Toolkit #1: Social Media Mastery
How to build an engaged online community and showcase your work effectively
How to choose the right platforms
What's in this toolkit?
Social media can feel overwhelming when you're running a community group or small organisation. But it doesn't have to be about perfect posts or going viral. It's about showing the human side of your work, connecting with your local community and helping people understand how to get involved.
Whether you're starting from scratch or want to make your existing social media work harder for you, this toolkit gives you practical strategies that don't require hours of daily posting.
- Best for:
- Local community groups, event promotion, older demographics
- Great for:
- Detailed event descriptions, community discussions, sharing longer updates
- Time investment:
- Medium - posts can be longer and more detailed
- Best for:
- Visual storytelling, behind-the-scenes content, younger demographics
- Great for:
- Before/after photos, event highlights, volunteer spotlights
- Time investment:
- High - requires regular visual content and stories
- Best for:
- Direct communication with active members, event coordination
- Great for:
- Quick updates, photo sharing from events, volunteer coordination
- Time investment:
- Low - but requires active management of group dynamics
- Best for:
- Connecting with local businesses, attracting professional volunteers, funding applications
- Great for:
- Impact reports, partnership announcements, professional networking
- Time investment:
- Low - less frequent, more formal posting
- Best for:
- Reaching younger demographics (16-35), quick educational content, showing repair processes in action
- Great for:
- Time-lapse repairs, before/after transformations, quick tips, behind-the-scenes moments
- Time investment:
- High - requires regular video content, understanding trends and video editing skills
Assess your group's capacity honestly
If you have 1 hour per week: Focus on Meta, you can sync your Facebook and Instagram posts to make things easier (see below). Aim to post 2-3 times weekly with event updates and photos.
If you have 3-4 hours per week: Keep Instagram and Facebook regular posts but add stories from events.
If you have limited smartphone skills: Stick to Facebook - easier to post from desktop and write longer captions.
If you love taking photos: Instagram should be your priority - visual content performs best there.
Test your audience
Post the same content on different platforms and see where you get more engagement from local people (not just likes, but comments and questions).
Ask your existing members where they'd prefer to see updates - often they'll tell you directly which platforms they actually check.
Toolkit #1: Social Media Mastery
How to create content that works
How to build an engaged online community: Part 2
Continue to How to create content that works