Friends. Followers. Likes. Reactions. Shares. Clicks.
How do you get them? How do you grow them?
Unlocking the full potential of social media isn’t just about gaining followers—it’s about fostering genuine connections with your donors and supporters. The connections you cultivate with them online should reflect the interactions they have with you and your organization face-to-face. If not, they won’t see the value in spending time with you online.
Let’s explore three strategies to build and strengthen genuine donor relationships through your social platforms.
1. Integrate
Leverage the content of your social community to amplify your voice and generate content to use in all your communication channels.
Tips to Try:
- Repurpose social media photos and comments in print and email campaigns and vice versa.
- Publish the results of social media campaigns—caption contests, favorite school memory submissions or opinion polls—in your direct mail outreach.
- Include your active social media platform handles in your print pieces.
This university used images from their social media sites to create the heart in this printed postcard mailed to their supporters.
2. Communicate
Don’t just tell people what you do—show them. Let donors into your world. Take them along on a day in the life of one of your students, volunteers, staff or clients you serve using your social media platforms.
Ideas to Implement:
- Video, video, video. Social video generates 1200% more shares than text and image content combined. And you don’t have to break the bank by hiring professionals. Even simple recordings on your smartphone can help your organization stand out. And in many cases, viewers find phone videos more authentic and relatable than professional videos.
- Celebrate your organization’s important dates—anniversaries, special occasions or the first day of class—with a Facebook or Instagram Live.
- Ask students to take a photo of their favorite place on campus to study. Have each tell you why it’s the best spot and create a Facebook carousel post or an Instagram story with the assets.
Brevard Zoo takes viewers along on a spa day with the giraffes in this video post.
3. Collaborate
Your advocates want to help grow your organization and work with you to shape its future.
How to Find Them:
- Search your nonprofit’s name or related hashtags on social platforms to find people who are talking about your organization. If appropriate, reshare their content.
- Set up alerts at google.com/alerts to notify you about conversations mentioning your organization on the web. Some alerts to try: your nonprofit’s official name (World Wildlife Fund), your nonprofit’s nickname (WWF), the name of your CEO or president, and the names of other well-known persons associated with your organization.
- Use retargeting to reconnect with users who have shown interest in your digital outreach in the past. Meta Ads Manager (aka Facebook retargeting), Google Ads, X (aka Twitter) and LinkedIn all have retargeting options.
A follower of the Philadelphia Museum of Art shared a favorite piece of art with her Facebook friends.
BONUS: Be sure to celebrate cause awareness and giving days on social media to bring real-time relevance to your mission. You can download the YouGiveGoods 2024 Cause Awareness Calendar, and we created a calendar just for nonprofit fundraisers that you can download in this blog.