THREE SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS TO BOOST YOUR CHARITY'S FUNDRAISING

1 LIVE STREAMING

You might have seen some of the adverts as part of Facebook’s huge campaign to promote Facebook Live. The social media platform is pushing their live streaming capabilities massively and brands and publishers are jumping on the bandwagon.

Social tour de force The Lad Bible run a live stream at least once a week, with everything from watching ice cream melt (over 6 million views to date) to live game shows with children’s TV star Dave Benson Philips. TV channel Alibi have also been experimenting with live video, hosting a live murder mystery on Facebook to promote an upcoming show.

It’s not just big commercial brands adopting live streaming as part of their social media strategy – there are lots of charities doing it too.

Sue Ryder, for example, held a live Q&A with a personal trainer for marathon runners (running to raise funds for the charity, of course). The RNLI hosted a Q&A with lifeboat volunteers – dramatically interrupted by a call out during the stream – and The Blue Cross has live streamed from inside their cattery.

Of course, you might not have a cattery to hand, but there are a number of different things you could consider live streaming:

• The opening of a new facility or centre
• Interviews with beneficiaries, senior stakeholders or volunteers
• Events, workshops or other sessions your charity may run (if appropriate)
• A chance to put questions to an expert to inspire fundraising – for example, a marathon runner, professional baker or fashion stylist.

2 VIDEO

If you’ve been on Facebook today – think, how many posts contained a video? Quite a few? Most? All? Last year the number of videos posted on Facebook increased by 75% (Facebook) and Mark Zuckerberg himself has said in less than five years most of Facebook will be video. (PC World) So, it’s time for your charity to start thinking about how to make video for your cause.

There’s a fear that video is expensive, time consuming and needs a lot of skill – and it can be – but there are some tricks you can use to quickly and easily create some great content.

• If you've got an iPhone, download Apple’s own video editing app iMovie, to edit content, stitch clips together or add music or titles.
• Use Powerpoint to make quick videos. By setting transition times on slides, and reformatting the size of the slides to a landscape video, you can simply hit ‘Create a video’ when you come to save the file.
• Apps like Boomerang (made by Instagram) allow you to create quick four second looping videos, just like those moving images you’d see in the newspapers in Harry Potter films.

It’s a good idea to get in some practise capturing and creating video content. Some predictions say that videos on Facebook increase reach by over 100% (Social Bakers), which means if you’re posting videos over photos or links, you’re likely to be seen by more people in the News Feed – extending the awareness of your message.

3 SOCIAL CEOS

Twitter
Is your CEO on Twitter? Does he or she even know what Twitter is?

Getting your CEO clued up on all things social should be at the top of your social media to-do list. It’s not only a great avenue for you to promote your cause, but also Social CEOs found that over 90% of employees think social CEOs are better equipped to handle a crisis, and 8 out of 10 people are more likely to buy from (or, donate to) an organisation whose leaders use social media. 

Social CEOs have also produced a great guide to help get you started.

LinkedIn
Similarly, LinkedIn is another really underutilised space for good causes, particularly if you’re looking to reach influential decision makers who are in the frame of mind to do business. The news feed on LinkedIn can be a fairly dull place, with business updates and sales messages – what better to break it up with content about great volunteers, or good news stories on changed lives? Ask your senior stakeholders at your organisation to share these messages through their own accounts, or even get them to blog directly on the platform via LinkedIn Pulse, to really make an impact.

At CAF, LinkedIn is by far and away our most highly engaged social media channel, so we’ve seen first hand how well this platform can perform.

NEXT STEPS

Watch our social media webinar to discover the tools you need to help deliver engaging fundraising campaigns.