How to Promote Your Fundraiser with Social Media
Social media is becoming increasingly popular in today’s culture. With multiple generations being connected through the Internet, and so many eyes tuning in to the digital screens, having a presence on social media is necessary for any group or cause. This guide will provide you with easy to implement tips to get you online, and increase awareness of your fundraiser by using some of the most popular forms of social media.
Promote Your Fundraiser with Facebook
The first social media platform we will look at is Facebook. Facebook currently has over 1 billion monthly active users, with 72% of online adults visiting the site each month. Since Facebook is so widely used, it is a great outlet to use to advertise your fundraiser and reach out for followers.
Facebook can help you create a community for your fundraiser by allowing you to make a ‘page’ where you can upload photos, videos, and post information and links to those who follow the cause. This is a great way to communicate items that you are selling, advertise approaching deadlines, and keeping supporters informed of how your fundraiser is going and what your group is doing. You can set up your own Facebook page here.
How to Fundraise with Facebook:
1) Update your status. Updating your status is the main way to grab the attention of your followers and deliver information. A few post ideas include photos of your favorite fundraising item, asking followers to comment with their favorite products, hosting a contest, posting links for your supporters to reach more information about your cause or direct links for followers to donate. You should post information or content to your Facebook page 1-2 times per day.
2) Reach groups directly by tagging groups and individual people when posting a status, picture or video. This can be done by simply typing the subject’s name and waiting for Facebook to locate it within their site. NOTE: the group or individual must have a page on Facebook already. For example, if you are fundraising for a church play you can communicate with relevant groups or people who are interested or involved in the church by messaging them or adding them to your group.
3) Get your followers involved! Interact with supporters by hosting contests, posting questions, and requesting posts of photos or videos from your audience interacting with your fundraising product or cause. Supporters will appreciate the time you take to interact with them.
4) Create an event. Using the Facebook Event feature is a great way to invite people to join your cause and promote your fundraiser. You can use this feature to advertise a specific fundraising event that you are holding or the deadline of your fundraiser as a whole. By inviting people to the group you can make them a part of your fundraising community, and a supporter of your cause. Visit the Facebook Creating and Editing Events Q&A page to learn more.
If you do not want to create a new page for your cause, you can simply use your own Facebook account to gain supporters. The same tips listed above can be used on your own account to create a following and supporters to participate in your fundraiser.
Twitter Promotion of Your Fundraiser
The second form of social media that is beneficial to your fundraising campaign is Twitter. Twitter is a micro blogging site where users have 140 characters per post to share their news, post pictures and videos, and use hashtags to contribute to trending topics. Twitter has over 255 million monthly active users, with 500 million tweets being sent per day.
Twitter is a great platform for keeping yourself in the mind of your supporters throughout the day. Tweets are posted on a person’s feed in the order they were sent, so most tweets are only looked at once and only for a few seconds. This means that you must tweet short, quick messages, and tweet often.
How to fundraise with Twitter:
1) Since tweets can consist a maximum of 140 characters, it works best to keep each tweet to one single topic. Your followers will want to know information such as facts, deadlines and locations of where they can buy product and support your cause. Tweeting out this information and posting links is a great way to deliver the information to your supporters. TIP: Create a ‘bitly’ account to help minimize using your characters on tweets. Bitly takes websites and web pages and shrinks them into shorter links leaving you with more characters for your message. You can make an account here — https:/bitly.com/
2) #HASHTAG #HASHTAG #HASHTAG! Twitter is the biggest platform that utilizes hashtags. They are used to emphasize keywords or phrases in a tweet. For example, here is a tweet one might post when fundraising with Rada products:
The tomato slicer is one of Rada’s best selling knives, and is a huge part of the fundraising program. Twitter users are able to search through hashtags, such as #famous, for tweets that include these key words. A great way to utilize this benefit is to hashtag your group name at the end of every tweet. This helps brand your cause, and starts a trend so others who are tweeting about you can do the same.
3) Twitter, like Facebook, allows you to tweet at individual people or groups. Again, NOTE that the subject you want to communicate with must have an account on Twitter. This is a great way to reach groups directly and link your supporters to the product you’re selling, as well as the cause you are supporting. You can also interact with your followers by ‘liking’ their tweets, retweeting them, or replying to what they posted.
