Beyond Posting: Sustainable Social Media and Outreach Strategies for Community Engagement

Many organizations consistently post on social media, send newsletters, and promote events, yet still struggle with low attendance, poor online engagement, and outreach fatigue. During periods of burnout, staffing shortages, and funding cuts, communication efforts can easily become reactive, inconsistent, or disconnected from the communities organizations hope to reach.

This workshop explores practical social media and communication strategies that help organizations increase visibility, strengthen trust, and improve participation without relying on constant content production or overextending staff and volunteers. Participants will examine common outreach mistakes, audience engagement patterns, messaging strategies, and low-cost promotional approaches that support more sustainable community engagement.

Objectives

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Identify common communication barriers that reduce community participation during periods of burnout, low staffing, and funding cuts
• Analyze how messaging, timing, accessibility, and audience targeting influence attendance, trust, and participation
• Explore low-capacity social media and outreach strategies that support sustainable engagement without relying on constant content production

This workshop is no cost to HSF Members

Bio

Ysabel Garcia is a communications strategist and public health professional leading outreach campaigns, engagement strategies, and public-facing communications for nonprofits, advocacy organizations, and public health initiatives. She has coordinated multi-channel social media campaigns that generated thousands of views for public education campaigns, increased attendance at large-scale community events, and engaged audiences across the United States and internationally. Her work also includes independently building a mental health communications and education platform that gained national and international recognition, including an invitation to the White House.

Over the last decade, she has facilitated trainings on cultural humility, mental health, and leadership development, including serving as a trainer for the Human Service Forum’s Supervisory Skills Certificate Training Program.

Ysabel holds a Bachelor’s degree in Child Psychology and a Master’s degree in Public Health, grounding her work in human behavior, systems thinking, and social context.

HSF Annual Sponsors: