How Can Social Media Be Beneficial For Charities
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Charities are facing a much more competitive environment than they have before and more and more will find that social media is absolutely essential if they’re going to achieve the donations and the funds which they require for their operations.
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How Can Social Media Be Beneficial For Charities
Editor's Notes
- Charities are facing a much more competitive environment than they have before and more and more will find that social media is absolutely essential if they’re going to achieve the donations and the funds which they require for their operations.
- What are the objectives??
- Here is a brief overview of social media activity in the UK. When you consider that the current population of the UK is 64.1 million, the figures above mean that 58.2% of the UK are considered monthly active users on social media.
- Social media and technology are changing the way people donate and interact with charities. But here are some things you should know first!!
- 12% of all giving happens in the last 3 days of the year. Think about that when/if planning a big campaign, Xmas is a good time for raising money
- 72% of all charitable contributions are made by individuals; followed by foundations at 15%, bequests at 8%, and corporations 5%.
- Baby Boomers- 51 - 70 Generation X – 34 to 54 Millennial – 20 - 40
- Gen X donates more frequently than other generations. Generation X – 34 to 54
- You know #nomakeupselfie already. Take a picture of yourself without makeup (or for men, with makeup), donate to Cancer Research UK among others, and nominate three friends to do the same. The campaign was brilliant for having shareability to increase free reach, text donations and, for many, confidence building incorporated into the activity from the start. The campaign, which began with people posting images of themselves without make up on social networks, wasn't started by Cancer Research but their social media team quickly got involved and asked people to donate via text.
- The campaign raised £8m in just one week. This kind of grassroots viral campaign is impossible to replicate but charities of all sizes can position themselves to take advantage of the next social media phenomenon by responding rapidly and creating a sense of community around the movement. Cancer Research did this very skillfully by making donors feel appreciated and being transparent about the ways in which funds raised will be spent.
- CRUK did not kick-start the trend - it grew organically, making a huge impact on social media and getting attention in national newspapers and on radio and TV news. No one quite knows how the trend started. However, it’s worth pointing out that the hugely successful #nomakeupselfie campaign was only possible because Cancer Research UK were listening on social media and noticed people engaging with it and the responded! There are tools out there to help with this if people ask – Hootsuite/ Social Bakers, but you can also be aware of events which are likely to trend by using Twitters ‘own the moment’ calendar - https://twitter.twimg.com/ownthemoment
- If you are going to use social media for a cause, you need to remember that social media is about engaging your donors, engaging the people who utilize your services or who are helped by the things you do. It’s about creating relationships with THOSE people as well as the people who support your cause and want to do more for you.
- For a while, you couldn’t move for videos of friends and celebrities dumping buckets of ice-cold water over their heads for the ALS Association in the US.
- And herein lay the problem – when a campaign starts from the ground up, who owns it? Macmillan attracted controversy in the UK for paying for online ads encouraging people to do the ice bucket challenge for them.
- Average daily visits to the ALS association website were about 17,500 before the ice bucket challenge, compared with the peak of 4.5 million visits on 20 August (of which 83% were new to the site)
- Biggest day - 26 August.
- Though some may not like the comparison, the ice bucket challenge is similar to the Neknomination challenge that went viral in the UK earlier in 2014, in that both conclude by peer-pressuring friends into participation. Thankfully, the comparison ends there!
- It’s also worth pointing out that both campaigns mentioned above are prime examples of gamification in action. Still, if none of your fundraising efforts feature an element of fun, it can be difficult to achieve this level of success. Part of the joy of the ice bucket challenge, like the #NoMakeUpSelfie, is that pretty much anyone can participate, regardless of their background. It helps to add to the fact that people really do want to participate.
