Introduction

Nonprofit organizations have been playing vital positive roles across the world, including supplying basic needs to people who are in absolute poverty and refugees and fighting for the rights of marginalized groups. However, non-profit organizations have increased to the extent that the non-profit sector is saturated. This has led to an increase in competition between nonprofit organizations, making it difficult for some organizations in the sector to survive. For instance, a report produced by Sangonet Pulse (as cited in Hussain, 2014) in 2013 indicated that more than 100,000 nonprofit agencies across the globe were deregistered in January 2013 alone. They key reason for deregistration of most nonprofit organizations was lack of enough funds that they needed to operate. As Hussain (2014) explains, the ability to attract funding highly depends on the relationship that exists between a nonprofit organization and its stakeholders. One of the approaches undertaken by organizations to enhance their relationships with stakeholders is to develop personal networks and engagements with them. At the same time, it has become increasingly difficult to develop personal networks and engagements with stakeholders through engaging in face-to-face meetings because of lack of availability of ample time and opportunities to do so. Despite this, the emergence and evolution of the social media has opened an ample opportunity for organizations to develop personal networks and engagements with stakeholders (Lorenzo-Romero, Constantinides & María-del-Carmen, 2012). This presents an ample opportunity for nonprofit organizations to develop close relationships with stakeholders. However, the social media also poses some challenges to nonprofit organizations, which should be addressed in order to derive maximum benefits from it. This paper presents the argument that the social media provides an ample opportunity for nonprofit organizations to enhance their relationships with stakeholders, irrespective of the presence of some negative impacts.

Discussion

While profit-oriented organizations mainly compete for customers, nonprofit organizations compete for funds. In order to access funds and any other form of support from stakeholders, a nonprofit organization must propagate close relationships and trust with the stakeholders. In addition, a nonprofit organization that needs to gain or maintain competitive edge in the sector must focus on maintaining proper communication with the stakeholders. This is due to the fact that stakeholders are constantly interested in learning about the progress of a nonprofit organization, as well as its practices and activities. As Cacija and Prelimi (2014) not, most nonprofit organizations have learned the importance of developing and maintaining personal networks and engagements with stakeholders via the social media and thus, they are increasingly engaging in the practice. They achieve this through proper use of social networking sites such as FaceBook, Twitter and FunSpace. The social networking sites allow nonprofit organization to interact with stakeholders such as the general public, volunteers, funding organizations and individuals, the media and regulators (Cacija & Prelimi, 2014).

The social media sites enhance the relationship between nonprofit organizations in various ways. Firstly, the social media provides an opportunity for nonprofit organizations to engage and connect with stakeholders. This is due to the fact that the sites allow the internal stakeholders of the nonprofit organizations to open discussions with the external stakeholders, which are carried out at personal level (Lefroy & Tsarenko, 2013). For instance, FaceBook allows users to create discussion forums in which they engage the viewers in discussions on different topics. In addition, FaceBook allows the users to create accounts in which they invite friends and other people who they would like to interact with (Lefroy & Tsarenko, 2013). Users can then post topics or updates on their ‘walls’ that are viewed by the friends. As such, nonprofit organizations can make such forums and accounts on FaceBook and invite stakeholders to engage in discussions on matters of interest to the stakeholders. Similarly, Twitter allows users to create discussion topics or threads that are followed by the viewers.

Both FaceBook and Twitter provide an opportunity for internal stakeholders in nonprofit organizations to get feedback from the viewers regarding issues related to their organizations (Lefroy & Tsarenko, 2013). As such, the internal stakeholders can easily learn the perception of their organizations from the viewpoint of the external stakeholders. For instance, stakeholders can easily express displeasure in a given aspect of an organization’s activities through the networking sites. This is due to the fact that the stakeholders do not incur significant cost and they can hardly shy from making comments when they are not interacting with the internal stakeholders face to face. In response, the managers or other internal stakeholders of the social sites can address the issues raised by the stakeholders or give assurance that they will be addressed. As Lefroy and Tsarenko (2013) notes, studies have shown that opening dialogues with the external stakeholders via the social media sites makes the stakeholders feel as if they are valued by the organizations and that their opinions and voices are being heard. Managers and other internal stakeholders of the nonprofit organizations can also ask questions from the external stakeholders at personal level in order to determine how they feel about their organizations. Asking and answering questions when interacting with the stakeholders in the social media at personal level plays a vital role in enabling internal stakeholders of nonprofit organization establish personal networks, engage them to the organizational activities and practices and invite them to support the organization’s mission and vision (Lefroy and Tsarenko, 2013).

