.
The search function of many social media platforms considers the locality of the searcher when returning results, and so when an organization is connected to another already being followed by a potential volunteer, it is more likely to show up in the search results.
Using Social Media for Volunteer Recruitment
Social media can be a powerful tool for volunteer recruitment. By using the native functions of social media, an organization can post volunteer opportunities and share them broadly. The more exposure a post receives, the more likely a potential volunteer is to connect with it. Here are some other things to consider:
Repost Opportunities Before Events
Calls for volunteers should be reposted in the run up to events. Like email campaigns, if it only appears once, it may not reach volunteers.
Social media is especially prone to this because of how much information appears in an individual’s feed.
Link Social Media Platforms to Your CRM
Many CRMs (customer relationship management systems, which can help you manage names and contact info for current and prospective volunteers) can be linked to social media profiles through native or third-party tools.
By doing this, you can have volunteers sign up for events directly on your social media page, with no need for external links. This can also make it easier to track engagement.
Cross-Share Posts of Partnered Organizations
The networks you have already developed offline can be relied on to support you online, so try to share the volunteer opportunities of others, and they will do so in kind!
Share Volunteer Experiences
By sharing the stories of volunteers, active volunteers can feel more engaged, and get a better sense of how impactful their work is. Likewise, seeing their friends and community members participating in your mission can attract new volunteers as well!
