Social media websites have become an important marketing tool for business. It has also opened up new opportunities for fundraising for non-profits. This all works because social media is about connecting with people, whether you’re selling a product or raising money for a cause. It’s about finding and creating your online community. Twitter helps you connect your community with your cause.
A Creative Way to Engage People
With Twitter, you can connect with people throughout your community, and across the country, who are interested in yours, or similar causes. You can solicit input and questions from people interested in your fundraising efforts. It’s not just a way to put your message out into the world. By creating a two-way conversation between your fundraising effort and your followers, you will be able to adapt your efforts to what draws, and keeps, the most people.
Start By Building a Community
Begin by creating a social media page for your fundraiser, such as Facebook or Pinterest, which ties into your website. If this is for a school project, you might include some history and why this project is important to the school. A church fundraiser may focus on how the project will benefit the lives that it touches. A Little League fundraiser can emphasize the boost in team morale with new uniforms to be purchased with the funds.
As with any fundraising material, be very clear about the “why” and “how” of your fundraiser. Your goal with the social media, and Twitter, is for other people to spread your message. You’ll want them to understand your message completely. Once you have a clear message, it’s time to promote it.
Getting the Message Out
Provide links on your social media page to “Like” your page and to follow your tweets on Twitter. Your tweets should create excitement about your fundraiser. They also need to include a call to action. Give people something easy and fun to respond to:
“Be the force behind sending our kids on a Greece adventure this summer!”
“Add your voice to those rebuilding our hurricane-damaged community center!”
Your tweets should inspire people to send them to others in their network which gives your fundraiser much greater visibility. As people re-tweet your message, your community of followers will grow beyond the physical boundaries of your fundraiser. It will begin to connect you with people from around the country who are interested in your cause.
Engage People and Listen
Get people more involved by asking questions or holding contests through Twitter. Ask people for their thoughts:
“What are the top 3 things our class should see in Greece?”
“What new activities would you like to see our new community center sponsor?”
As people send their thoughts back to you, you can get a sense of how they are connecting with you and your fundraiser. This gives you a chance to refine your message to draw more people into your cause. Contests are another way to get people active in your fundraiser:
“Send us your best name suggestions for our community center!”
“Help us rename our Little League team mascot!”
Contests like these get people involved and encourage them to forward your messages on to their network. This becomes free advertising for your fundraiser.
You can also reach out to specific groups of people in the community with your tweets:
“We want to rally all of the musicians who are interested in performing at the new community center!”
“What travel agenda would all of the travel agents out there recommend for our Greece trip?”
Creating hashtags in your tweets creates an easy way for people to search for and follow your cause:
“Our #Greecetrip will rock our students this school year!”
“The new #LLMascot name will be chosen this Saturday – Get your vote in!”
Hashtags are an organic part of Twitter so your followers may take it off in a direction you hadn’t predicted. It may be just the right direction to entice more people to your cause.
Learn to be creative with the 140 characters that you have with Twitter. Connect with people, ask questions, offer praise for their help and listen to feedback. Watch the number of followers, and contributors, grow as you master the use of Twitter in your fundraising project.
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