It's Halloween on Saturday, so this week we're talking about ghosts. Most of us have met this type of ghost at some point - someone who was chatting away happily, then vanished without a word.
Businesses and organisations do it too. There are regular posts, chatty newsletters and quick replies to messages, and then everything goes quiet for weeks, months, with tumbleweed rolling across the Facebook page. I call it ghosting your audience, and if you're reading this thinking "oh dear, that's us", you're in very good company.
What ghosting looks like
It depends on who's been left hanging.
Customers find a Facebook page with no posts since the summer barbecue, a website still advertising last year's Christmas fair, or a newsletter that stopped arriving without so much as a goodbye.
Funders hear from you when a report is due and not in between. They handed over the money, then waited 12 months feeling anxious and wondering what you spent your money on.
Volunteers and supporters turn up once, have a lovely time, then never hear about the next opportunity. They assume they weren't needed and quietly leave to go somewhere else.
The local community stops seeing your name in the parish magazine, on the noticeboard by the post office or in local Facebook groups, and slowly forgets you exist (even worse if you’re a CIC!)
Why it happens
Hardly anyone ghosts their audience on purpose. Usually you're busy doing work, and marketing and comms slide quietly down the to-do list. In small teams it often all sits with one person, so when they're poorly, on holiday or snowed under, everything stops.
Sometimes it feels like there's nothing worth saying. You haven't launched anything shiny or won an award, so posting feels a bit pointless. And sometimes something has gone wrong, like a cancelled event or a funding gap, and hiding under the duvet feels safer than explaining.
What it costs you
People hate a silence, so they fill it themselves, usually with the worst-case version. A customer who finds an empty Facebook page may assume you've closed. A funder with no updates starts wondering whether the project is on track (which won't help your next application). Volunteers wander off to organisations that remember to keep in touch.
The really scary part is coming back. After months of silence, that first post feels as awkward - so it gets put off and the gap gets bigger.
How to stop ghosting
The good news is that showing up regularly enough for people to know you're still around is plenty. A few ways to make that easier could be:
Pick a number you can actually keep. One Facebook post a week and a monthly newsletter beats a flurry of 15 posts followed by six months of dead-silence.
Plan for the busy bits. If summer or Christmas always goes bonkers, schedule a few posts before the chaos starts.
Share the everyday stuff. Behind-the-scenes photos, a volunteer's story or the office dog having a nap. People like seeing the humans (and paws!) behind the organisation.
Send funders a quick hello between reports. A few lines and a photo every couple of months keeps them in the loop and makes the dreaded report time far less painful.
Own it when things go wrong. A short, honest post about a cancelled event earns far more trust than vanishing.
Break the silence gently. If you've already gone quiet, a friendly "we've been a bit quiet, here's what we've been up to" post is all it takes.
Need some help coming back from the dead?
If your organisation has gone a bit quiet, I'd love to help you get telling your story again… and there’s no spooky sales pitch, I promise.