Your nonprofit, NGO or community group posts to Facebook reach a very particular demographic. Your posts to Twitter reach a very different demographic than Facebook. Your posts to Instagram reach a very specific audience different from Facebook and Twitter. You are on these different platforms because you need to reach these different audiences.
While there are a lot of other social media platforms out there, there is an online community I think most nonprofits need to be leveraging that, instead, they are largely ignoring.
It's Reddit.
As of July 2019, Reddit ranked as the No. 5 most visited website in the USA and No. 13 in the world. Reddit is a community of communities, and its communities are called subreddits. A subreddit can have a focus on a geographic area, a book, a celebrity, a particular time in history, a specific hobby - anything. Statistics suggest that 74% of Reddit users are male. Users tend to be significantly younger than other online communities like Facebook with less than 1% of users being 65 or over. If you want to reach a younger demographic regarding your volunteering opportunities, your awareness messages, your data that shows your value to the community and more, you need to build posts to Reddit into your marketing strategy, no matter what your nonprofit's size or focus.
In addition, posting to Reddit, and always using your organization's name in your post and a link to your web site with relevant information, will improve your web sites SEO (Search Engine Optimization) - in other words, increasing the number of people that can find your web site and will visit it.
Creating a Reddit ID that uses your nonprofit or NGO's name protects your brand name - the name of your nonprofit or NGO. Create Reddit accounts with your organization’s preferred username(s). That may mean creating more than one - but only actually using one. By "claiming" user names, no one else can use those names. Some companies stake their claim on Reddit by creating a user name with with their company name and then never actually use Reddit - all they wanted was to ensure no one else could user their company name as a user name.
If different staff members are going to post on Reddit about your nonprofit, it's best that the main Reddit account, which is your nonprofit's name (or a version of such), is what's used every time, rather than an individual's own Reddit ID. When a staff member posts to Reddit with an official announcement about or for your program, using your main Reddit user account, that staff person should end the message in a way that you will always know who wrote it, such as:
/jc
(that is what I would use for a message I posted if I used such an account)
Individual staff may already have Reddit IDs. But if they are, they are probably posting information and participating in discussions that have nothing to do with your nonprofit - and that's FINE. But what it also means is that it's not appropriate for them to official share information about your organization via their own Reddit ID. Plus, most Reddit users stay anonymous - their ID has nothing to do with their real identity, and your staff may not want you to know who they are on Reddit, which is absolutely their right. Any staff person that wants to use Reddit as a part of their role at your organization needs to create a Reddit ID that will be used ONLY for that.
Examples of nonprofit users on Reddit:
UServeUtah, which both claimed that user name and, if you look at their profile, you will see a variety of places they post to.
ReliefWebNews, which uses their account exclusively to post news to the humanitarian subreddit.
(if your nonprofit, NGO or library uses Reddit to recruit volunteers, publicize events, etc., or you know of others, please contact me via Reddit and let me know the organization's user name).
At minimum, you need to find out if there are Reddit communities - subreddits - related to your location: your city (or cities), your county, and any nearby college or university, and target those communities with messages about your events and volunteering opportunities. In the community I live in, for instance, there is a Reddit community for each little city clustered here together and one for the university in one of those cities, but there is no subreddit for the entire county.
But BEFORE you post, make sure your message would be welcomed. Some geographically-focused subreddits are set up only to rant or complain or comment about what's happening in a community, and therefore your message, even though it's geographically-based where the subreddit is focused, would not be welcomed. Reading through past messages will let you know very quickly if your message would be welcomed.
When you post, make sure it is clear that you are posting about something that is in that particular region or that is targeting clients or attendees from that region - make it obvious that your organization serves this region and that's why you are posting.
This is where Reddit is intimidating: participating in its discussions. Reddit is known for its passionate user base, which has been described as "offbeat, quirky, and anti-establishment," and that can give the communities there are very edgy feel most nonprofit staff aren't used to. Reddit members are known for being outspoken and highly critical sometimes, and this is where you will possibly encounter that yourself when you questions or comment on the messages of others. It's important to read many messages in a community and the rules for that subreddit before you dare to post to it, so that you know if you should participate and what exactly what is appropriate to post. Once you’re familiar with reddiquette (the values, culture, language, and norms of all of Reddit and that subreddit) and have a good understanding of what an individual subreddit is like, you should be ready to participate in a discussion.
For instance, there is a subreddit specifically about volunteering:
If you are a homeless shelter, and in addition to supporting people experiencing homelessness, you want to help educate about why people are homeless, you might want to regularly read the homeless subreddit and even respond to some of the posts there.
If you are a nonprofit theater, maybe the theatre subreddit is a place you want to at least read regularly, if not comment on what others are posting there.
