Unleash Your Human Services Agency's Social Media Potential with These 8 Key Principles

Best practices for social media.

Last week I was speaking with some of my human services marketing counterparts about social media, and I boiled my take down to a few core principles for human services agencies and executives:

👉 Be authentically "you" to promote genuine engagement around your mission - in other words, it's okay to not speak like a brand!

💙 Build your community! Don't chase vanity metrics (views, impressions); rather focus on connecting your audience with your work and impact on a regular basis. (And be patient; don't look for immediate results, but trust the community-building process.)

👨‍👨‍👧‍👧 People don't want to engage with brands; they want to engage with people! Encourage staff, individuals, and families to share their stories and experiences that amplify your mission and impact. (At Incompass Human Services, this goal led to the creation of the #CareChampions persona.)

🎯 Don't try to be on every social media platform. It's tempting to create TikTok and Snapchat channels, but focus on where your audience is, what you can realistically support, and tailor your content to that platform(s).

🗓 Schedule your content! Create a calendar and plan ahead with content for initiatives like hashtag#AutismAwareness month, hashtag#HungerAction month, and hashtag#GivingTuesday, and align your content calendar with your own conference schedule.

🎥 Resist the urge to make everything "perfect" before posting. A simple video or cell phone pic goes a long way... (Just make sure you're getting photo releases!)

👩‍💻 Investigate tools that make creating rich media such as photos and videos easy to produce to enhance storytelling and encourage engagement from your followers! Canva, CapCut, and Synthesia are all examples of user-friendly tools that can add a strong brand presence to your content.

❗❗ Don't forget to make your content accessible! Use alt-text for images and captions on videos.

But at the end of the day, the real magic is in content curation! Every day in human services agencies across the country there are inspiring stories being told, and as communications professionals it is our job to build relationships with the staff who are delivering on the mission so that they'll share these photos and anecdotes with us to amplify.