Using Social Media to Promote Your Virtual Fundraiser

WRITTEN BY SARAH BAKER

Promoting your virtual fundraiser or event across your social media channels is crucial to ensure participation and engagement from your audience. With so many types of events and day-to-day life activities moving online, deliberate thought and action must be put into every piece of content your nonprofit shares. Why should your constituents spend more time in front of a screen or open their wallet to your nonprofit? Taking the time to properly articulate and plan how to promote your virtual event and fundraiser can make the difference between success and failure.

4 TIPS FOR PROMOTING YOUR VIRTUAL FUNDRAISER

1. Create Compelling Content and Graphics

With so much competing content on social media, it is more important than ever to do everything in your power to create posts that are as eye catching as they are informative. A great way to do this is to use a variety of mediums to share your message. Create straightforward text posts, graphics with a save the date, and 30 second to two-minute-long videos with a brief description of your virtual event. While it’s best to vary your content, it doesn’t have to be complicated. Use free tools like Unsplash for stock photos, Canva to create graphics, and your smartphone to record a video.

2. Utilize Your Network

Rather than use only your nonprofit’s social media accounts to invite the community to your events, ask your network of staff, engaged volunteers, celebrity guest speakers, and prominent local celebrities to share posts about your virtual event. Make this as easy as possible for them by creating written content and graphics for them to directly copy and paste or providing a template with the most important details covered like the link to the event page, your text to donate keyword, the hashtag associated with the event or your nonprofit. Be sure to encourage those posting for you to tag your nonprofit in the posts so that you can easily share their content.

3. Stay Organized with a Content Calendar

Once you have created compelling content to share to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and your supporters have agreed to share on your behalf, take the time to put together a calendar to outline what will be posted, where and when. This will help keep things organized and maximize the number of people who will see and learn about your event. Alternate the type of content you share and where. Utilize the built-in analytics on your social media channels to decide the best time and date to post. If you are still unsure when or where to post, follow general social media best practices.

4. Follow Up Post Event

Don’t lose momentum after your event is over! When you are creating the content ahead of the event, pre-plan to share thank you’s, an event recap, and fundraising results on all the same channels you promoted the event. If you have the date(s) planned for your next event, use this as an opportunity to share a save the date and start the buzz around your next fundraiser.

I hope these tips help you plan and promote a successful virtual fundraiser in 2021.