4) Engage with the platform. Search the name of your cause in the search box on Twitter. Look for it being used in a post, as a hashtag, or for other users with similar interests. Interact with them by clicking ‘favorite’ or retweeting appropriate posts. You can also reply to posts, ask questions and comment on tweets you find relevant.
Google+ Fundraising Promotion
Google+ is the best platform to build communities with. It allows brands, groups and users to build circles with each other to share information, photos and videos. The site currently has over 400 million active users, and is growing rapidly. There are two options when choosing to fundraise with Google+. The first is creating a profile for the cause itself, and the second is promoting your fundraiser from your personal account.
How to fundraise with Google+ by creating an account for the cause:
1) Create an account. This will include an email address, as well as access to a YouTube account. When choosing your username you can either use the name of your organization, such as the name of your church or school, the name of your cause, or what you’re fundraising for. We suggest using the name of your group so that you can continue to use the account for future fundraisers and events.
2) Connect with others. In order to get the most of your Google+ account you must connect to other users and find communities and circles to join. Work on building your following and presence so that you have opportunity to interact with others. You can search for communities similar to your cause and join them to reach others looking to achieve similar goals. Google also gives recommendations of people for you to follow and groups to join based on your profile and activity. This is useful because it helps you find others with similar interest or involvement.
3) Create circles. Creating circles helps you organize the users you are following. Create circles such as ‘Causes,’ ‘Fundraising,’ or ‘Animal Shelters’ as they pertain to your fundraiser and involvement. Organizing your circles is a great way to communicate directly with groups and individuals throughout your fundraising journey.
4) Start posting! Posting on Google+ is similar to posting on Facebook. You can post links, information, photos, videos, and host contests for your followers to interact with. We suggest having a title for each post with text and a photo to grab the attention of your audience.
5) Interacting on Google+. Posting on Google+ should occur 1-2 times a day. Make sure that you keep up with your feed by commenting and ‘plus 1-ing’ posts from other users. This is a great way to interact and communicate with those interested in similar topics.
6) HASHTAG HASHTAG HASHTAG! Similar to Twitter, Google+ utilizes hashtags and trending topics. By placing relevant hashtags in or at the end of content your post will reach a bigger audience. Researching any trending topics or holidays to post about will also contribute to your post gaining more traction and attention.
How to fundraise with Google+ from your personal account:
1) Anyone who has a Google email account is able to start their own Google+ page. If you are using your Google+ page for the first time, use some of the tips above to get your account started. Once you have joined groups and increased your following, you may start to post about your fundraiser.
2) Each post you write about your fundraiser should be obviously tailored toward your cause. Since you are using your personal account not everything on your timeline or in your photo albums will be related to your fundraiser. A good way to keep posts separate is by giving each item a title. This way when other users see your posts they know which are related to your fundraiser and which are not.
Raise Funds with Rada!
Rada Cutlery is perfect for any kind of fundraiser, and excels when combined with the power of social media. Those who fundraise with Rada get complete access to our extensive catalog of superior cutlery and kitchen utensils, all of which we offer at an unbeatable value, as well as our renowned customer service.
We offer three kinds of fundraiser, any or all of which can be used at once: Catalog, Event, and Internet Fundraising. Utilizing savvy with social media is key to Internet fundraising, as one can easily draw supporters to the fundraising site. But social media also brings out the full potential in both Catalog and Event sales, as one can notify those they know about their fundraiser, get the word out to potential supporters, and inform others of your schedule.
Visit our website to learn how you can fundraise with Rada!
Everyone Wants the Best!
It’s easier to raise funds with people actually want to buy what you’re selling. When you fundraise with Rada, what you can offer is something everyone wants: the best cutlery and kitchen utensils one can have. Those familiar with Rada associate it with high quality and great value, and those who don’t quickly learn that no kitchen should be without it. We offer 26 wonderful knives, 21 handy utensils, 6 stellar stoneware pieces, 43 delicious Quick Mixes, 42 gorgeous recipe books, and 28 versatile cutlery gift sets. There’s something for everyone, from singles to large families, from the occasional cook to the lifelong professional!
Stop by our our website to take a look at what we have to offer your fundraiser’s supporters!
Visit Rada’s Social Media!
When it comes to Social Media, we practice what we preach. Rada can be found all across the web, where we share recipes, discuss opportunities, give helpful advice, and more!
More Fundraising Promotion Tips
If you want other ideas for promoting your next fundraiser, click here to view the Ultimate Guide to Fundraising and check out chapter 10 – Promoting.