Further, the social media enables non-profit organizations to derive additional traffic of supporters who follow their activities and practices on daily basis. As Corley, Jourdan and Ingram (2013) explain, most non-profit organizations develop internet websites that provide elaborate information about their goals, visions, values, achievements and objectives. In doing so, the organizations target at attracting the viewers of the content of the websites to support them meet their goals. However, attracting the attention of potential supporters to the websites is not an easy task since people hardly open online pages that they are not interested in (Beall et al., 2012). At the same time, some people who do not have any interest in supporting a nonprofit organization may be very willing to do so after reading the information contained in the websites. This implies that the non-profit organizations need to establish ways of attracting the attention of potential supporters to their websites (Beall et al., 2012). The use social media is an effective solution to the issue. Managers and other internal stakeholders of a non-profit organization can attract followers in FaceBook and Twitter through commenting on their pages, following their tweets and making comments that attract the interest of the users of the social site. They can also achieve this through raising interesting topics (Beall et al., 2012). The internal stakeholders of the nonprofit organizations can then post links of their websites together with comments and ask the social media users to access the websites and get more information about the organizations. The approach helps to attract more people to view the elaborate information about an organization. There is high possibility that some of the viewers of an organization’s website will feel the need to volunteer or offer any other form of support (Beall et al., 2012). Eventually, the organization will be able to transform part of online community into active supporters through other ways of engagement. However, it is essential to note that building traffic of supporters using the social media is a process that takes time. Thus, an organization’s internal stakeholders should be patient in order to meet the ultimate goal of gaining enough number of supporters needed to steer a nonprofit organization meet its vision (Beall et al., 2012).

In addition, the ability to share content in the social media sites provides an opportunity for enhancing the exposure of a non-profit organization to a large group of audience from different parts of the world. This is quite beneficial to a nonprofit that is seeking financial support for an urgent issue. FaceBook, for instance, allows people to share contents by simply sharing a “share button” (Corley et al., 2013). The more the content of a non-profit organization is shared in the social media sites, the more it reaches many people and the more the organization gains support. A good example is the Ice Bucket Challenge campaign for ASL Company, which achieved remarkable success. The company carried out the campaign on social media sites. The company shared a video of celebrities and other people who were pouring cold water on their bodies (Hussain, 2014). The hilarity and simplicity of the campaign attracted the attention of many social media users and thus, they shared it. Eventually, the campaign let to a significant increase in the amount of donations offered to the company. The campaign was carried out in 2014, and during the same year, the company the donations for ASL amounted to $70 million dollars. During the previous year, the donations offered to the company amounted to $2.5 million (Hussain, 2014). The tremendous increase in the amount of the donation was attributed to the social media campaign. The company attracted donations from people living in different geographical regions across the globe. Thus, a social media campaign can enhance the exposure and support of a nonprofit organization. However, the goal can only be achieved if a nonprofit organization is creative in its campaigns. As Hussain (2014) explains, it is vital tap into the ideas that are interesting to the audience or ideas that the targeted audience may be thinking about when designing social media campaigns.

Also, social media provides an opportunity for non-profit organizations to engage in affordable campaigns, yet they have great impacts. The traditional marketing strategies, such as engaging in road shows and making advertisements on radios, newspapers and televisions are usually expensive and thus, an organization is required to set aside a lot of funds for marketing purpose. However, the use of the social media is a cheap alternative since no significant amount of funds are required in order to engage people in the social media. Only a small fee may be required in the process of designing market campaigns (Bonsón & Ratkai, 2013). The social media is a suitable marketing tool for nonprofit organizations since such organizations usually do not have enough funds to spend on the traditional marketing strategies. They usually have a tight budget and thus, they focus on using the least expensive strategies to attain their goals. Further, non-profit organizations are usually under scrutiny from people and institutions that provide them with donations, in regard to the way they utilize the donated funds. An issue has been raised that the use of social media is difficult to monitor, analyze and organize (Bonsón & Ratkai, 2013). However, the issue can be solved through the use of a social media management tool with the ability to undertake the aforementioned functions. Examples of tools with ability to undertake those functions are Buffer, SproutSocial and Hootsuite. The analytic tools can be applied in determining parts of an organization’s social media campaign that need further support or research and the parts that are successful. Non-profit organizations can also use tools that have ability to make schedules, such as editorial calendars.

