Social media is the marketing activity nonprofits say they need help with most, according to a free report from Constant Contact called the Nonprofit Pulse Report. More than 57% of the 307 respondents said they needed help with social media, followed by 36% with email marketing, and 35% with their nonprofit websites.

Not surprisingly, 88% of respondents said they found Facebook the most effective channel for their cause marketing followed dismally by 5% who preferred Twitter. For great Facebook fan page examples look at the American Red Cross with 511,000 fans and The Humane Society of the United States with 1.4 million fans.

Read Up and Invest Time into Your Multi Channel Efforts

Nonprofits who have read Heather Mansfield’s How to Guide for Using Social Media for Social Good say it’s worth the money. Heather gives 149 tools and resources, a case study of how a nonprofit book tour earned an organization $17,000, and other lessons she’s learned during her 15 years helping nonprofits and 15,000 hours using social media.

The Nonprofit Pulse Report details that nonprofits are spending 36% of their time and 18% of their budgets on marketing. It doesn’t break out what amount of that time and money is spent on social media. However, another report, How Small Businesses and Nonprofits Can Master Online Marketing, states that effective social media outreach takes at least 25 hours of staff time per week, according to company behind the report, Ditch Digital Dabbling. The survey also outlines the online marketing tactics that work best and highlights new revelations, including the fact that “Power Users” rate only five social media tools as very effective.

I think both Mansfield and Ditch Digital Dabbling’s staff would agree that Mark Hanis, the founder behind the Genocide Intervention Network, has put in the time and wisely leveraged social media.

Hanis’ Facebook campaign raised $250,000 in 2005, according to nonprofit blogger Beth Kanter. Kanter said that Hanis used Salesforce as its contact management system to track interactions and help land a very large donor. “The relationship starts online, but the “ask” happens offline, perhaps on the phone or face-to-face,” says Kanter.

How much time is your nonprofit spending on social media? If you need guidance, download the reports in this blog or contact us. The return is worth the work according to Social Media Today who says a charity can raise $100,000 or more on Facebook if they dedicate the budget and staff to the task. Imagine what lift you’d get adding variable printing to the integrated marketing mix, too.