You're probably using (or thinking about using) social media at your organization. But how effective is your organization's use of social media? Are you using the right tools in the right ways? And what can you reasonably expect to achieve using social media?

The free Nonprofit Social Media Decision Guide from Idealware is designed to help you answer all those questions. The guide can help you understand how social media may benefit your organization and which tools might be right for you.

The Nonprofit Social Media Decision Guide includes detailed advice on:

  • Understanding social media: social media is about having a conversation, which includes listening and encouraging people to join the conversation and spread the word.
  • Defining your goals and audience: "Having a Facebook page" isn't the end goal, because social media isn't a goal in and of itself. You need to understand who you are trying to connect with and what your goals are for that engagement in order to use social media effectively.
  • Choosing the right tool for the job: the guide provides detailed descriptions of various social media tools' strengths (and weaknesses), as well as practical advice on how to use those tools to meet specific goals.
  • Creating your organization's social media strategy

The guide includes practical suggestions for getting started with the most popular social media tools, as well as handy worksheets to help you through each step of planning and implementing a social media strategy for your organization. The guide also includes case studies on how other nonprofits are successfully using social media.

Updates to this version of the guide include new research on how nonprofits are using social media, expanded discussions of strategy and goals, and sections on potentially interesting newer tools (like LinkedIn, Foursquare, and Google+).

As Idealware says in the guide, "Social media is like anything else: effective at some things, less effective at others, and your level of success depends upon how you use it and who you're trying to reach."

So take a step towards social media success and download the guide today.

by Ariel Gilbert-Knight, Senior Content Manager, TechSoup