- A beautifully personal and touching story, #FindMike was the mission of mental health campaigner Jonny Benjamin, with the help of Rethink Mental Illness, to find the person who talked him down from a bridge in 2014. The campaign drew the support of a whole host of celebrities using the #FindMike hashtag, till eventually Jonny was reunited with ‘Mike’, aka Neil Laybourn from Surrey. The #findmike Twitter campaign trended in countries including Canada, South Africa and Australia, but it was Mr Laybourn's fiancée who saw the campaign tweet. This campaign was just perfect as it was. Through one person’s simple and inspiring story, awareness of the huge impact mental illness can have went through the roof. And for many charity campaigns, that awareness had a bigger impact than money ever could.
- Founded in 2003 to fundraise for men's health through sponsored moustache growing, Movember has built a community based on shared humour. The campaign acquired 1.2m social media mentions alone last year, whilst fundraising currently stands at £63.9m. Whilst some may ask which way next for Movember, its social media success is still strong and can be attributed to its wit, irreverent tone of voice and camaraderie.
- When UNICEF Sweden launched the "Likes don't save lives" campaign in 2013, it was in response to the great focus on collecting Facebook likes, among both businesses and organisations, over the last few years. What does being "liked" on Facebook actually mean for an organisation such as UNICEF?
- This effort showed that social media campaigns can help spread the word but likes can't save lives. Involvement and money can. As a result of the campaign enough money was raised to vaccinate 637 324 children against polio.
- This comes from ensuring you have a fully planned (integrated if necessary) strategy in place. To engage people throughout the campaign and show how their money is making a difference.
- Create events (Facebook/twitter) invite people to join in, build momentum and encourage interaction. The benefit of social media is that everything is always only a click away (donate buttons) – Not, always have a way to donate because if the action is to ‘Like’ the page, it wont help to raise money.
- Don’t be on every platform, pick one or two and stick with it. Be on the channels that cause the most impact for your cause or business, there are going to be certain environments you will thrive. Once you select your platform, be sure you know how it works and what tools to get to assist you in your fundraising efforts. There are many scheduling/ monitoring tools available such as Social Bakers, Hootsuite, TweetDeck that will assist you in actively listening and responding to your audience on your selected social channel.
- Your campaign should have a beginning, middle and an end and you should be communicating in a two-way dialogue throughout. Communication and relationship building is key to any solid social media campaign.
- While the above points are important in order to get a campaign noticed and widely acknowledged it is of paramount importance that the overriding theme and message of the campaign is a not point forgotten or missed and is being reinforced throughout the duration of the campaign. You don’t just want engagements on social, you want donations, and so this point is key.
- Show its success Illustrate the charities good work and success stories. Make sure to show people where their is going and the good that it is doing. This makes people feel like they are making a difference. Be consistent – Keep your audience updated with what you’re doing, how its working etc. People want to hear from you. Be reliable. Engage with your community. You need to ensure there is a follow up/ element of accountability to your campaign to ensure users are able to trust it. People need to know who is accountable so that they can see where their money is going. They need to be able to trust that you wont run off and have a nice long holiday with their generous donations. Most importantly, people want and like to see the success, and how it all ended.
- Don’t over think social media. The whole idea of Twitter, Facebook etc is that it is a social channel. It’s an opportunity to develop relationships with people; it’s about giving them what they need from you. It’s about being there, being active and creating connections and conversations and being part of the dialogue.
- Opportunistic Finally, both campaigns are good examples of what charities can achieve if they’re really on the ball. It’s almost impossible to design a viral campaign. You have to be proactive and tune in to trends online. In doing this, you give yourself a much better chance of riding the wave if and when the opportunity presents itself
- Although most charity campaign are in aid of a serious matter. There needs to be an element of fun associated to the campaign to get the wider public interested.
- If you want it to be a success and spread quickly, whatever the fun/interactive element of the campaign is it needs to be shareable. Be this through Facebook, retweet on Twitter or any other social media platform, people want their friends and associates to see what they are doing and to get involved as well. Similarly, if you have a website, and it has information linking to information about the charities… add social buttons, ensure it is optimized for maximum shares.
- Make sure that the method of donation for the charity is straightforward and possess as few obstacles for users as possible. Specifically promote online and mobile forms of donation, as these are generally the easiest and most popular for users.