Volunteers, Donors, and Social Media: Your Nonprofit Won’t Survive Without Them
Are you making every effort to get your nonprofit known and gain more support through social media? Do you hit speed bumps every day? Social media algorithms for pages not willing to pay for advertisements make it hard to be seen in your everyday posts. You may ask yourself if it is even possible to gain support, recruit volunteers, and receive donations through social media for your nonprofit.
Here are 10 tips for you to make a huge impact as a nonprofit on social media.
1. Determine what you are marketing for with every post you make:
Sharing news about your cause
Fundraising
Brand recognition
Donor recognition
Volunteer recruitment
Employee recruitment
2. Use more than one social media platform
There are potential supporters around every corner, and believe it or not, they might not have a Facebook profile!
3. Schedule social media posts
Doing this saves you time and allows you to post consistently without thinking “what should I post today?!?” every day.
4. Post daily and interact with followers
Supporters expect a response to their questions, messages, and posts the same day.
Facebook shows the average response time to messages as soon as a supporter clicks a message:
5. Learn more about the people that interact with your nonprofit by using social media data from your posts.
6. Make it easy to donate!
On Facebook, you can use the Donate button, which makes donating easier for your followers:
To create the button on your nonprofit’s Facebook page (you must be a registered 501C3 with Facebook for this button):
-Visit your profile and click “add a button”
-Select the ‘donate’ option
-Type the URL for your website’s donation page
-Test the “donate” button to make sure it’s working
7. Include photos and videos about your nonprofit to every post
People are three times more likely to interact with a tweet that contains a photo or video.
High-quality photos gain attention in a user’s crowded newsfeed
8. Use hashtags on every post to increase your reach
Create your own hashtags for your nonprofit name
Hashtag the location (city, state, country, continent) of your nonprofit
Use popular hashtags that will bring more followers
9. Post interactive content to engage your followers
Ask followers to share their story in the comments
Instagram Q&A in stories
Twitter polls
Facebook surveys
10. NEVER buy followers
You may assume that having more followers will get you seen easier, but this is a bad practice. You do not want to spend your nonprofit’s money to share your work with fake profiles. Work hard to cultivate real relationships with followers, even if it is only 75 people!
Social media platforms can be a huge pain or a huge asset to your nonprofit. When you post strategically, you can connect with potential volunteers, gain donors, and expand your audience. Try some of our tips today!