7 Facebook Page Set-Up Tips for Nonprofit Fundraising

Welcome to the first entry in my Social Media Summer series geared towards growing nonprofit fundraising and donor outreach/engagement results. We begin our series with social media giant Facebook. Latest statistics show that Facebook ranks number one with the most traffic in 126 out of 137 analyzed countries. Facebook has dominated the social media landscape and, in turn, businesses and nonprofits have been increasing their presence and use of this incredibly powerful tool. As Facebook and social media continues to evolve it can be daunting having to keep up with updates and changes but there are ground rules to help get optimum results from your Facebook fundraising and engagement efforts.

To cover the basics, you can reference Maximizing Nonprofit Fundraising Efforts Through Facebook and 10 Tips for Maximizing Nonprofit Fundraising Efforts Through Facebook. The following are 7 tips that will assist when setting up your nonprofit’s fundraising Facebook page:

1. The key component of your Facebook presence is the overall impact of your organization’s Facebook Page. In other words, the initial setup of your page will determine the effectiveness of being found by supporters and the engagement experienced. Provided it makes sense to your organization, completing every field on your pages “Basic Information” section and including your keywords will help with Facebook search and SEO ranking.
   

   Image courtesy of hawk-style.com

2. During set up time it would be important to change your Page Visibility setting to the “Unpublish Page option (only admin can see this page)” until your page is ready to be published. Go to “Edit Page” then “Manage Permissions”. This will ensure that an incomplete image is not visible at any time.
3. Ensure that your Profile Picture and Avatar is consistent with your nonprofit’s brand and identity. It needs to be recognizable by your supporters and consistent. It’s also important to ensure that your chosen image has a proper fit when viewed as the thumbnail/avatar. During the photo upload process the thumbnail can be edited for optimum fit.
4. Earlier this year Facebook introduced Timeline Page profiles and the new format was implemented on all pages across the board. One of the new features includes a cover image which can be updated with a unique photo that represents your organization the best. The cover photo can be changed as often as necessary and can coincide with your current fundraising campaign or other latest news/updates.
5. It’s important to setup a Facebook username or vanity web address as this will help with promoting your organization’s presence on Facebook with one short easy to remember URL. Two things to note are that you need a minimum of 25 fans to secure a Facebook username and once set you can only change this username once through the lifetime of your organization’s page. For example, Miratel’s Facebook url is http://www.facebook.com/miratelsolutions.
6. When Managing Permissions, it’s important that abilities and visibility options are left as open as possible. Facebook’s effectiveness can be attributed in part to the ability of giving your audience the forum to open discussion and share information. Limiting your audience’s ability to do this negates your efforts to engage them. In ‘Your Settings’ or ‘Manage Notifications’ you have the ability to set email notifications for when people post to, comment on, or message your page, which you can moderate and respond to.
7. Posting and commenting is key when engaging your audience, however it’s important to note that as administrator of the page, you have the option of posting and commenting as yourself or the organizations page. Overall it’s best to post and share content as your organization to ensure you are maximizing your nonprofit’s exposure and reach. In some cases it may be better to respond to comments as an individual to personalize the supporter’s experience and also helps put a face to those who work on behalf of the organization.

I’ll continue with the second part of my spotlight on Facebook with additional considerations to maximize your nonprofit fundraising and reach efforts through this platform.
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Miratel Solutions is a Toronto call centre, eBusiness, and letter shop mail house specializing in professional fundraising services including telephone fundraising, online fundraising, lottery services, donation caging, donation processing and other donor management services. We are committed to our CSR business values in all contact centre services and mail house operations and advancing the missions of the nonprofits we proudly serve.