Social Media Isn’t Just for Big Businesses
Social media isn’t just for big businesses, not-for-profits need to be social too.
More and more people are donating online, and when they’re not donating online directly they’re taking inspirations to donate from online sources. Social media is considered to be the most effective communication tool that inspires giving, making it an extremely important tool in your fundraising strategy.
Through the use of effective social media marketing, not-for-profits can not only engage with their target audience but they can strengthen and maintain relationships with existing supporters. Of course, the potential for gaining new supporters is dramatically increased by regular and correct practises demonstrated online too.
So, here’s just a few things to consider when using that all important social to improve your fundraising success.
Smart Goals.
As with any strategy, you must be clear on the objectives. Simply saying that you want to use social media for fundraising just isn’t good enough.
Setting SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-based) goals allows you to track the success of your campaigns and make sure you are heading in the direction that you want to go. You can use social media at every stage of your fundraising journey, keeping your supporters engaged and up to date while cementing trust in your organisation.
Choose the right platforms.
Deciding on the right social media channels that your not-for-profit is going to use is just as important as the decision to use social media in the first place.
Start by looking at your most successful channel at present. A social media channel that has high engagement rates and a good percentage of conversions on Call to Actions is a social media channel that should be developed further. Forget your vanity metrics; having thousands of followers but zero engagement honestly does not look as good you may think. You’re after a return on the time and manpower that has been invested putting your posts together, not having thousands of people scroll past it when it intermittently flickers across their news feed. Think of the algorithms, people!
Aiming to spend a large amount of time on the channels that are most engaged with (and in return you are most familiar with) doesn’t mean that you can’t explore new ones but you must make sure that your posts are tailored for each platform, and directed at your specific target audience.
Saying it right.
Cross-posting between platforms is a huge pet hate. Yes, it saves a lot of time but it does not demonstrate best practise for each social media channel, and ultimately makes your organisation look lazy. What says “we don’t care about our supporters” more than seeing a #linkinbio stuck on the end of a Facebook post?
Every social media platform has different guidelines that must be adhered to. From copy to visuals, each social media platform has specific requirements, meaning that when they’re followed carefully your posts will work best.
Twitter, for instance, has a character limit of 280. It is also common knowledge that each post must contain a relevant visual too in order for it to stand out from the noise of a very busy newsfeed.
Instagram is also heavily populated. Images published on this platform must be on brand and of high quality. Pixelated images are a major turn off, unless they are actually intended.
Of course, there are lots of social media channels to choose from… Facebook being the largest of them all, but whichever ones you decide to use as part of your fundraising strategy you must make sure that your posts are optimised for the specific channel that they have been created for. It may be time consuming but it demonstrates that you are paying attention to your audience and managing their different expectations associated with each social media channel.
Tell your story, and tell it well.
Fundraising isn’t just about asking for cash. A not-for-profit should be using social media to tell the organisation’s brand story and all those successful stories along the way. People like to see the difference that their donation has made, and in return supporters both old and new learn more about your cause.
Narrating your organisation’s story improves your fundraising journey. Raising an awareness of your organisation through authentic stories helps to build a greater supporter base, with said supporters converting to donors when they begin to understand how every contribution matters.
Think of social media as the warm up story before the ask.
Involve your community.
Your online community is just as important as your local one on the ground.
Supporters are your greatest assets; they are your ambassadors. Utilise their power of increasing footfall to your website and generating a greater awareness of your campaigns by getting them involved in the journey. Celebrate their fundraising successes online, and demonstrate the importance of their contributions. With a highly engaged online community you can push your organic reach even further, spreading your intended message beyond the villages outside of your gate.
Involve your supporters online as soon as possible, and keep them involved right from the beginning. By tracking engagements and making amendments where necessary, you can understand their levels of influence, and perhaps even reward them accordingly. Always say thank you for their support.
Your call to action
Your call to action (CTA) on social media should be immediately clear. An ambiguous request will receive an ambiguous response.
Don’t be afraid to try out different CTAs to monitor which ones convert the most, just must make sure that they are direct and clear enough for anyone wanting to follow the next steps to be able to complete them as smoothly as possible.
It’s important to remember that nobody actually enjoys a hard sell. In fact, majority really don’t like it. Although your CTA needs to be obvious in what it is asking, it must also come across as an ask and not a demand. A fundraising campaign that has high levels of engagement but isn’t reaching its targets may be suffering from the wrong call to action. Consider your requests carefully and monitor responses as you receive them.
Enjoy it
Using social media as part of your fundraising strategy does come with its own share of complexities, but the results are incredibly rewarding.
When executed properly, social media leads to great successes. These successes are then able to be celebrated with your supporters online, further cementing their trust in your organisation and in return helping to achieve your fundraising targets.
The regular measurement of your social media performance will help you to create more and more successful posts, and tracking the progress of the objectives that have been met as a result of social media will keep you motivated to continue to produce even more of that digestible content.
Seeing a well implemented social media strategy begin to flourish is a lot more rewarding than you may initially think.
A quick recap.
Social media is a valuable and necessary tool in any fundraising campaign.
When working alongside your fundraising strategy, social media not only helps to increase your donations but it ultimately brings your supporters closer to the cause. Nurturing your long-term followers encourages relationships with new supporters.
Spending time analysing the relevant data secured from social media makes sure that you keep moving along the desired path. Do not deviate from the cause by measuring outdated metrics; having one follower that converts is far more important than ten that don’t.
Whether your organisation has been using social for a while, or whether you’re just starting out, keeping up to date with current trends will always be beneficial when creating social content for your fundraising campaigns… and yes, the occasional spontaneous post can sometimes be effective but it is a well-executed plan that takes your social media campaigns to the ‘next level’.
If you’re looking for a little help putting together your social media strategy, or even wanting to just understand how to implement an existing one more effectively, then we should have a conversation. The point of social is to be exactly that, after all.
Written by Keeley Sawdon-Molloy