How Social Media Is Taking The Fundraising World By Storm

Posted by Ben Crook on 16 February 2018

An effective use of social media can be the biggest driving force behind inspiring giving. Social media has become one of the single most important tools that are available to businesses, and are especially important to charities and third-party organisations who highly value interaction and engagement with donors. Techcrunch highlights that Facebook has over 2 billion monthly active users, Instagram 700 million, and Twitter over 328 million. The incredibly wide reach that these tools can provide you, along with the ability to target, monitor, and track advertising to a detailed demographic of your choosing, can be the make or break factor of fundraising success. Failure to effectively implement and manage these social channels, can have a huge detrimental effect on the ability to market yourself as a modern fundraising platform.

Image from 2017 Global Giving Trends Report.

The 2017 Global Giving Trends Report outlines that in Europe, nearly 60% of social media users feel Facebook is the platform that most inspires them to give. The most successful channels in the fundraising sector are not those that constantly share their own content, telling their followers how amazing their product or service is, or to plug their own donation page 5 times a day, but instead, success will come to those who become a hub of industry relevant information. Sharing selfless content and raising awareness of global campaigns to inform and educate your followers, will show them that you have a real and genuine interest in making a positive impact on society, and not just about meeting your targets.

Perhaps one of the most under-utilised channel for content is YouTube. We all watch YouTube videos, whether its a tutorial to solve a problem you’re having, or to simply listen to music. YouTube say that over 300 hours of video content are uploaded every minute, and their Chief Business Officer has predicted that digital video content will surpass TV by 2020. Its difficult to argue otherwise, with younger audiences gravitating away from traditional TV shows and watching videos online more and more every day. Partner this with the fact that video content is the most engaging content to the younger generation, and YouTube becomes a powerful tool for inspiring and expanding your audience, allowing a wider reach for fundraising inspiration.

The hardest part of video content is creating high quality content on a budget. As YouTube is such a large digital platform, its no surprise that it overpopulated, so its important to find your niche and make sure your content is strong enough to stand out.

Make sure you’re being efficient. Create a webinar every month, invite one of your clients to discuss their charity, what they do, how they help, or something that might be interesting for your followers. You can then break it down into 4 or 5 smaller easy to digest videos about a specific topic you covered. This ensures you are getting the most out of the content you produce, making a more efficient use of your time. Its a simple way to make sure you’re always producing interesting content to educate and inspire.

The key to YouTube success is patience, consistency, and distribution. Being consistent with your upload times gives your audience the ability to know when they can expect new content. It also allows you to build a bank of information for people to connect with your brand, which will in turn result in an increase in leads, engagement and hopefully, donations.

Finally, make sure you share your content across your social channels. Distribution is key as the platform is so densely populated. If you can find a unique space to fill that nobody else has, then you’re in luck! But you’ll find more often than not that someone else is occupying that space, so you must make sure you’re doing it bigger and better than everyone else!

Want to find out more detailed information about how to take your YouTube videos to the next level? Here are 5 steps to make your YouTube fundraising campaign a success!

Ben Crook

Chief Operating Officer

Ben is at the forefront of every project in Givergy, listing and actioning constant improvements across the business. With over a decade of experience in the charity and events sector he brings a deep understanding of what the fundraising industry needs to operate effectively and efficiently.