Social media has become a powerful tool for increasing the success of events and campaigns. But often participants neglect social media because they don’t understand how simple it is to use. Taking a little time to clue them in can mean more awareness and more donations for your cause.

Help the active be more active.

Your top fundraisers and team captains are already heavy into social media. Getting current constituents to be more social is an easier task than getting the non-social to finally join in. Identify your key Influencers and:

• Give them special attention to clue them in on the social media tools that are available to them.
• Explain how much they can extend their reach.
• Explain how they can make getting the word out easier.

If you spend a little extra time with these constituents, you put powerful social tools in their hands. These can greatly increase participants, participation and donations.

Get personal with your participants.

Use social networking tools to keep participants up to date, politely remind them of deadlines and thank them for their help. These tools don’t cost you anything to use, can send to groups, and offer immediate delivery. The more active you are in communicating to participants, the more they feel involved and the more likely your cause will be top of mind. Don’t forget that email is still the most powerful electronic communication tool available to you.

Be free with your factoids.

Give your participants bited-sized copy points about how much impact a donation can have. DonorDrive Product Manager Kasey Marcum notes, “Donors under 35 want to know how their money is helping your cause. If they don’t know where the money is specifically going, they’re a lot less likely to donate.” Pick target donation amounts and state what the donation actually does. $100 supplies books for 10 underprivileged kids in our program and $100 will save the lives of four rescued dogs are concrete statements that make donors feel their donation is making a difference. They also help your participants get behind an effective cause. When you state simple facts, your participants are more likley to remember them and pass them on to their donors.

Advise all participants be more socially active.

• Personalize the cause and ask. Suggest they talk about why they’re participating and how the cause has touched their life. This creates an emotional appeal that gets donations.
• Have them encourage retweeting by friends and family. This spreads the word with all of that participant’s followers. “Donate a retweet” is a brief sentiment that gets the idea across. (Internet Guru Seth Godin notes that adding the phrase “please retweet” is four times more likely to get a retweet.)
• Make them aware that different social media has different audiences. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn put participants in front of very different groups of potential donors. A link should be added to every message so it connects directly back to the participant’s fundraising page.
• Urge participants to communicate with their donors constantly. Updates, deadline reminders and Thank Yous keep their mission top of mind.

Make a tip list.

Share the above ideas with your participants, post these tips on your campaign or event site and email a link to anyone and everyone. Teaching your participants how to better use social media and online communication can only be better news for your cause.

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Powerful social tools for DonorDrive users.

DonorDrive gives you powerful built-in social tools that are not available in every fundraising software solution. Here are some specific tips for charities that fundraise with DonorDrive.

• DonorDrive can automatically tweet and post Facebook updates each time someone donates on the participant’s page. This makes it extremely easy to get the word out. Encourage participants to personalize their ask in these messages for maximum effectiveness.
• Remind your participants to visit their DonorDrive Fundraising Page regularly where they can quickly tweet and like on Facebook. Encourage them to get their donors to do the same. This is an effective way to spread the word with minimum effort. Seeing their fundraising badge increase, even by one donation, is instant inspiration.
• Make your participants aware of the AddThis widget. This includes many other social sites your participants may be involved in, like personal blogs and LinkedIn.
• Encourage participants to use DonorDrive Fundraising Badges. These can be displayed by pasting embed code in blogs, web pages and even email. Badges can lead to automatic donations, without even having to ask.
• Encourage them to use DonorDrive’s mail feature to easily communicate with donors and perspective donors. Email sometimes gets overlooked as a powerful way to get the word out and emailing from their fundraising page makes it even easier.
• We’ve made a user friendly list of tips for your donors. Fundraising-Made-Easy has the above tip list in participant-friendly language. Post it on your DonorDrive site and link to it regularly.

READ MORE BEST PRACTICES

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