I was asked to put together a presentation on social media for fundraising for my nonprofit. Thanks to the books and bloggers below I came up with the following simple guidelines and tips I've used.
Good buy – The Nonprofit Marketing Guide. By
Kivi Leroux Miller
Follow Beth Kanter and AFP TechKnow
Thanks to these resources for their
1. Don’t “Just Do It”
Think strategically before you pick which
social media to choose. There are many different social media venues, don’t
jump on every bandwagon because the technology is there. The purpose of social media is to
communicate, consistently and effectively. Pick only as many networks as you
can afford to devote time to. And you
need to be checking the web and responding to items on the web.
For your organization, the site you choose may depend on your audience,
for the majority of nonprofits the best approach has been Facebook. However if you’re nonprofit has a lot of
great video or pictures you may also choose to create a you tube channel or set
up a Flickr account. Just remember: You’re providing a tangible link to your
organization.
2. Be consistent
Make sure you have time to donate to your
social media efforts; you can’t tweet on a Wednesday and then again 2 weeks
later. Out of ideas – consider finding a
list of inspirational quotes that relate to what you do – find 52 you love –
post those once a week, you’re down to 4-5 days you need to find something.
3. Timing is Everything
That said, think about your supporters,
when will they be going online, is it in the morning, mid day, late afternoon. Keep track of your analytics and also when
you get the best response from supporters.
Use that time of day to touch base with supporters and send them
messages.
4. Include Calls to Action/Give Posts Purpose
Social Media may not make you millions, but
in can certainly guide your public.
Outraged? Frustrated?
Excited? Get your supporters revved
up! Give them something to tweet about,
create a hashtag, share a response on Facebook and ultimately drive them to
your website. Once the website you should make sure they can DO something when
they are there sign up for your newsletter, for more information, sign a
petition, donate a dollar, or share a speech from your Executive Director on your homepage.
5. Always watch the competition
Follow, Like, and watch your competition
and your friends, see what people are doing that works and learn from it.
6. Don’t ignore the cover image.
Speaking of your competition, people are
doing a lot of great things with cover images. The new cover image and changes
to Facebook made many people groan but the huge cover image really allows you
to tell a story and know that you can and need to change your image to have the most powerful image.
Combine your image with a targeted message that tells your story. Provide a
call to action in your message. You can feature an upcoming event or make an
announcement.
7. Don’t be messy.
When you post links – neaten them up on
Facebook and Twitter – shorten them, once you’ve copied them, delete them out
of your post on Facebook. Also, did you know you can edit the text below them? Click on the article and the text below and you can edit it. Let your supporters know why they should read the article.
8. Interact
We’ve talked about interacting with your
supporters but don’t hesitate to interact with other people who may help your
marketing. Interact with reporters and
people who may help you advance you cause. I had great success interacting with a local reporter on Twitter post Hoboken Shelter 30th to let him know how much we'd raised - 2 hours after the event.
9. You’re not asking for money, you’re cultivating
Social Media won’t make you millions, but
it will give you the chance to engage and cultivate supporters by sharing your
mission, purpose and services. People give because they feel connected and once
they give – get their name, address and info, and it’s up to you to do the leg
work.
10.Trust your tweeter and Trust your audience
Your organization and the networks you
develop – Facebook, Twitter, a Blog, should sound to your supporters like an
individual. Say we, us, you. Also so
long as responses from the supporters fall within your social media policies you
won’t need to regulate or delete responses.
If a topic elicits a response that opposes your viewpoint, let your
supporters do the disagreeing – sometimes it’s good for them to say out loud
why they support you. Also, if your staff is exceptional and has a lot a great
voice, perhaps they have their own professional Twitter account or a blog, you
may want to invite them to team tweet about your mission. Make sure they state that the views expressed
are their own. Employees may choose to keep separate accounts or use filters.
11.What’s Successful on Facebook/Twitter may
be successful elsewhere
If a topic is very popular on your blog, Facebook
or Twitter and you are getting great responses – recycle it – turn it into an
appeal, put it in your newsletter, send out an email asking for support.
12.Are you sending messages to your
supporters?
People may love your organization but if
they aren’t hearing from you they will fall off. More than half of supporters fall off because
of a lack of attention from the supplier (you).
If you don’t have any easy listserv that allows you to quickly send
supporters, consider investing in an email marketing system for supporters that
allows you to send messages and ask for $$$. Before you send messages ensure that you test
them on a mobile device to make sure they can be read, by 2013 more email will
be opened on mobile devices vs the desktop.
13.Link to your website
But make sure your website is worth going
to. Do you have a great website? Does it
easily let individuals donate? Donate buttons shouldn’t be buried on the bottom
of the page. They shouldn’t be top right, visual and appealing. You should have
variety of ways for supporters to donate, online, snail mail, stocks, events,
sponsorships, membership, planned giving, etc.
14.LinkedIn can be a Powerful Tool
LinkedIn is often the black sheep of the
social media family but it has many great resources – we can use it research
potential board members, supporters, partners and staff. Use connections to
find out how you can get introduced to that person. If you’re stumped about a particular issue, LinkedIn groups can be a great resource for next steps.
15.There are plenty of ways to promote your
work
Thanks to the web you can easily create and
post videos, put data into visuals using sites like visual.ly and share that
content. Don’t hesitate to make create
and share data because the more people know about you the more they will
continue to support you.
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