Social Media Tips for Giving Tuesday
Tomorrow is Giving Tuesday! You already have your campaign planned and you are excited to reach out to your donors. Social Media is the #1 way to drive traffic and raise funds on Giving Tuesday, so we have put together a few things to remember as you finalize your campaign.
Hashtags - Leverage your Giving Tuesday hashtags with creativity and experimentation to find a strategy that works for you. Creating a specific hashtag associated with your organization will make it easy to monitor and respond to social posts about your campaign. Just remember not to go overboard with the hashtags and keep it simple and easy to remember. You will want to use #GivingTuesday and possibly one or two additional hashtags.
Every post should include a link to your donation or campaign page. Be strategic when choosing which page to send them to. If your post states “Donate here”, your link should go directly to the donation page. Consider using an app like bit.ly to shorten links and make your posts look cleaner while saving room for the important stuff on your character count.Links shouldn’t always be at the end either. Click-through rates are highest if your link is about a quarter of the way into the post.
Images are vital! Social media posts with images receive more engagement, especially comments and shares. If you want better odds of people noticing, sharing, or responding to your posts, be sure to add images. And the more personalized, the better. Compelling images that are specific to your organization will inspire action better than a generic stock photo every time.
Create your content ahead of time. If you haven’t already scheduled your posts for tomorrow, be sure to get that done tonight so you don’t have to worry about the possibility of forgetting one tomorrow. Plus, designing and writing them ahead of time saves energy and reduces your stress levels on the big day. Make your content a good mix of fun images and stories, progress updates and appeals. You can even pre-design graphics to share when you hit certain percentages, so you don’t have to spend time creating when you could be interacting.
Saying thank you is the best way to engage supporters. One benefit of preparing your posts before Giving Tuesday is the freedom to monitor your accounts and communicate directly throughout the day. Make your feed an ongoing conversation where you can answer questions, celebrate success and highlight your supporters. You can make your donor’s day by liking, sharing, favoriting or retweeting their message. It can also encourage more people to get involved by showing how much you appreciate the support. Calling out individual donors is another great Giving Tuesday strategy for showing your gratitude and making your campaign show up in more people’s feeds. Always tag the people involved, whether you are thanking a donor, sharing a post or responding to a question. This ensures that they see what you wrote and makes them more likely to share it. The little details like tagging people can make a huge impact on the reach and life of each post.
Obviously social media is important for any non-profit, but it is especially vital on Giving Tuesday. These best practices will help you reach more people and inspire them to take action.