As well, the social media can enhance the ability of nonprofit organizations to extend their public relations reach. This is due to the fact that the social media opens opportunities for the organizations to interact with celebrities from different countries, some of whom have supporters worldwide. A nonprofit organization can ask celebrities promote its course to their supporters (Lorenzo-Romero et al, 2012). The celebrities can play a major role in diverting the attention of their audiences to nonprofit organizations that seek for support. Moreover, social media provides an opportunity for an organization to connect with like-minded organizations and supporters that are far away. In such cases, a nonprofit organization can form partnerships with the like-minded organizations and individuals and then work together to attain a common goal. A nonprofit organization can easily get support from partners. For instance, the partners can promote the site for a nonprofit organization in their social media sites (Lorenzo-Romero et al, 2012). Connecting to celebrities and having partners enhances the trust and reputation of nonprofit organization among its supporters and potential supporters. In other words, the approach enhances the public relations of a nonprofit organization (Lorenzo-Romero et al, 2012).

Irrespective of the positive impacts of the social media on nonprofit organizations, scholars have identified some challenges which the organizations should address in order to derive maximum benefits from the social media. Firstly, the ever present negative news presented by nonprofit organizations in the social media has a negative impact on the ability of the organizations to attract funding. An analysis of views of representatives of nonprofit organizations carried out by Bonsón and Ratkai (2013) indicated that the willingness by the social media users to offer donations has been reducing with time. One of the interviewees indicated that when he started posting information on the social media regarding an issue that needed financial support, social media users responded quickly with generosity. However, the interviewee indicated that the social media users had become more reluctant than before to offer support. Bonsón and Ratkai (2013) noted that the social media users were becoming reluctant due to the fact that the ever present negative news in the social media kills their hope of attaining any success. They develop a notion that it is difficult to solve the problems raised by the nonprofit organization seven if they offer their support. This problem can only be solved by nonprofit organizations. As Bonsón and Ratkai (2013) suggests, nonprofit organizations should give positive news about their achievements on their social media sites, in addition to raising issues that require financial support. A supporter who has contributed to a successful mission and learns about it is likely to offer additional support in the future than a supporter who is always bombarded with information about issues that require support without even learning about the outcomes of the past missions.

Another challenge is the presence of internet troll. The term “internet troll” describes the negative comments made by discontented people who use much of their time online critiquing, complaining, hating, screaming and ranting. When such comments are written on the social media forum or account of a nonprofit organization, they may ruin the organization’s reputation (Bonsón & Ratkai, 2013). Nonprofit organizations should be keen to identify such trolls, and they should differentiate them from comments that are meant to disagree with certain practices or activities that they engage in. The organizations can only address the problem through identifying the trolls, deleting them, blocking the writers of those trolls and moving on (Bonsón & Ratkai, 2013). Another major challenge is social media burnout, which occurs as a result of spending too much time on the social media sites. Social media practitioners in nonprofit organizations spend long a lot of time dealing with issues such as trolls, responding to the audiences and giving out information to the audiences. Too much concentration of the social media for long hours leads to burnout. The issue can be solved through spending some time away from the social media and the computer. As Bonsón and Ratkai (2013) suggests, there is need for social media practitioners to take short breaks after taking some time on the social media.

Conclusion

Overall, the relationship between the social media and nonprofit organizations involves forming social networks with stakeholders. The relationship has numerous benefits to the organizations. As indicated in the above analysis, nonprofit organizations use the social media to connect with stakeholders and engage them so that they support the organizations to attain their missions, visions, objectives and goals. Further, nonprofit organizations utilize the social media in engaging their stakeholders in dialogues that ultimately enable the organizations to understand and respond to the desires and concerns of the stakeholders. The organizations use the social media to enhance the traffic of the followers of their content located on their websites. Through the use of the social media, nonprofit organizations are able to interact with people from different parts of the world. The organizations are able to engage in cheap campaigns with great impacts through the use of the social media. Lastly, nonprofit organizations use the social media as a channel for enhancing their public relations. Despite the presence of the numerous advantages of the social media, nonprofit organizations have to deal with some emerging challenges. One of the challenges is reluctance by the social media audience to offer financial support to nonprofit organizations due to the negative information they are always bombarded with. Also, the organizations need to deal with internet troll. Lastly, the social media practitioners employed by nonprofit organizations should take breaks from their chores frequently to avoid social burnout.

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