6 easy and powerful tips to improve your nonprofit’s Facebook page

Social media continues to build growing importance for networking, crowd sourcing and of course nonprofit fundraising. After your website itself, Facebook remains the single most valuable place for a charity to have a strong online presence. For many potential and existing supporters Facebook will be their most regular social media port of call when keeping abreast of news, developments, events and in many cases gain their first exposure to your organization. The only relative downside with Facebook is that as the busiest social media venue it’s also the most crowded and that reinforces the importance of articulating and amplifying your message effectively.

By now almost every nonprofit be they small or large own and operate a Facebook business page but in many cases there is more you can do to get found, get noticed and help keep your audience engaged. Each of the suggestions below are both very simple to administer but can have a measurable impact on how well your charity uses the advantages that Facebook brings. I’d guess you already do some of these things but if you find a few that you haven’t considered add them to your Facebook practices sooner rather than later.

Use Facebook Events – Few things are as easy to do and have such powerful viral potential on Facebook as adding events to your page. For special fundraising events, awards, volunteer campaigns or celebrations add the event to your page well in advance of the day in question. Each time a follower RSVPs to an event it will show up in their feed which increases awareness, you can also add a link to Facebook events on your website, blog, emails and other social media channels. Using events couldn’t be easier as you’ll see via this Facebook guide.

Schedule Posts for when your audience are online – Scheduling Facebook posts is very simple and extremely effective. I’m as guilty as the next person at forgetting this function and tend to post updates when I’m active on Facebook, however that often means you’re missing large opportunities with your audience. Prepare your posts over a range of days and the use Facebook Insights to gauge the days and times when your audience is most active, typically weekends are great times to post but not always when we ourselves are online delivering updates. You can schedule a post at any 5 minute interval and up to six months in advance, learn more via this Facebook guide.

Make sure your address is used so Facebook users can ‘check-in’ – People love to use Facebook locations for checking in and while I realise this might not apply to every nonprofit make sure your address is added to your profile (see image below). Each time a Facebook follower/fan attends an event at your organization and checks in it will be shared with their friends via their feed.

Use your profile image space wisely – The effectiveness of Facebook landing pages (your profile page) can be improved immeasurably by using text and images well in the cover photo (and profile photo) spaces provided. Previously Facebook operated a ‘text ratio rule’ which has now been waived but you still want to create a striking image that captures attention and the right balance between written content and graphics. Make sure you are using the correct size graphics to fit the Facebook allowed dimensions which have changed a number of times too, here are some really easy to follow instructions for image dimensions that also includes sizes and ratios for feed images.

Review your page administrator rights – This one seems painfully obvious but many people only build admin rights for one person, the individual who develops the page. What happens if that person is not available, goes on vacation, is ill or otherwise inaccessible? Losing access to your nonprofit Facebook business page can create major problems so prepare against that by granting administrator access to at least three different people within the organization. To get a full understanding of Facebook page ‘roles’ visit this Facebook guide.

Share similar page settings – I’ve saved the easiest and one of the best quick improvements to last. Under your page settings find ‘Similar Page Suggestions’ and ensure that this box is checked and saved to include your page when Facebook recommends similar pages (see image above). As you know Facebook is always suggesting similar pages and this can be a very effective way of building awareness and growing your Facebook audience over time and it will take you less than 10 seconds to fix if needed.

If you have any other quick to implement tips that can help a nonprofit please feel free to share below, these small and easy changes can make a large impact in building your Facebook profile.

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Miratel Solutions is a Toronto call centre, eBusiness, and letter shop mail house specializing in professional fundraising services including PCI compliant inbound telephone fundraising, outbound telephone fundraising, online fundraising, lottery fundraising services, donation processing and receipting and direct mail fundraising services. We are committed to our CSR business