Internet is now integrated into nearly all aspects of everyday business use. 91% of American adults use social media and almost a quarter of their total time spent online is on social network. It is inevitable. Becoming an active participant in social network is an absolute MUST for both non-profit and for-profit companies. As a matter of fact, countless non-profits are diverting their attention to building a tight online community.

People are prone to prefer two-way communication. They like to be updated with the non profit’s news and events as quickly as possible because this allows them to save time when deciding if they want to commit to an organization or not. By utilizing social media, nonprofits can also receive immediate response from the viewers. Just as much as for-profit organizations are in need of good communication with consumers, non-profit organizations require constant reviewing of their performance with use of social media.

Now, using Blackbaud’s software, we can measure how effectively these non-profits are utilizing social media to boost their ability to attract volunteers or philanthropists and assemble events. Recently, Blackbaud, Common Knowledge and NTEN collaborated to publish 2012 Nonprofit Social Networking Report, which you can download for free, to show nonprofits’ overall performance with social media.

To highlight a few:

98% have a Facebook page with an average community size of over 8k fans.

Average Facebook and Twitter communities grew by 30% and 81%.

Average value of Facebook like is $214.81 over 12 months following acquisition

73% allocate half of a full time employee to manage social networking activities.

43% budget $0 to their social networking activities.

The top 3 factors for success are: strategy, prioritization and dedicated staff.

And here is the infographic of the report

This report suggests optimistic numbers, which I assume to have attributed to the recent growth in online fundraising. The online fundraising grew 14 percent in 2010 after falling in 2009 and again grew in 10% in 2011. (According to the eNonprofit Benchmarks Study by M+R Strategic Services and NTEN) When considering the fact that the response rate for fundraising email fell 19 percent in 2010 and the response rate to advocacy email fell 7 percent, we can see that social media’s contribution was crucial here.