Social media has good and bad connotations, but it has become a necessity for companies and nonprofits. If you’re having trouble reaching an interested audience and sharing your organization’s message, you must learn the best ways to use social media and the tools available to get the most out of it. Check out our list of free and affordable tools to get you started.
Marketing has never been easier and more affordable. Social media has changed the game and given everyone the ability to share experiences about companies and products with their communities.
Nonprofits can promote their programs and events to a larger audience and share stories that touch the heart and get noticed by more people every day. You don’t even have to be an expert!
Social media can take up valuable time, and if you’re a fundraiser, you know time is not easy to come by. Luckily, more tools to help with productivity, design, and marketing come out every day.
In this article, we list a few social media tools that stand out in the crowd for distinct offerings and features. Each offers a free plan that allows you to try it out, so we recommend signing up for each to see how it affects your outreach and online marketing.
There are not enough hours in the day to get everything done, and social media marketing can get overwhelming when dealing with more than one account. Hootsuite allows nonprofits to manage all their social media accounts on one dashboard.
With Hootsuite, you can schedule posts across all social media accounts and review the posts before publishing. Even better than that is the ability to track the responses you receive from your posts. Hootsuite allows nonprofits to view social trends and conversations, respond to comments and receive notifications whenever their brand is mentioned online. This tool really is a game-changer! Planning and responding to social media posts has never been easier.
Pricing
Plans with Hootsuite start at $49 a month for one user and up to ten social media accounts. They offer a limited free plan to try it out that gives companies the chance for one user to monitor two social media accounts and schedule five messages. We recommend starting with this to see the tool in action. Hootsuite does offer discounts for nonprofits.
Unless you’re a designer, creating images for social media posts can be time-consuming and even frustrating. Canva simplifies this process and allows nonprofits to create unique social media graphics for Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and more.
Their templates make creating these images easy since the correct size has already been assigned. Another plus is the ideas you can get just from looking at what others are designing on Canva. If you have ever had to create a poster or post from scratch and didn’t know what to do, Canva is full of templates and images that your organization can borrow and make your own.
Pricing
Over 100+ million stock photos, videos, and graphics, along with templates and new designs, are available for free for everyone. Nonprofits can resize, edit, save, and download social media content with this free plan.
If you’re looking for more, their pro plan at $9.99 a month offers animation, video, and audio editing along with marketing and social media content scheduling. Canva offers free Canva Pro accounts for nonprofits. All you have to do is apply.
Online marketing is all about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). If you aren’t an expert, you may be clueless about what to post and how your social media posts are helping or hurting your organization. Buzzsumo is an excellent tool to help monitor popular keywords and hashtags online. Using the right keywords and hashtags can place your posts in front of more eyes, so Buzzsumo is worth their weight in gold for this service alone.
Buzzsumo also helps nonprofits see their SEO wins when others share your content or mention your name.
It puts nonprofits in touch with influencers in their field. Today, influencers hold power, and those who connect with these individuals will gain the attention and support of their audience. Thanks to Buzzsumo, you can now learn more about the influencers in your field and who your competitors are using to get noticed.
Pricing
Their free plan offers nonprofits 10 searches a month, one content project, and one custom feed for one person. This plan gives nonprofits access to content analysis reports, domain reports, influencer searches, backlinks, and journalist profiles.
Additional plans offer more services with each plan up to $299 a month. Buzzsumo also offers a nonprofit discount for registered charities and classrooms.
Teamwork is great, but it can also take a lot more time. When more people are involved with your nonprofit’s social media posts, you may get creative ideas, but it can also hold you back from getting the posts published. With Planable, nonprofits can create, share, and publish social media posts in a matter of minutes.
Nonprofit staff and volunteers can work together regardless of their location. Planable allows nonprofits to schedule an entire week of posts and create templates to use when they publish online.
Pricing
Planable wants you to try their tool for free, so they offer everyone the first 50 posts free! After that, They provide plans for companies with up to 3 social media staff for $33 a month or small agencies and 7 users at $83 a month. They also provide nonprofits with discounts. Check here.
Many nonprofits start with only one or two different social media accounts. If your nonprofit has high-quality images, Instagram and Pinterest are probably the best social media accounts to use. Later offers nonprofits the opportunity to plan, preview, and schedule their posts on Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, and LinkedIn.
Their hashtag and scheduling suggestions can help get your posts noticed. With Later analytics, you can also see what’s really working and make changes where needed. This tool stops you from feeling like you’re just throwing posts at the wall to see what sticks.
Pricing
Once again, this social media tool has a free option for one user to create up to 30 posts. Plans increase in cost and number of posts until their advanced plan at $40 a month for larger social media teams and agencies. Later has exciting (up to 100%) discounts on their various monthly and annual plans for nonprofits. Check it out here.
Grammarly is not technically a social media tool, but we added it to the list anyway. Grammarly is an excellent tool to add to your arsenal to help develop trust with your audience and keep you looking professional.
There is nothing worse than misspelling or misusing a word online. Social media commenters are brutal and won’t miss the mistake. Grammarly gives you peace of mind and an extra pair of eyes to check your posts before you push publish. With Grammarly’s browser extension, you can download the tool, and corrections will pop up whenever it sees the need.
Pricing
There is a free plan for Grammarly to catch any spelling or obvious grammar mistakes, but we recommend spending the money for a Premium or Business plan to get the most out of this tool. You should check out Grammarly for Nonprofits for the eligibility of using all its features for free.
Sprout Social has been in the market since 2010. It has official partnerships with social media platforms like Instagram, Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, and more. The best feature that grabbed our attention is the ability to manage all your DMs in one place. It’s called the Social Inbox feature. Imagine you have a one-person social media team having to check messages, posts, and a hundred other things on all accounts. It becomes a breeze with a tool like this!
Apart from this, you can also schedule and publish posts, collaborate with the content team on the tool, and fetch useful reports on your accounts.
Pricing
Sprout Social allows you to use their features for free for a month. After that, they have plans starting at $89/month up to $249/month. You can also drop them a message on Twitter like this here to know of their nonprofit discounts.
Social media has made a difference in the lives of millions of people. Nonprofits now have direct connections with their followers and share their programs and stories with a larger audience without paying an arm and a leg.
Social media tools make online marketing easier and give nonprofits the skills and knowledge to find success. Each of the tools listed above is affordable and easy to use. With these social media tools and a few tips on social media marketing or help from a social media virtual assistant, your nonprofit can reach more people and create a larger impact online.
Donorbox offers nonprofits tips and resources on social media marketing, online fundraising, and more. With our online donation processor, nonprofits can receive online donations and collect donor information for a fraction of the price of other similar companies.
Kristine Ensor is a freelance writer with over a decade of experience working with local and international nonprofits. As a nonprofit professional she has specialized in fundraising, marketing, event planning, volunteer management, and board development.
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Kristine Ensor