Social media has become an integral part of the private sector’s marketing strategy. Businesses use social media to promote their brands, keep in touch with customers and advertise new products. They have learned, rather quickly, that social media is a powerful tool. This brings us to the question, why is the nonprofit sector lagging behind? This is the time for nonprofits to jump on the social media wagon and use it to bring about change, to make a positive and profound impact in the lives of people, to reach out to new supporters, to raise more funds and, yes, to increase brand visibility.

Social media is FREE and EASY. Everyone can use it. In fact, almost everyone in the United States is making use of it (3 out of 4 Americans use social media and 87% of Facebook users are participating in social causes that are new to them since their involvement in online communities began). If you are a nonprofit executive still wondering if this is something you should take on, I invite you to look at the numbers.

Let’s take Facebook for example. This social networking site has more than 350 million active users with 90 million users in the U.S. alone. Most of its users are college educated, well-connected and more affluent than average internet users. Today, Facebook ranks as the #1 social networking site.

Twitter, on the other hand, has over 40 million users. Statistics show that more than half of Twitter users don’t even go to a company (in this case nonprofit organization) website, but instead use Twitter to get their daily updates.

And, of course, nonprofits and charitable organizations have the issue-focused networking site Change.org. This site promotes causes ranging from animal welfare and disaster relief to poverty in America and HIV/AIDS worldwide. Nonprofits can post updates, petitions, raise funds and even recruit volunteers.

Nonprofit organizations can use the same tools and techniques that the for-profit sector uses to build awareness, recruit volunteers, connect with supporters, promote events, collaborate with similar organizations and even raise funds. We do not have to reinvent the wheel.

Whether you are a big or small nonprofit, this is the right time to start using social media.