10 Tips on Using Facebook to Your Non-Profits Advantage

Facebook is a force to be reckoned with. Here are some incredible statistics: there are more than 800 million active users. More than 50% of these users log on to their accounts every day. The average user has 130 friends. With these mind-blowing numbers, it would be ludicrous not to tap into Facebook to reach more donors with your cause.

Fortunately, Facebook has posted “10 Tips for Non-Profits on Facebook  ” to help organizations use their resource effectively. For those who are new to the social media world or if you want to make sure you are using this tool effectively, take note!

1. Create a Facebook Page – “First off, Pages allow you to publish directly into the news stream where you can engage your fans with a variety of different media, such as videos, polls and status updates. Secondly, Pages allow you to analyze how fans are interacting with your page via the Insights Dashboard, giving you instant feedback to help you adjust your method. You can also do things like buy advertising on Facebook for your Page to increase your number of fans.”
2. Use “Causes” – “Anyone can create a user-created advocacy group on Causes and administrators of those groups post announcements and communicate with members of that cause through email and Facebook notifications, foster discussions, share information, sign petitions and fundraise.”
3. Be Unique – You can do a simple link to your website, but a lot of people won’t take the time to click on it. Make you message timely, concise and specific to your cause.
4. Be Active – Let your donors know what happens on a daily basis. Ask for their opinions on news events or on polls that pertain to your subject matter. Interact with your Facebook following and allow them to share their stories and passion for why they choose to support your organization.
5. Reply – You don’t have to comment on every post, but it helps your donors feel more connected and invested if they know a real person is behind the text.
6. Create an App, Game or Quiz – Find new ways to engage your donors and give them reasons to come back to your page frequently.
7. Add a Store or Donation Box – Put these boxes on your front page for easy access. “There are all types of features you can add to your Page that allow your fans to feel ownership of your organization, like a fan badge or a sign petition box for their profile pages. The added bonus of this type of promotion is that, whether it’s published to your fan’s wall or their profile page, it also gets lots of new eyeballs to notice you.”
8. Consider Your Feedback – What is working and what isn’t? What is getting you a lot of traffic?
9. Segue into Other Media – Use texting, e-mail, Twitter and phone networks to fully get your message across. People use a variety of media so hit all your bases.
10. Try a Facebook Ad – “Facebook ads — displayed on the right-hand side of a user’s Page — are an easy, economical and effective way to increase your fan base or visits to your page. The self-serve advertising system allows you to place orders for people (or profiles) that match whatever demographic requirements you may have, mothers of children with a certain illness for example, and you’re only charged for performance.”

So obviously I summarized a lot of these points. I encourage you to check out their website
(http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/02/12/10-tips-for-non-profits-on-facebook/  ) to read the full descriptions and to see the many examples. Facebook is virtually free and the audience it reaches is incomparable to other advertising avenues. It’s so important to keep up with the times, and this is one of the easiest ways to keep your organization at the forefront of technology.

If you need to raise money   for your cause, Fundly provides the leading Facebook fundraising   tools to help you fundraise with ease, not only on Facebook, but enbles you to reach new donors via Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and many other social channels too.

Learn more about Fundly’s social fundraising tools today!