Kickstart Your Campaign with Social Media

Here are 10 best practices for kickstarting your fundraising campaign (and leveraging social media): 

• Always include the pledge site link in any promotions, including social media. Include the link to pledge in your social media profile.  

• Use non-social media channels to promote your social media handle and encourage employees and the community to follow and engage.  

• Ask employees to share why they give or volunteer on social media, to post photos and videos, or give shout-outs to their favorite nonprofits to drive awareness and engagement. Employee champions are your best supporters. 

• Ask participating nonprofits to post on social media and tag the official campaign handle, sharing their impact and encouraging employees to visit the pledge site link. Consider creating a toolkit comprised of social media posts for easy sharing. 

• Engage leadership, like C-Suite executives, department heads, or elected officials to post on social media, plus send emails and other communications to encourage participation. 

• Pick a single day(s) to promote together on social media, such as campaign kickoff and closing, #GivingTuesday, special holidays or observances, or other selected days. Ask all stakeholders to post on that day with a prewritten message, visual, and campaign hashtag like #TexasStrong #CaliforniaCares, etc. 

Example: By bringing partners together on the same day for CFC #Thanks8billion in 2019, CHC earned more than 1M impressions and more than 850 engagements on social media in just a few days. 

• Use personalized marketing and storytelling. Sharing stories (especially with visuals) from participating employees or those impacted in your community will outperform stock photos (or no visual) and generic messages. 

• Recognize departments, agencies, or teams with top participation rates or highest giving publicly on social media. Post any kind of positive recognition — awards, public service, good news, etc. — which can encourage employees to follow and engage with social media. 

• Say thank you to those who already participate, lead, give and volunteer as they can help you spread the word. Tag those individuals. 

• Always start with your key supporters, like campaign volunteers, your planning team, and significant stakeholders.