A beginner's guide to social media

Social media lets you share information and interact with likeminded people and members of your community.

Some benefits of setting up a group social media profile include:

• growing followers who may support or join your group in the future
• spreading awareness about your events, petitions and wins
• having a platform to lobby local decision makers
• ability to connect with others.

Recruit social media volunteers

To maximise your reach on social media, we encourage groups to recruit a savvy volunteer to manage your channels. There are plenty of people who want to find a way to use their skills for good but don’t know where to begin – you could be just what they’re looking for. Use your existing platforms (like social media pages, websites and group contacts) to put the word out. Your volunteer should ideally have:

• confident running social media accounts
• strong writing and communication skills
• interest in the environmental movement.

Make sure you maintain admin access to your social media pages should the volunteer wish to move on.

Set up your social profiles

We recommend building your social media presence on Twitter and Facebook to begin with. Once your profiles are set up, you can use the below checklist to make sure you’re ready to start posting content:

• Make sure your profile name is easy to understand.
• Use the same profile picture with the same image on each profile.
• Fill in any key information such as your location and a link to your website or events page.
• Make sure your "About Me" section on each social platform is clear, for example: "We're a local action group working to promote sustainability within <insert your area>. Open to all. Sign up to join us using the link below."

Best practice for beginners

Dos:

• Use clear and correct spelling and grammar so that your posts are easy for everyone to understand.
• Use attractive and relevant images when needed. You can find free images at Pixabay or Pexels. Or even better, if you're good at taking photos then you can of course use your own.
• Be clear about what you want people to do with your post. For example, if you want to increase the number of petition signatures, make this the focus of your post by directly asking people to sign and ensuring a link to the petition is included. However if you want people to start talking to you, ask them a question.
• Try to give your audience new or useful information, such as commentary on an important local issue you’re able to add insight to.
• Keep going and learning. Starting a new social media profile is a learning curve, some things will work well and others won’t. Over time it will become clearer what your audience responds to and your channels will grow.

Don’ts:

• Use too many tags, links or hashtags. To make sure your posts are easy for people to absorb, try to not use more than three hashtags or one link per post.
• Post too little. Try to post at least 3-5 times a week on each of your profiles.
• Always be selling yourself. You should give people a reason to follow you by sharing information or updates of interest that aren’t necessarily linked to growing your group, petitions or fundraisers. For example, you could share insight about a relevant news story, or ask your followers a question to get a discussion going on something that's important to your local area.

Our handy video below outlines the best way to write social media posts.

Top tips for Twitter

• Follow other users. Twitter is a great way to connect with local people, local news, businesses, organisations and decision-makers, and the first step is to follow them. Try looking at similar profiles to your own (eg other green groups in the area) and check out who they follow as a starting point.
• Interact with fellow Tweeters. Twitter is all about conversation, so make sure you’re replying to relevant Tweets and adding something to the discussion. You can also share other people’s content by retweeting (RTing), so look for updates that will be of interest to your audience, for example climate news and local news updates.
• Share interesting news and updates. When you’re making your own Tweets be sure to consider what your followers may find interesting, and try to deliver that. For example, news of a "win" if your group achieves something in your local area, a recommendation for an environmental documentary about to air on TV, or a call to action to sign a petition relevant to your work.
• Tweet often. Try to Tweet at least once a day, but make sure you have something of note to update your followers on.
• Make use of hashtags. Hashtags are a good way to get your Tweets in front of more people. In your Tweet add a # in front of a relevant word to allow people to find your post when they search for or click on that hashtag elsewhere on Twitter. Take a look at similar profiles to you and take note of what hashtags they're using, then try them out. You can also use campaign hashtags – one example we've used is #MoreTreesPlease.
• Publicise and promote your Twitter account. Whenever you get the chance to promote your Twitter account, do it!
• Use the pin feature. Pin your Tweet to the top of your profile to draw attention to your most important message by clicking on the three dots in the top right hand corner of the Tweet and selecting "pin".

Top tips for Facebook

• Which page is right for you? Think about what you want out of Facebook. If you want a space to discuss issues with your members, start a Facebook Group. If you want to use Facebook for promoting your events and trying to recruit more people to your group or campaign, then opt for a Page. Of course, you can do both of these if you wish!
• Try to post at least 3 times a week. Facebook will otherwise flag your page as not relevant and show your posts to fewer people.
• Reply to comments and grow conversation. People feel valued when you take the time to reply to them, and starting a conversation will encourage people to engage with your group more in the future.
• Share relevant news stories. Links to popular websites such as news sites perform especially well on Facebook, as Facebook can tell that you are sharing good quality information.
• Don’t ask for likes or shares. Facebook forbids this! Instead, make your post extra interesting and worth sharing by including expert insight, exclusive updates from your group or posts with an emotional hook – for example a good news win with a picture of your group celebrating.
• Use the pin feature. Pin your post to the top of your profile to draw attention to your most important message by clicking on the three dots in the top right hand corner of the post and selecting "pin".

Remember to always make the most out of your audience. Our video social media channel features, audiences & algorithms let's you know how exactly to utilise the best our of every major social media platform.

Impartiality and sensitive info

Avoid sharing sensitive or revealing information that you wouldn’t want to see in a public space like Facebook.

With all your posts on social media, you want to ensure that you remain politically impartial, particularly during elections. If you have a separate personal account where you tweet your opinion, that's fine, as long as you don’t write something like “leader of Climate Action Sheffield” in your bio – then people might see it as the view of the group as well.

Paid social advertising

Take the performance of your social media up a notch. Find out what putting a little bit of money behind your ad can do for your campaigns.

Sharing social media responsibility

Posting on social media involves a lot of time, energy and effort. We've put together a video to help you decide how best to share social media responsibilities for your channels.

Reviewing social media performance

Once all your hard work is done, it's good practise to see what is working for your channel, and what can be changed. Have a look at our video which details how you can review and analyse your channels social media performance.