How to Build an Authentic Social Media Community for Your Organization

Written By Tarah Walsh

How do you build a vibrant, consistent, and engaged social media following?

Spoiler: It’s not about going viral.

If you’re building a brand—whether as a nonprofit, startup, or advocacy campaign—your social media presence is more than marketing. It’s identity, it’s community, it’s a conversation you shape, and most importantly, it’s an asset to help you meet your goals. 

Creating a vibrant and consistent social media community requires a few key strategies:

1. Align Your Social Media Strategy with Your Brand

This means visuals, voice, and messaging are consistent across channels and mediums.

This is your content’s north star and gives your audience an immediate signal flare and resonance when scrolling.

In less than two seconds, the audience should see your content and know that it’s you. This creates stickiness, identity, and sets the tone for expectations.

If the content is resonating with your target audience and you are consistently brand-aligned, they know what you offer, and hopefully will like it and follow.

2. Set Goals that Serve the Larger Mission

Social media should always serve the organization’s broader goals.

  • Every tactic should connect back to core objectives

  • Use platform best practices and get a little weird sometimes (experiment!)

  • But always stay inside the boundaries of your brand voice

This kind of alignment helps attract the right audience. And the right audience is primed to take meaningful action that will help advance your organizational goals.

My goal is to develop content and strategies that capture your target audiences and bring value back to the brand or organization.

3. Authentic, People-First Content Builds Trust

Act and speak like a human.

People are drowning in content. You have seconds to stop the scroll.

Create content authentic to the brand and in language that sounds like a human (or your target audience).

Tips for staying human:

  • Speak in the language of your audience

  • Avoid jargon (unless strategically used to build authenticity with a niche audience that expects it)

  • Meet your audience where they are, and create messages to meet them there

  • Deliver value. Create content that’s useful to your target audience. Don’t just tell them what cool new program you’re running

  • Be honest. Don’t make promises you can’t keep

  • Build trust over time with consistent tone, message, and delivery

Authenticity is the foundation of trust—a rare and vital commodity in today’s world.

4. Engagement Is a Two-Way Street

It’s been said many times, but it cannot be overstated: engagement is a two-way street. It's not enough to post content and only speak at your audience.

You must create content that engages with your audience. This means posting things like:

  • Questions

  • Polls

  • Contests

  • “Ask me anything” sessions

  • Comment on other accounts and pages (but don't beg for follows or shamelessly self-promote)

And—critically—respond and engage in the comments.

Engaging with your audience is as important as the content itself. It reinforces trust and keeps the community connected to the brand in a deeper, more meaningful way.

5. Leverage the Trends, but Don’t Let Them Own You

Trends can be useful tools, but don’t chase them for vanity metrics.

  • Use trends to expand reach and tap into new audiences

  • Only participate when they align with your brand

  • Don’t force a fit. Forced = unauthentic, and people can usually smell it from a mile away

A trend is a vehicle, not the destination.

Make the trend work for you. Don’t force yourself into chasing trends without a clear goal, target audience, or brand alignment.

6. Consider Partnerships

Collaboration builds trust and credibility. Plus, you can rent their audience.

Partner with:

  • Creators

  • Influencers

  • Aligned brands or organizations

These partnerships can:

  • Tap into new, warm audiences

  • Build trust by association

  • Increase reach and engagement—especially for new accounts

Social media is built on engagement and network effects.

Leveraging partnerships helps boost engagement, creates trust for your brand by association, and taps into those network effects for your benefit.

7. Track Your Performance and Experiment Constantly

Try new things. Experiment. Repeat what’s working and build on it.

  • Run tests

  • Try new content formats

  • Monitor what works, and replicate it

  • Share social insights across teams. Valuable insight that could help inform other organizational goals or decisions

Social managers are often closest to the audience’s raw feedback and can spot opportunities and warning signs as they emerge—for both your industry and your brand.

Treat that proximity like the goldmine it is.
(And pay your social media managers what they’re worth.)

8. Trust the Grind

Building a good brand on social media from scratch takes time.

The grind is worth it to build a quality, engaged audience that has trust in the brand.

  • Building a good brand takes time and consistency

  • Show up when it’s easy, show up when it’s not

  • Train the algorithm

  • Let your audience get a chance to know you

  • And keep at it

You may see spikes of success from events, unanticipated viral moments or headlines, or partnerships—which is awesome—but keep doing the work consistently.

Last Word

When your content is on-brand, people-first, and aligned with your goals, you grow a community of followers who are actually invested in your brand or organization.

That is more valuable than a massive following that rarely engages or takes meaningful action.

Next up: What to do with your engaged social media communi

Tarah Walsh
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