How Social Media Can Supercharge Your Online Fundraising
Social media is a great tool for modern organizations that engage in online fundraising. Different social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ enable organizations to spread information about their fundraising campaigns with ease. Thus, they enable organizations to reach out to more potential donors and convince them to make contributions. Ideally, social media is not just about television spoilers and funny videos. It can be an effective tool that enhances the social good. Basically, the power of the social media lies in its ability to engage a wider audience. This makes it a very important tool when it comes to online fundraising.
The Twitter followers of your organization are inspired or intrigued by your organization or its cause. Basically, that’s the reason they follow your organization on this platform. As such, you can use brand advocacy to ask for their donations or assistance. For instance, you can ask the Twitter followers of your organization to re-tweet or share your tweets. This way, they will help in spreading the word about your online fundraising. In you tweets, you can include links to your donation page or website, in fact Donorhut provides the necessary tools to promote your campaign on Twitter! When followers re-tweet the tweets of your organization, they reach out to more potential donors. Ideally, you can use Twitter to ask or to remind people about your online fundraising. You just need to come up with the right tweets and tweet them at the right time.
Facebook is one of the most used social networks. If your organization has an established Facebook presence, you can utilize customization options on Facebook to drive more donations. For instance, you can create a unique donation tab on Facebook to drive more organic traffic to your fundraising online. This enables the Facebook fans of your organization to navigate from Facebook to the donation page with ease. Additionally, you can integrate your Facebook page into your Donorhut campaign so that your supporters can comment and discuss your cause. This helps create a community around your online fundraising which encourages support and sharing.
Just like Twitter, you can use Facebook to spread the word about your online fundraising. For instance, you can post details of your fundraising campaign, information and stories about the cause of your organization. Facebook can also be used to share videos and pictures that depict the activities that your organization engages in. You can also include a link to a website page where Facebook users can donate to your organization directly in your posts or links to blogs where they can find more details of your fundraising campaign. In an earlier blog post we discussed the important of sharing your stories and the status of your fundraising with your supporters. If you haven't already, we suggest you read our brief blog post on building donor trust and increasing donor retention.
Google+
Powered by the recognition of its brand name, Google+ is one of the most popular social networking sites with more than 100 million users. Most Google Plus users are also Facebook users. With Google+, you can reach out to potential donors via video chats and conversations. This social media platform also enables you to search for conversations about the cause of your organization and use it to inform more people about your online fundraising. You can also use this platform to tell potential donors how crucial it is for them to participate and donate online.
With its hangout feature, Google + enables you to engage potential donors in personal conversations through video chats. In the online fundraising world, this is very important because it enables you to make your cause stand out and provides your supporters with interaction and acknowledgement. You can also create a video about your organization and its cause and share it through Google+ or on YouTube. Additionally, Google+ enables you to look for events that are relevant to your organizational cause. When you find like-minded individuals, creating new relationships and tapping into a group of new, potential donors becomes easy.
Although Facebook has been the most important social network when it comes to online fundraising, it is important to branch out to new social networks that have proven their ability to supercharge online fundraising. Google+ is particularly important because of its fast growing membership. Twitter is an equally important tool for online fundraising because it also has an increasing user base.
Regardless which social media networks your organization is looking to or is currently participating in. Donorhut integrates with all of the major social media platforms to help encourage your supporters to share your fundraising campaign. In addition, you are provided with the tools to easily promote your campaign on your website, Twitter, Facebook and Google+ networks. We are eager to help your organization supercharge your online fundraising and we encourage you to contact us if you have any preregistration questions.