best practices in social media fundraising

Best Practices in Social Media Fundraising

Presented by: Ehren Foss of HelpAttack!

@helpattack

•  A link to the slides and a recording will be sent after the webinar

•  If you’d like to ask a question during the webinar, you can type it in the box on the right side of your screen

•  Use the hashtag #fgwebinar to tweet about this webinar

How this webinar works

Who is FirstGiving

Online Fundraising Solutions

Personal Support for your nonprofit, donors, and fundraisers Easy, tested, and secure transaction processes for the donor

Peer-to-Peer Fundraising Pages and Event Registrations Online Direct Donations

Ehren Foss @ehrenfoss

ehren@helpattack.com

Vanessa Swesnik @vswesnik

vanessa@helpattack.com

@helpattack

About the presenters

@helpattack

Who is HelpAttack!? HelpAttack! turns Facebook updates, Tweets, #hashtags, blog posts...into microdonations.

In this webinar we will discuss social media fundraising

and best practices for approaching, building, and maintaining support online.

@helpattack

Social Media Fundraising

•  How is social media fundraising different from online fundraising or email? How is it the same?

•  Case studies and best practices: What goals are realistic, and what effort is needed?

•  How can smaller organizations find success?

@helpattack

Topics we will cover

•  People share - you can forward a fundraising email, but do you?

•  Friends asking friends- peer to peer fundraising •  Causes, Crowdrise, CauseVox, FirstGiving, Greater

Giving, HelpAttack!, etc

NOTE: it's up to you to grow a relationship with those donors outside of the particular tool they are using.

@helpattack

Social Media vs. Email

Why is sharing important? Response and conversion rates. Here are some average response rates. from Sarah Durham of Big Duck's presentation http://www.slideshare.net/SM4nonprofits/sarah-durham-bigduck-social-media-for-nonprofit-ceos Check it out!

@helpattack

Social Media vs. Email

Sharing may boost response rates. Take a FreeArtsNYC HelpAttack! ampaign for example:

@helpattack

Social Media vs. Email

Unique Visitors 291/1,700 or 17%

28x better than email

Pledges 26/1,700 or 1.5%

19x better than email

FreeArtsNYC had around 1,200 Facebook fans and around 500 Twitter followers for a total of around 1,700 in their social media audience.

Other differences:

Instant: respond to the news with social media Kony 2012 Dialogue: Komen and Planned Parenthood It's...social: see and interact with actual people

"Social media is a space where the individual reigns, relationships are required, and conversations are public."

@helpattack

Social Media vs. Email

•  Grown the same •  starts with zero people

•  takes time and effort •  Cost resources at first

•  more than donations produced •  Worth it!

Where would you be without your email list today?

@helpattack

Social Media and Email: The Similarities

Return on Investment (ROI)

Like email, the ROI of social media should be measured as a long term investment with compounding growth,

rather than a short term balance sheet.

@helpattack

Social Media and Email: The Similarities

•  Audience is crucial o  How big? o  Who are they, and what do they care about?

•  Experiment, test, and improve •  Move donors up engagement ladder •  "house file" is crucial •  People give because:

o  People they know give o  There's an immediate need o  They are asked

People give to faces and heartbeats, not statistics!

@helpattack

Social Media and Email: The Similarities

•  Not everybody sees each message. •  Not everybody responds.

o  Conversion rate •  Each step in a process reduces response.

o  Conversion funnel o  10% x 10% x 10% = 0.1%! (need 1,000 people to

start) •  Part of every community is dead weight.

o  Abandoned accounts, bots, spam folders.. @helpattack

Social Media and Email: The Similarities

•  set realistic goals •  grow your presence •  reward participation •  leverage a special event, celebrity

ambassadors, corporate sponsors •  thank donors

@helpattack

Best Practices in Social Media Fundraising

•  Get 10 new donors* •  Learn who they are •  Thank them personally •  Stay in touch with them

Ten donors giving $25 per month all year is an extra

$3,000. Not bad!

@helpattack

What are realistic goals?

About* 6 hours of work over 6 weeks. •  1 hour to brainstorm the right kind of campaign for your cause, and the

supporters you want to reach •  1 hour to invite other stakeholders •  1 hour to tell partners or super-supporters and ask them to help spread the

word •  30 minutes to write a blog post •  30 minutes to include in an email to your list •  2 hours of social media monitoring •  1 hour to download reports and upload into your supporter database

*can vary immensely depending on you and your organization

@helpattack

What time and effort is needed?

