4 Ways To Use Social Media For Smarter Fundraising

Social media can be a great platform for fundraising. However, simply using social media isn’t a guarantee that you’ll be able to raise the money you need. If you want to increase your donation revenue and meet your fundraising goals, social media presence is key… but you have to leverage it the right way.

Smarter fundraising means using social media to engage with supporters and increase your visibility. It also requires being cognizant of the quality of your content! In order to do all of this, consider the following strategies:

1. Explore peer-to-peer fundraising
2. Leverage Facebook
3. Navigate the other platforms
4. Boost your campaigns

Are you ready to step up your social media strategy? Lets dive into these tried-and-true methods!

1) Explore peer-to-peer fundraising

As a powerful social giving tool, peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns can help many organizations raise much-needed money and expand their donor base. Peer-to-peer fundraising is when a nonprofit organization recruits volunteers to fundraise on their behalf. Qgiv offers a comprehensive guide to this giving method, and well break down the basics here.

This is how peer-to-peer fundraising works:

• The nonprofit sets up its peer-to-peer fundraising campaign page.
• The nonprofit calls on volunteers to create their own individual fundraising pages.
• The nonprofit instructs and coaches the volunteers on how to make the most of their fundraising pages.
• The volunteers share their campaigns on social media and with friends and family.
• The nonprofit tracks the progress of the campaign and continues supporting the volunteers.

By taking advantage of peer-to-peer fundraising, you can raise a lot more money than in other campaigns because you’re humanizing the donation experience. By matching a familiar face to a cause, friends and family members of the volunteer fundraisers will be more likely to contribute. If its clear that the volunteer cares about the cause, then their friends and family likely will, too.

There are many peer-to-peer fundraising platforms out there, so be sure to do your research and choose the one best suited to you!

2) Leverage Facebook

Facebook is still a social media giant, especially among baby boomers and millennials. Lets walk through how to best leverage Facebook to further promote your nonprofit:

• Have a strong Facebook presence. Start by building up your Facebook page. Invite members of your nonprofit, donors, volunteers, and leadership to like your page, and ask them to invite their friends to like it, too.
• Start an awareness campaign. This can be in the form of an image, video, or even just a status. As long as the post contains information about your nonprofit and what you do, it can be done through any medium. Remember, getting people to share the content is your ultimate goal because it increases your visibility and gets you more likes and donations. Keep in mind, however, that an awareness campaign won’t translate into automatic donations.
• Make straightforward appeals. This consists of asking directly for donations, which you will ultimately have to do at some point. In order to do this successfully, you should use a combination of visuals, links to your donation page, information about where the money will go, and data about your progress.
• Add a donation tab to your Facebook page. By adding a donation tab to your page, you make it convenient for donors to contribute without them needing to navigate through a series of pages to find your donation page. (Pro tip: See what tools you need to create great online donation pages here.)
• Track your insights. Impressions are the views your content receives, while engagement occurs when the viewers actually interact with your content (likes, shares, etc.). Track how many people your posts have reached as well as which posts have the most clicks, likes, comments, and shares. Tracking your engagement is key to determining how effective your content is. If impressions are high, but engagements are low, look into restructuring your content to get more engagements.

Many of these tactics can apply to other social media platforms, as well, but its important to remember the impact Facebook has had and will continue to have on online fundraising campaigns. Don’t underestimate the value of this platform!

3) Navigate the other platforms

According to Double the Donation, social media represents an important opportunity for nonprofits to engage with their communities and increase visibility online. Facebook is still a giant power when it comes to online fundraising, but its not the only option. Many users have gravitated toward Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and others to share and view content.

We wont lie: going viral is hard to do, and it depends almost entirely on luck. But, if you want to set yourself up to go viral, you have to put in the work and research. In order to successfully engage with supporters across all platforms, follow these general best practices:

• Post regularly. In order to maintain long-term donor relationships, you must post content regularly and engage with followers who can convert into new donors. This practice applies to your current donors, too.

• Incorporate visuals. Use eye-catching images to stop people while they’re scrolling. If you use long paragraphs purely made up of text, the user will likely continue scrolling past your post. Try a few tips like placing text within an image. Both pictures and videos tell a story and are effective ways to grab viewers attention.
• Go live. Use live video to build up anticipation for an event (such as showing a behind-the-scenes look), make announcements, or host a Q&A session. Live social media posts are engaging, and they’ll still be available to viewers after the live broadcast has ended. Going live adds a human element to your organization and a level of transparency that supporters will appreciate.
• Share results and success stories. Keep your supporters updated by posting the progress of your campaigns. If you have a successful event or meet a fundraising goal, showcase it! Your followers will be motivated to contribute after seeing the success you achieve with other donations.

• Thank your donors. Use thank-you posts to showcase donors who have contributed to your cause. Doing this not only helps recognize your loyal supporters, but also encourages others to contribute and helps with donor retention.
• Link to your social media pages. Include links on your website and in your email outreach to your social media pages. Make it prominent and easy to find, which will also help add a sense of consistency to your online brand.

Learning several social media platforms and determining which ones your audience is using is important. But once you know what platforms to leverage, you need to understand how to create high-quality content that is both engaging and compelling. Try out these practices and track how your level of engagement evolves!

4) Boost your campaigns

If you’re not paying to boost your campaigns, you could be missing out on a lot of engagement opportunities. Paying to boost your campaigns or articles on Facebook and Twitter, for instance, increases your chances of being shared, and social sharing is a valuable tool.

Boosting a campaign involves targeting your audience based on age, demographics, interests, etc., and then setting your budget and boost duration.

Whether you’re starting a t-shirt fundraising campaign or trying to find a rescue dog a home, its important to increase the chances of your post being shared. Here are a few things to keep in mind when boosting your campaigns on social media:

• Promote your calls to action. Viewers are likelier to respond to calls to action, as its a direct instruction to do something (or act quickly).
• Know your target audience. Ask yourself what segment your organization is part of and what your goal is (such as likes and engagement or new followers), and determine your audience demographics. Its best to stick to behaviors like volunteering and fundraising.
• Practice engagement. As mentioned before, engagement is the key to visibility on social media.

There are many marketing steps you can take when fundraising, and boosting your campaign is a great option to consider. Widen your audience and explore platforms where you can further promote your content.

If you’re not taking advantage of social media for smarter fundraising, you should be. Try out these strategies for yourself and increase your nonprofit’s success!

Guest blog by Abby Jarvis, Qgiv