Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Boosting Nonprofit Fundraising Via Social Media - 8 Effective Ways

By Sebastian Troup


There is more to social media than just cute videos of cats and television spoilers. There is so much good that can be achieved using the social media. Being able to engage a wide audience is the true power of the social media. And the best way to do that is by way of a nonprofit fundraising campaign where people may be positively involved in.

Here are some simple ways to spread the work about your fundraising campaign:

1. Give your campaign ample thought. Before you get into your fundraising campaign using social media make sure you have studied its fundamental elements. Determine your goals. Identify your target audience. Check where your potential donors, volunteers and advocates are in order to gauge what social media platforms they use. Then you will know where your conversation should start.

2. Tailor your messages. Social media channels come individually unique thus fitting for you to write posts suitable for each audience. "Cut and Paste" approach should be done away with. Try tailoring posts to fit different channels. Take note: be brief in your posts on Twitter as it comes limited to 140 characters, as opposed to Instagram which calls for visual presentations and YouTube requiring videos to make.

3. Call for a connection and be connected too. It is a two-way street when it comes to social media that when you start with it, you should be able to "drive" conversations. Donors need to be responded to individually even when it only calls for simple "thank you". Establish involvement in the conversation you have generated for your followers where you may retweet some of the posts and links from your influencers. Seek out companies and organizations you may be able to work with and be in groups in Facebook or LinkedIn as well as Google+ communities with them.

4. Accommodate other types of content. Other approaches may be found effective through this. The most response garnered by a particular post, time or week should be the direction you should aim to go to. The feedbacks of followers matters much because it will enable you to adjust your post according to what engages them. Today, some social media platforms are with analytics so you can gauge the people's response and find the most effective option.

5. Urgency - a "must-stressed value." Indeed social media is concerned with the present. So, give them updates on your campaign's progress and how long before you can actually reach your goal. People are enticed by the possibility of them taking part of a monumental mark so when you call for "a few more dollars to go," they are most likely to donate.

6. Share your results. Social media can be used to thank donors and volunteers and include how their gifts will be utilized. They could clearly see the impact of their "giving" when you present to them what would really happen like "donating $50 will give children in need about 5 pairs of shoes". A thank you video from recipients should also be in place. Maybe volunteers and donors sharing their testimonies on how their participation in your campaign actually affected their lives can be highlighted as well.

7. Make sure you include a call to action. Make sure that some of your social media posts come with call to actions asking for followers to take a step further. And if they are willing to help spread your story, then they can be reminded that they need to "share this," "click here to donate now," "get your event tickets here" or maybe "help us to spread the word."

8. Transform you network into an army. The efforts you put into building a successful network of volunteers, donors and ambassadors in the real world may be linked to your efforts to use social media for your fundraising. Ask followers to share testimonials and their own ideas too. They can very well raise funds and scatter information about your campaign using their own individual links. It could also work if you launch contests to expand your list of contacts. Your fundraising campaign can gain much exposure the moment more people under you will share it to people under their own umbrella of network.

In order materialize nonprofit fundraising, social media maybe one powerful tool for you to use. Be conversational rather than approach aggressively. Instead of asking your followers for something it is best that you come up with a conversation relative to your campaign - one that your followers may be willing to share. It will be through this that connection can be formed between your organization and your followers which can result to your campaign gaining an advantage over the others.

Because of the campaigns and donations being "sharable" in most any well-known social media channels, InstaGive creates this online donation as a true social experience. Registration for InstaGive is simple and fast, so perhaps you'd like to learn more about this program at Truist.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment