Friday Five 023: The Time to Start Advertising on Social Media was Yesterday
3 min to read ✭ Join us in Episode 023 of the Friday Five, as we cover why it’s crucial to be utilizing Facebook ads today and how you can get results.
What is the Friday Five?
Each Friday, we will be answering your most pressing questions from our Digital Marketing for Nonprofits Facebook group. If we don’t cover a challenge that you or your nonprofit colleagues are facing, drop us a comment below or tweet us @CommunityBoost and we’ll add it to the queue.
Let’s dive in!
Nonprofit Marketing Challenges
1) Your Biggest Marketing Challenge: “Convincing staff/board the value of investing in digital advertising.” – Monique, Caring and Sharing Exchange
Our Solution: You have to market where people’s attention is at, which is online, on mobile, on Facebook, on Google and in email. Your nonprofit’s message has to be on those platforms in order to be in front of potential supporters. It’s also time-sensitive. These platforms are becoming more pay-to-play, so it’s crucial to get in now in order to start growing your community and followings.
2) Your Biggest Marketing Challenge: “Turning reach into action. ” – Kristin, Green Mountain Club
Our Solution: Think about the donor journey and make it easy for the donors to make those steps. Before asking for a large donation, start with a small ask, like signing up for your newsletter. From there you can warm them up to smaller donations and then hopefully over time they will become a recurring giver. The key is to make that journey as seamless as possible. Focus on messaging, your value proposition and the call to action. Don’t be afraid to talk to actual supporters and see what most resonates with them, then amplify that online.
3) Your Biggest Marketing Challenge: “Keeping up and updating posts as needed (varies with events).” – Tracy, EOD Warrior Foundation
Our Solution: Systems will set you free. Create a content calendar with what you will be posting each day and you can use platforms like Hootsuite to schedule out your posts in advance, so you don’t have to worry about manually posting every single day. Asana is another tool that we use to keep on top of tasks and deadlines. It’s really important to assign accountability and protect the time that creating content takes. Lastly, let urgency conquer fear. It’s more important to get content out than for every single post to be perfect.
4) Your Biggest Marketing Challenge: “Effectively using Facebook Ads and engaging our followers in posts.” – Shirley, Liberty Hill Foundation
Our Solution: Test as much as possible. One way to start is by running an Engagement Campaign. You can run ads for a lot cheaper than a Conversion Campaign and also learn about who is engaging with your posts. Test out a few different versions of the copy and graphics to see which performs the best. There are also a lot of online resources, like the Facebook Ad Library, which is a cool new tool where you can see ad creative and even ad spend, but the most important thing is to fine-tune your nonprofit’s messaging to what the donors respond to.