2,500 followers ≈ 5-10 donors

How do you figure? If you have around 2,500 followers, you’ll probably get 25 hits to the page to which you're linking, and five or ten people finish the action (donate, like, etc.)

@helpattack

What should I expect?

•  Earth Day, Valentines Day, event •  …or create one! #oceangiving

@helpattack

Leverage a special event

•  Celebrity ambassadors •  Corporate sponsors (JetBlue/FreeArts)

@helpattack

Partners, Advocates, and Celebrities

•  Reward participation •  “Like” for a chance to

win… •  Submit a picture for a

chance to win… •  Nonmonetary gifts

(feature your picture, story, idea, etc)

@helpattack

Reward Participation

•  Borrow an audience •  Reach out to 10 people

with 500 followers •  Volunteers, other

nonprofits, media, activists

@helpattack

Grow Your Presence

•  Ads on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin •  Advertise on Google, Bing •  Special programs (Google Grants,

YouTube nonprofit program, Hope140) for nonprofits

@helpattack

Grow Your Presence

Beth Kanter and AXIS Dance Company

http://www.bethkanter.org/facebook-ads/, check it out! @helpattack

Case Study: Facebook Ads

Who: AXIS Dance Company and Beth Kanter Goal: get local likes Method: 2 kinds, one general and one specific Cost: $5/day for the general, $8/day for the specific and decided to go for pay/click because we wanted to them to click through to our AXIS Facebook page and ‘Like’ us on Facebook http://www.bethkanter.org/facebook-ads/, check it out!

@helpattack

Case Study: Facebook Ads

Results: •  24 hours •  67 Page Views •  28 Unique Page Views •  17 new likes •  10 of those due to the ad

http://www.bethkanter.org/facebook-ads/, check it out!

@helpattack

Case Study: Facebook Ads

http://www.facebook.com/NationalParks

@helpattack

Real World Example: NPCA

Thank supporters/donors right away on social media. It's free and powerful.

@helpattack

What’s a free and easy way to keep your donors happy?

•  provide inspiring stories about what donors are accomplishing with their giving

•  be personal •  be specific

For more ideas visit: http://www.futurefundraisingnow.com/

@helpattack

Thanking Donors: Best Practices

@helpattack

Real World “Thank yous”

@helpattack

Real World “Thank yous”

Find your "inner Picasso”

from Noland Hoshino guest post on John Haydon's blog, check it out! http://www.johnhaydon.com/2012/02/not-pin-on-pinterest/

http://pinterest.com/nolandhoshino/ @helpattack

Best Practices for Flickr, Tumblr, Pinterest

What NOT to post •  "Company logos •  Long paragraphs •  Tweets from Twitter •  Small images •  Enormously long Infographics. Instead, cut out sections

that’s interesting •  Anything that violates Pinterest’s terms of agreement

@helpattack

Best Practices for Flickr, Tumblr, Pinterest

���Find your ideal supporters •  Friend them or Follow them •  They will likely follow back if you engage them

with questions or content •  Personalize the account with a picture, a voice

and even a brief bio of the person posting •  Use tools like HootSuite

@helpattack

Small to Medium Size Nonprofits

•  You can really know your supporters

•  Grow the right audience •  Easier to ask them for things

Try this: Choose a random hundred and look at their profiles. How did they find you? Who are they? Why are they following you? What value can you provide?

@helpattack

Smallness as an Advantage

Questions?

Facebook: facebook.com/firstgiving Twitter: twitter.com/firstgiving

FirstGiving Insights blog: http://insights.firstgiving.com

Online Fundraising blog: http://blog.firstgiving.com

FirstGiving for Runners blog:

http://runners.firstgiving.com

Connect with us in our Social Community!

Interested in learning more about FirstGiving?

Contact: Amber Williams Email: Amber.williams@firstgiving.com

Telephone: 617-963-5123

Interested in learning more about HelpAttack? Contact: Vanessa Swesnik

Email: vanessa@helpattack.com Twitter: @vswesnik @helpattack

Thank you!