Non-profits have a difficult enough time doing outreach online. With well-funded profit-driven corporate entities battling for the same space in people’s Facebook and Instagram feeds, how in the world can a small- or mid-size non-profit compete?
Setting aside organic reach in social media – which is another worthy endeavor – we can only be effective in reaching our target audience by defining appropriate target audiences, creating relevant content, and following a campaign plan – not just a random “boost” or share.
What most people do not realize is that Facebook ads are NOT simply given to the highest bidder. The ads are given based on perceived value – a metric Facebook calculates based on a combination of bid amount, user experience, length of time people spend after clicking on your ads, and so on.
What does this mean?
It means that if you make sure you are sending your ads to people who are likely to respond and not just “everybody within five miles of me”, and create ads targeted to each demographic – as opposed to sending one ad of a 50 year old man to a woman in her 20’s – you have a great chance of both reaching people and doing so at a lower cost.
As an added bonus, Facebook created the Facebook Pixel, a piece of code you can drop on your webpages. By taking advantage of this free tool you will be able to target people who have visited your site for future Facebook ads and promotion.
This post doesn’t cover the need to create a funnel, how to determine your campaign objective and why you shouldn’t just demand they give you money during your annual fund drive or come to your event next week. Those are covered in upcoming posts. But rest assured that if you don’t cover those as well, your ad campaigns will fail miserably. If you take ad targeting, content creation and funnel development seriously, you will be taking the first step in creating a cost-efficient and effective social media campaign for your non-profit.
Here is a summary of keys to designing effective social media engagement for your non-profit.
- It’s a campaign, not a flash sale!
- Use a funnel.
- Implement Facebook Pixel
- Don’t try and trick Facebook in campaign objective – it will backfire
- Use video, blogs, etc.
- Don’t try to send them to a donation page without telling them.
We cover these, what they mean, and how to start developing a set of practices for YOUR organization in our webinar, Social Media Marketing for Non-Profits.