Facebook can be the nexus of a still more powerful network
So your nonprofit or charity has its requisite Facebook page up. You’re posting updates and tweeting about upcoming events. All fine-and-good (and important). But what else could you be doing to energize your Facebook presence? Let’s face it, Facebook has hit some hard times recently. Even before the public IPO Facebook was one of the lowest ranked companies in terms of customer satisfaction. Since then, the stock has fallen over half its original price, and you might have noticed the advertisements as you sign in and sign out of your account as Facebook engineers struggle to find income streams.
But even if a few million of the users are fakes, Facebook remains the heaviest hitter in the social-networking league and we need to use it. The challenge is efficient differentiation and outreach − But how?
As is always the case, content is everything, and you should always be looking for ways to develop and tweak your posts, messages, and Timeline to reflect a larger story of what you do. We have also encouraged our readers to do previously, get your organization connected to Facebook’s Nonprofits Center. While connecting, make sure your Twitter and Facebook accounts are linked as well. An organization can’t create social-media content with a one-size-fits-all approach, but tweets make a fine update to any Facebook Timeline.
Also, you should be looking into Causes.com as a Facebook app that will extend the power your Facebook page is already wielding. The connections encourage sharing among many platforms with single messages: “Every campaign on Causes is automatically integrated with Facebook’s custom open graph, which means that our actions are easily shared via Timeline and newsfeed. The ability for supporters to tweet, email, and post a Facebook status update is a click away on every campaign page.”
And the success rate is claimed to be pretty high, not only in terms of sharing, but in terms of visitors and followers getting directly involved:
About 30% of people who visit our pages take action, and over 20% of them share it with friends. So far, over 170 million people have taken action for over 500,000 unique causes, making it the best place to run an action campaign or get involved in one that interests you.
In no small part because people come to apps like Causes already engaged, or at least ready to support. Thus , Causes draws on an audience happy and ready to give time and/or money. You can connect a community (for example, volunteers) and/or an action (like fundraising). The link is started, not surprisingly, by signing in from Causes with your Facebook account.
Get linked and get started. Love it or hate it, no one’s leaving Facebook yet. With proper development and care, the platform provides the best basis to build a meaningful online community of engaged followers.
