Six social media tips to get you started
It can be tough starting out on social media with platforms like twitter, facebook and instagram but once you get to grips with them, they can really help you promote your digital fundraising campaign.
Julie Beale, our Head of Campaign Management, has shared her favourite Tips and Tricks to help you dip your toes in the water with social media campaign promotion.
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Start with one social platform. There’s always the temptation when you are launching a new fundraising campaign to try to do everything and hit every channel at the same time. The problem is that’s a lot of work and you’ve already devoted time getting your campaign live on InvestMyCommunity. So start with a single social media service that you know well and build from there. Once you’ve got momentum on one, you can add others and the fact you have an established presence on say twitter or facebook will help you grow on other platforms later.
Make the most of the content you create. There’s an old saying: “content is king” so make sure you’re making the most of all the content you have. Make sure everyone you know has the link to your campaign site and ask them to share on social media. Video is a really important fundraising tool too. So make sure you upload all your campaign videos onto your YouTube channel and make sure you add them to your InvestMyCommunity page as embedded links. Share the best snippets of content on your social networks. Shorter is better. Ideally no more than a minute to keep the viewer’s edition.
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Join existing online conversations. One of the most intimidating things about social media is having no followers and not knowing what to say to attract them. The best thing you can do once you’ve set up your social media site is to search for relevant conversations or organisations like yours to see how they got started. Then, once your comfortable you can start sharing your posts and media with people having conversations that are relevant to your fundraising efforts.
Harness the power of your local connections. It’s often said that everyone in the world is only six degrees away from Kevin Bacon, the famous Hollywood actor. Whether that’s true or not, we all know people that can help with our fundraising efforts. Seek out local businesses that have a tie to your local community first as they will often be willing to support your campaign financially or at least help spread your message. Tell everyone you can about your campaign. Don’t be afraid to get the word out.
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Use your creativity. When you first launch your campaign, the best thing you can do is simply tell people about what you’re doing and why you’re raising in really easy to understand terms. Once you’ve begun to get the word out, you can have more fun and get creative. Try to find fun and engaging ways to spread your message. Video can often be a great way to kick off a campaign and build awareness of what you’re doing quickly.
Create a shortlink for you. You can save precious characters on your social media posts by going to a website like www.bitly.com or www.tinyurl.com to create a short link to your campaign page.
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