How to Use Social Media to Drive Donations
At the beginning of 2022, there were 3.96 billion total social media users across all platforms (Sprout Social). In addition to that, those who use social media were found to bounce between 7 platforms per month. (Sprout Social).
We bring this up because it is important to showcase your brand on a variety of social media networks to increase connection to the people that are most important for you to reach as a nonprofit, donors.
There are a variety of ways to convert loyal donors, volunteers, and community members to engage with your cause via social media. Each person who interacts with your nonprofit will have profiles on different social media networks. It is important to evaluate your target audience on each social media platform. In addition to that, it is important to audit what types of call to action strategies will be most effective on each of those networks.
Make the story you are telling stand out.
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
We believe that the most important way to reach donors is to tell emotionally driven stories.
These stories should give your audience a feeling that they can relate to.
Being able to encapsulate the truth, affirm people’s thoughts and feelings, and encourage loyalty to a mission will inspire your supporters to get on board with assisting your organization in making change in your community.
Nonprofits, community organizations, and charitable foundations can benefit from strategizing their marketing approach on social media networks like: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and more.
Most nonprofits rely on grassroots donations and sponsorships to keep their organization afloat. Today it is so important to reach an array of walks of life in your community through social media and digital marketing.
There is a wide-variety of ways to reach your ideal donors.
You can grow your reach organically on social media by encouraging your donors to share your mission with their social media eco-systems & through telling stories through short and long form video content, info-graphics, and call-to-action static posts.
Social media can be daunting for non-profits with small teams.
Start out small by featuring a story of a volunteer or donor spotlight.
Here are 5 social media platforms that we find that our clients successfully reach and engage donors in their communities, and why we think you should be using them:
Instagram: great for visual storytelling whether that is in through an interactive Story, video Reels, short form video content, captivating graphics, collaborative posts, donation stickers, fundraisers, and more. According to doublethedonation.com, 39% of millennial donors and 33% of GEN X donors were inspired to give via social media (source).
We geek out about data, so here it is: it was found in September 2022 that 27.5 % of Instagram users were found to be between the ages of 27-35 years old, while only 25.5 % of those users were 18-24 years old (source).
Over the years, Instagram has to turned into a platform for brands to be able to advocate for their community. The platform has several ways for nonprofits to fundraise for their mission (we will talk more about that later). Young people are the future of our world and it is important to make them feel safe, seen and supported through social media content that they can feel like is shaping that future for good.
TikTok: this platform is in its prime! With utilizing their short form and long form video content, you can reach people that relate to your cause. TikTok took the lead above Google as the most searched domain at the end of 2021 (Forbes).
LinkedIn: this network of connecting professionals gives brands and nonprofits a chance to showcase the environments they create in their workplace for their employees, clients, vendors, partners, and more. LinkedIn offers an array of tools to connect with top talent, share workforce and human relations trending ideas, and can help you connect with professionals in your organizations field from all over the globe.
Facebook: there are several ways to create Groups & Events on Facebook to reach an array of demographics within your sector. Facebook, in addition to Instagram, has a great set of fundraising tools for nonprofits and community organization. A lot of people generalize that older generations have migrated to taking up all of the space on Facebook. However, in 2022, the majority of Facebook users was between the ages of 25-34 (source).
Pinterest: this platform is great to help clients create a vision board for their next event, brand-refresh, or social media campaign. Pinterest is also great platform to showcase educational tools and infographics from your nonprofits. Pinterest also allows you to embed hyper links in your Pins that you post. 86% of Pinterest users also use Instagram (source), so being able to link infographics or educational tools to your website or Instagram can immensely help boost traffic for your organization.
The Takeaways:
There are so many ways to reach your current and prospective donors via social media. It can seem daunting with all of the social media platforms that are out there. Hiring a digital marketing agency that aligns with your mission can lessen this daunting task and set you up to reach more donors.
We suggest doing research to see where your donors spend most of their time browsing online. Donors and the way they interact with your organization could be via your organizations newsletter, email marketing, social media, website, digital ads…
It is vital to the success of your fundraising efforts to consider how you show up on online & on social media on a daily base, and when you show up, how you are showing up.
People are far more likely to support your mission if they can relate or feel something when they come across your brand.
