"What should our Facebook strategy be?" It seems to be a very common question among charities I have strategy sessions with and one that is not easy to answer. Because Facebook may be massive and popular and used by all the people you wish were fundraisers or donors for you, but the reality is Facebook is still fairly new. Charities are still figuring out how they can showcase their brand or raise awareness on Facebook. Fundraisers are still figuring out how to get people to donate to their campaigns and events, and donors are trying to figure out if 'Causes' is the best place for their donation.
Recently I created my own campaign for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society here in Canada where I would run 400km in one summer while raising $10,000. This was a great opportunity for me to use Facebook by building groups, sending newsfeeds, wall post, all Facebook had to offer and measure success. At the same time, I was listening to web research firms and our own internal observations about Facebooks impact on charities. Here are just a few things that I found.
The Numbers
A great company called HitWise spoke at our UK conference and showed a startling slide, that in the last 2 years more people are being driven to charity web sites off Facebook than driven off of email. More than email! That is an amazing piece of information. Something else we know if that 'Causes' does not really raise loads of cash for charities (while they do create large communities of likeminded people), no one says “I want to donate to Easter Seals, better go to Facebook to make that donation". But clearly Facebook and those using Facebook are promoting charity and campaigns. To me that means charities need to look at their web sites and get them ready for people looking to make donations or find out more. Put that donate now button top left, actually make your 'donate now' button your banner. Watch traffic coming from Facebook to your web site and plan for success.
Get Your Team Using Facebook
So many employees/board members/volunteers know Facebook exists and don't have a profile or a clue what happens on this portal. Get them on there, regardless of age they need to see it to understand it. A really smart alternative to just getting everyone at your charity to sign up, is signing up your charities brand. A smart group in Australia called Alpha Autism had their mascot signed up so that their full team could see the inner workings (it also meant that your brand could have friends, invite them to do things, send them messages around specific campaign times, going beyond staff members telling friends). Facebook cannot just be something your teams know exists and knows you need to have your name on. Get your people learning the basics.
Forget About Owning the Brand
Several charities were freaked out that people had started groups for their charity without permission, using their logo and name. Just to be clear, these regular, everyday people love your charity so much that they made their own group to raise awareness, promote a campaign, whatever and you don’t like that? You should be hugging these people, asking them about their Facebook group, how you can help, and if you can tell them about upcoming campaigns, fundraising, new messages whatever so they can tell their existing group. Involve these people; they are part of your champion group, which we at Artez are always talking about. Now clearly if they are overstepping their bounds and being evil in their group, do something about it. But I feel most people won't be evil because you are a charity after all.
It is AMAZING for Fundraising!
When I was running my campaign for LLS I started using email and Facebook. And after a few months, I was using Facebook 90% of the time to tell people the kilometres I had ran and the money I had raised, and email roughly 10% of the time just to let people know what was up, and on that email I told people to join my Facebook group. The ability to update your profile status with fundraising info let all my Facebook friends know I doing something different, I had loads of people ask "What is with all the running". It helped grow fundraising for my campaign. I also had a group and had a link to my personal fundraising page on my news feed and profile page. It was just super easy to post and inform. I had a Facebook group too for big messages which worked well too. Really, all you need to do is share this success or these ideas with your fundraisers (if they don't already know), get them posting, showing personal pages, talking about campaigns, milestones etc, tell them to do this during online registrations, through email communications, whatever feels right.
Jury’s Out on Groups
I am a little torn on groups cause I don't think they achieve the goal charities wish they did or maybe any goal at all. Some (most) people join groups to increase their social capital, showing their other friends they care about the environment or whatever but not to give or be mobilized. I think the best way to use groups is to find those champions in the haystack. Your numbers for campaigns targeted to your Facebook group might be terrible, but maybe the 1% who responded could be placed in another initiative, maybe they have a massive network. That 1% could be prepared to do so much more, and just need you to contact them with an email thanking them, and steering them to something more suited to their desired involvement.
Really, this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Facebook strategies for charities. It is important for charities to start with goals, a desired outcome and figure out how Facebook fits into those goals, whether they are fundraising based, message or cause based, or just brand awareness. You need to have Facebook in your strategy 'to-do' list, but know how you are going to use it and be very strategic with your actions, not just create a group or ignoring Facebook all together.
Hope this helped and if you want to talk more about this, drop me an email at info@artez.com
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