The remarkable and rapid growth of social media tools has given  nonprofit organizations the opportunity to spread their mission and message more easily than ever before.  Tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube easily enable the sharing of relevant stories and encourage supporters to interact regularly with the organization.  While many nonprofit organizations have launched social media initiatives, few take full advantage of the capabilities the tools provide to quickly spread the mission message to grow membership and donations.

Here are three ideas you can kick off today to begin to leverage social media to your advantage:

1. Personalize your stories: Donors and members don’t really want to hear the details of your job program operations.  They do want to hear the stories of those individuals who have benefited from your job program.  This demonstrates the value you provide because the difference you make in the lives of individuals, for example, ties specifically to your mission.
2. Don’t tell; engage: Pushing out statistics and business news is best left to traditional communication channels.  In social media, it is better to rephrase the news in a way that starts a conversation and encourages interaction.  Doing so will build the sense of community necessary to further the purpose of your mission.
3. Show your member sand donors how to use social media to carry out your mission: Many members will see your Tweets or Facebook updates in their streams, but few know that they can help you spread your message and mission to their circle of friends.  Consider preparing an instruction guide to show them how to share your social media messages with their own circle of friends.  Often, simply encouraging individuals to click the “share” button will go a long way to spread your message.

Obviously, this is just a starting point.  Nevertheless, these social media ideas can be implemented quickly and easily, and will go a long way to building greater support for your mission.