Social media

Fictional worked example

Willow Street Family Resource Network

This fictional operating nonprofit offers free bilingual benefits-navigation appointments in three ZIP codes. A reviewed program page confirms current eligibility, languages, appointment length, and the request process. The team is planning an eight-week service-access campaign and has capacity for new requests.

The stronger draft names the audience, service, languages, cost, duration, boundary, and action without inventing an outcome. The publishing brief would still need a current link, accessible media, source and claim review, response coverage, and any required permission or disclosure before use.

A seven-part social publishing loop

1. 01

   1. Start with audience need and a real outcome

   Describe one audience by its relationship to the mission and the information, access, participation, or stewardship need the communication serves. Choose an objective the organization can support beyond the platform.

   Prompt: Who needs what, what should change after the message, and can the organization support that next step?

2. 02

   2. Assign each channel a role

   Use evidence from listening, prior results, accessibility, language, geography, moderation needs, and team capacity. A channel may inform, invite, respond, document, or strengthen a relationship; it does not need to do everything.

   Prompt: Why is this audience here, what job will the channel do, and who will maintain it?

3. 03

   3. Build from a controlled source

   Start with current program facts, approved evidence, consented stories, known limitations, and a source owner. Preserve meaning when shortening or adapting the material and flag anything that needs confirmation.

   Prompt: Which current source supports every material fact, date, quote, eligibility rule, claim, and destination?

4. 04

   4. Design accessible content and actions

   Use plain language, descriptive links, meaningful alternative text, accurate captions and transcripts, sufficient contrast, readable text in images, and an accessible destination. Review automatic text and captions rather than assuming they are correct.

   Prompt: Can people perceive, understand, navigate, and complete the action across relevant access needs and devices?

5. 05

   5. Protect people, rights, and trust

   Confirm story and media permission, copyright or license, privacy, confidentiality, required disclosures, political or lobbying boundaries, fundraising accuracy, professional limits, and safeguards for minors or sensitive contexts before publication.

   Prompt: Whose story, identity, work, data, safety, rights, or trust could this use affect, and who is qualified to review it?

6. 06

   6. Publish, respond, correct, and escalate

   Name the publisher, approval owner, response owner, backup, response boundaries, moderation practice, sensitive-case handoff, correction method, and conditions for pausing or escalating. Keep a reviewable record of material decisions.

   Prompt: Who does what before and after publication, and what happens when a fact, comment, request, or incident exceeds routine handling?

7. 07

   7. Measure the next step and adapt

   Use platform activity as diagnostic evidence, then connect it carefully to the intended destination and action. Review access, questions, completion, workload, cost, unintended effects, and evidence limitations with the people closest to the work.

   Prompt: What happened after attention, what can the evidence not show, and what will the team maintain, revise, pause, or stop?

Pre-publication and operating checklist

• One primary audience, communication need, objective, desired action, destination, owner, and campaign period are explicit.
• Each selected platform has a documented audience reason, channel role, maintainable cadence, response owner, and backup.
• Every material fact, statistic, date, quote, eligibility statement, outcome, and limitation traces to a current reviewed source.
• Stories, names, images, voices, testimonials, and sensitive details have context-specific permission, rights, safe-use limits, review dates, and a withdrawal path where appropriate.
• Material relationships, gifts, discounts, paid arrangements, endorsements, and sponsored content receive clear, conspicuous disclosures when required.
• Images have meaningful alternative text when needed; video and audio have reviewed captions or transcripts; link text describes the destination; essential text is not image-only.
• The destination is current, mobile-usable, accessible, privacy-conscious, and complete enough for a person to understand eligibility, cost, timing, expectations, and next steps.
• Publishing, approval, moderation, response, correction, archive, account access, recovery, and escalation responsibilities are assigned.
• Sensitive questions move to an appropriate channel, public replies do not request unnecessary personal information, and crisis or safety issues use a tested escalation path.
• Political activity, lobbying, fundraising, copyright, privacy, employment, professional, and state-specific questions receive proportionate qualified review.
• Campaign links and evidence definitions are consistent, data collection is minimized, and attention metrics are not presented as service or community impact.
• The review closes with a documented maintain, revise, pause, expand, archive, or stop decision and the next owner and date.

Common social media mistakes

Opening accounts on every platform before defining a purpose.

Choose a specific audience, outcome, channel role, owner, response obligation, and maintainable test before adding a platform.

Posting continuously to satisfy an assumed algorithm.

Set a cadence from mission moments, audience needs, content quality, response capacity, and team workload; revise it from evidence.

Turning a complicated source into a confident claim.

Preserve definitions, uncertainty, attribution, eligibility, boundaries, and limitations; ask the source owner to review material adaptations.

Treating a signed release as unlimited story permission.

Use understandable, voluntary, context-specific permission and discuss channels, duration, sensitive details, future reuse, withdrawal, and power differences.

Relying on automatic alternative text or captions without review.

Write meaningful alternatives and review generated captions for names, technical terms, accents, sound, timing, and context before publishing.

Putting disclosures, limits, or essential instructions where people are unlikely to see them.

Keep material information clear, understandable, and close to the relevant claim or endorsement in every format and language used.

Answering sensitive service questions in public comments.

Acknowledge without exposing information, move the person to the approved private or service channel, collect only what is needed, and escalate when appropriate.

Reporting followers, views, or likes as impact.

Name platform activity accurately and connect it cautiously to verified destination use, service access, participation, stewardship, learning, cost, and limitations.

Evidence for learning

Use measures that explain whether the system served its intended audience and next step. Platform metrics can help diagnose distribution and response, but they do not by themselves establish understanding, access, behavior change, fundraising results, or community impact.

1. 01Source integrity: material facts, dates, claims, quotes, limitations, and destinations remain current and traceable; corrections and archives are documented.
2. 02Accessible production: reviewed alternative text, captions, transcripts, descriptive links, readable visual text, language access, and destination checks are completed when relevant.
3. 03Audience response: recurring questions, confusion, language needs, access barriers, sentiment themes, moderation issues, and response time inform revisions without exposing personal information.
4. 04Destination use: trackable visits, completed registrations or requests, resource downloads, referrals, volunteer steps, donations, or partner inquiries are defined and interpreted with known attribution limits.
5. 05Permission and trust: story or asset withdrawal, complaints, consent questions, disclosure issues, takedowns, and participant feedback are handled through documented processes.
6. 06Capacity and cost: staff and volunteer time, review load, response demand, paid distribution, production cost, tool cost, and opportunity cost remain visible.
7. 07Decision use: reviews result in a recorded maintain, revise, pause, expand, archive, or stop decision with the evidence, limitations, owner, and next date.