But online fundraising is not only about creating; itis mainly about sharing. You need to make sure your message reaches as many people as possible. And when talking about Internet it is really easy to share your fundraising page with your contacts. Social media and emails will enable you to spread your idea through the World Wide Web.
According to the statistics of 2013, Internet users spend an average of 170 minutes per month on Twitter and 23% of Facebook users access it more than 5 times per day. So why don’t you use that time to help make the world a better place? Social media are the best online tools to promote your online fundraising page so that your friends and family can join the cause.
Twitter
Twitter is the biggest micro-blogging network. Yes, I know what you are thinking. You only have 140 characters to express yourself and that is not a lot. But it is only a matter of being concise to communicate effectively the message. Remember that those tweets that include a link and/or a picture have a bigger impact that those which don’t. So don’t forget to include, at least, the link to your fundraising page.
400 million tweets are sent on average every day. If only a small part of those tweets were created to help others there will be a great change. Share your page with your followers and if you manage to convince them to support your cause, they might be sharing as well your fundraiser – either by writing a new tweet or by RT yours.
Moreover, now with Vine you have the possibility to create short videos for your followers – even though the app is only available for smartphones. You can film a video where you cheer up your followers to collaborate in your cause or where you thank them after receiving donations.
Facebook
I am sure you have a lot of Facebook friends, some of them might be people with which you haven’t talked in ages but you still have in Facebook because…well, why not? Maybe when they read about your fundraising page they would be interested in supporting the cause by making a donation in your page. You never know who is going to be by your side when it comes to help people.
Imagine that 20-30% of your contacts on Facebook actively collaborate in your fundraising. The difference made in the world would be so great, right? Well, that is why it is important that you share your page on Facebook. Write updates encouraging your friends to donate, celebrate the latest donations and, above all, be grateful with donors. Write a thank you message by tagging the donor name on the post so that your contacts and his/her contacts will see that he/she has done a great job by supporting your cause.
You can also send on Facebook personal requests to your friends through private messages. Remember not to be too insistent or you might get the opposite result if your friends get tired of your constant requests to collaborate. It is not about forcing them to support your cause. It is rather about convincing them that the cause is worth it.
Lene Rohde has created her own fundraising page on BetterNow to help PLAN. On February 2014 she will be running a marathon in Kenya between 2 schools the organisation has for for girls there and she is raising funds for them. She has already raised 87% of her objective. Lene writes a thank you post when she gets a new donation and she also writes updates on how the fundraising is going.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a more professional network than Twitter and Facebook but it is also a good tool for sharing your fundraiser. On LinkedIn you can join groups related to charities and fundraising. In those groups, you will find people already working to make the world a better place; people that share your very own ideas about helping others. So they might be more willing to join your cause.
You just need to create a message that catches their attention and makes them decide to support your cause. You can, on one side, share your fundraising page on charity and fundraising related groups. And besides that, you can include the page as an update so your contacts can see it. In that way, people that are not directly involved in charity will be also able to make donations to your cause.
Email
Emails are the best communication tool to send personal messages to your friends and family. Social networks are used for mass messages so you send the same idea to a lot of different people. But you can use emails to make the message more personal since you can create an individual text for every potential donor.
Probably you are thinking that sending an individual email to everyone in your contact list is going to be a tough job. But you can create groups. You can write an email to your family. Maybe you all have lived an important moment related with the cause you are supporting. Remember that personal stories boost donations since they get the problem closer to people. You can also write an email for your friends and another one for your colleagues. Dividing your contacts into groups you can change the tone in which you write to them, writing then more personal emails.
Social networks play nowadays an important role in society. So get the most out of them by spreading and sharing your fundraising page. Remember you are not doing it for yourself; your are doing it to make the world a better place. If you have not started your fundraiser yet but think this is a good moment to do it, you can start here. We’ll help you.
Image credit: mkhmarketing via Flickr
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