Tom Latchford argues that social media is the future, and charities need to start focusing on it.
The chances are that you’re one of the 30 million people in the UK on Facebook. It’s also likely that the charity you work for is too and yet, what real difference is this making to the organisation?
Social media now forms part of the fabric of our everyday experience so, logically, it should be a natural home for charity fundraisers. The fact is, however, that few charities are successful at raising funds via social media and trustees are sceptical and reluctant to invest.
The NCVO Almanac shows the top 10,000 charities above £0.5m income spend £2.6bn on fundraising and PR, generating £4.4bn in individual donations. This is a broken equation, and social media could fix this.
Social media marketing and fundraising is powerful because, unlike traditional mail which has an uncanny knack of catching you at the wrong time, charities can reach and build relationships with new hot leads. We search and share so much that at the exact point of someone thinking about an area your charity helps, you can reach them. Whether this is using social media monitoring, Facebook ads or Google Adwords (using the $480,000 of Google grant that your charity could access), cost per acquisition suddenly sinks through the floor. And because they were in the right zone when you reached out, they are not only more likely to respond, but it is easier to build a relationship. Through the immediacy of website and social media interaction, there is the chance to accelerate them from being attracted, to taking action to becoming an advocate in no time. Advocates become your social media army, sharing and stimulating others and helping word of mouth flourish.
In this way there is the chance for charities to be like Facebook in the way they scale, not just liked on Facebook. Facebook's growth resulted from tapping into communities (universities), where contacts influenced their close connections to sign-up. Coppafeel! is a small breast cancer awareness charity, targeting younger people, through its website it has reached every university in the UK, each with their own microsite to empower volunteers to recruit people to the charity’s new SMS 'check your boobs reminder service' and to raise funds. Social media is enabling a tiny team to achieve results that match charities with big budgets.
Part of the funding from Nominet Trust has enabled my organisation, Raising IT, to create dashboards that show trends across all the 50+ charity websites (from the supersized like RSPCA to the small like Best Beginnings) that are designed and delivered on the Raising IT platform. The statistics for how much time and money charities are saving through social media are startling. Over the last three years, there has been a transition where targeted online and social media marketing is overtaking mass mail outs. The release of features such as social sign-in via Facebook Connect, have seen actions across all platforms shoot up by nearly 40% by making it easier to give, buy, petition, volunteer or influence others.
Social media is a guaranteed formula for success when organisations can provide a seamless supporter journey from their social media to an interactive website that converts slacktivists to become supporters. To do this there need to be two things in place: a culture in the charity for creativity that embraces experimentation and the tools to track online fundraising campaigns so charities can fail fast and scale successes.