If you are a historical society, you might want to check out the history and the history porn (has nothing to do with actual pornography) and ask history subreddits. Maybe in just reading those you might decide to host your own event on your own blog or web site or a Zoom call, an "Ask Us Anything" with local historians answering questions about local history.
If you want to learn more about inclusion and share your efforts to make your program more inclusive, there's an inclusion subreddit.
If you are a wildlife rehabilitator, there's a subreddit focused specifically on rehabilitating wildlife.
If you work at a museum, there's a museums subreddit worth checking every month.
If you are a shelter for people who have experienced domestic violence, or want to learn more about people experiencing such, there is a subreddit regarding domestic violence.
If you are involved with cooperatives (co-ops), collectives, communes, intentional communities, eco-vilages, etc., there's a cooperatives subreddit.
If you are affiliated with Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA), consider at least regularly reading the CASA subreddit (however, not that it's not an official program of CASA).
If you work at a Red Cross chapter, you should regularly read the Red Cross subreddit, and respond to people who are asking questions related to your geographic area (it's not formally affiliated with the Red Cross).
If you are a volunteer or paid staff person with Girl Scouts of the USA, there's a subreddit for that.
If you manage volunteer firefighters, you could read the subreddit regarding volunteer firefighters, to find information you might find useful and to share what your volunteers are doing.
If you are in Canada, good places to recruit volunteers or to talk about what your program's volunteers are doing is Volunteer Vancouver and Volunteer Toronto.
It's a great task for a reddit-savvy online volunteer to help you find the subreddits you should be posting to or reviewing. You can recruit for that among your current volunteers or post a request specifically to a site like VolunteerMatch.
By participating in discussions, you are learning what others in your field are facing, what they might be doing that you should do too, and what the perceptions of those interested in the subjects addressed by your nonprofit or NGO are thinking. You are also building your karma(a number indicating how much people like your posts and comments) and a posting history, both of which show other Redditors that you’re probably credible with good intentions. You’ll also get much-needed practice before you use Reddit on behalf of your organization.
While self-promotion on Reddit is not universally banned, some subreddits (like /r/Nonprofit) do not allow it. Always check the subreddit’s rules and message the moderators if there’s any doubt. Breaking a subreddit’s rules can get you banned from that subreddit.
If you think there is a cause or topic that is not already covered by an existing subreddit, and it's a cause or topic that relates directly and explicitly to the mission of your nonprofit or NGO, sure, create a subreddit for that topic. You will automatically be made the moderator of such. Be ready to reach out to other nonprofits, NGOs and others that you want to participate in this subreddit you have created, and welcome a diversity of voices about the topic - it should not just be about your program. Be open to inviting other people to help moderate, and have an answer for anyone who writes you and says they want to be a co-moderator - what will be your criteria for accepting someone to share moderation duties, and if you aren't willing to accept a co-moderator or moderators, what is your stated reason as to why? Also, have a plan for when your nonprofit no longer wants to be the moderator of the subreddit.
What about a subreddit that is only for the promotion of your program and its cause? It might be a good idea to create a subreddit with your name just to park the name, so that no one else can.
There is a subreddit for Doctors Without Borders, another for Red Cross, one for Peace Corps, one for the National Audubon Society, one for Girl Scouts of the USA and one for AmeriCorps, and none are formally affiliated with the official organizations, meaning those organizations have no way to moderate messages there. On the other hand, by NOT having official affiliation, the conversations and opinions shared on these subreddits are more free and much less self-promotional.
An example of an initiative that created its own subreddit is Seize the Good, which seems to have been abandoned several months ago.
The reality is that Reddit is about engagement - not just posting announcements and links, but also commenting, questioning and debating. If you are going to create a subreddit that doesn't allow that, you aren't going to get many followers.
Reddit has terrific information on creating a subreddit.
Do a search on Reddit at least once a month of the name of your nonprofit and the name of your executive director. You may find a very happy volunteer - or a disgruntled one. You may have a very happy client whose life you have touched - or someone who tried to use your services and is utterly frustrated. Note that most people use Reddit anonymously: their user name has nothing to do with their real name or identify. It's up to you to decide whether or not you will respond to a post about your organization or a staff member.
When you get up and speak in front of a group and make a presentation about your program or the issue it addresses, you are going to get questions or comments that feel critical and make you uncomfortable. The same is true online, including Reddit. Here's specific advice on dealing with online criticism. Remember: how a nonprofit organization, government office or community initiative handles online criticism and conflict speaks volumes about that organization or initiative, for weeks, months, and maybe even years to come. Becoming overly defensive or aggressive can make your organization look bad - far worse than whatever someone said about you.
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