So, you’re planning to publish Giving Tuesday social media posts, but are afraid you’ll be lost in the sea of similar ones?
Standing out from the noise isn’t as tricky as it looks.
Take a look at this Giving Tuesday Facebook post by TigerTime.
The post included:
- A relevant photo that immediately captures attention.
- Branding of the Giving Tuesday campaign in the photo.
- A short but compelling appeal for donations as the caption.
It was published four days before Giving Tuesday 2019 and within this short time, earned
900+ likes and 40 shares.
The Facebook page’s engagement levels spiked—one crucial metric of success for Giving Tuesday social media posts.
An intelligent social media campaign can be the megaphone to your #GivingTuesday campaign and give you the followers or supporters you need, even in the campaign’s final phase.
But success involves following a step-by-step path to reach the goal. Here, we discuss an ideal timeline, best practices, and examples of engaging giving Tuesday social media posts.
How to optimize your Giving Tuesday campaign:
1. The content of your posts
Any post on social media channels like Facebook and Twitter has three primary goals:
- To reach as many people as possible.
- To compel these viewers to read the post.
- To ensure readers engage (like, comment, share, click) with the post.
Recent studies show that visuals—images and videos—are more successful in reaching these targets than status or link posts.
Study the engagement trends of popular social media platforms before finalizing the Giving Tuesday social media posts on each. The above statistics show how images, videos, live videos and other posts can affect engagement on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Types of visual content that works for a Giving Tuesday social media campaign:
- Infographics with compelling stats
- Quotes and photos of beneficiaries
- Quotes and videos/photos of volunteers
- Impact videos
- Live videos by staffers or influencers/celebrities
2. Posts with influencer partnerships
Influencers and celebrities have broad social media reach. Partnering with them for Giving Tuesday can advertise your campaign to potential new supporters and donors.
While your primary goal is still fundraising, influencer posts on your behalf can also target the goal of increased online engagement and donor outreach.
How to approach an influencer or celebrity for your campaign:
- Identify your donor universe and the celebrities or influencers that resonate with their views (advocating for the environment, LGBTQI+ rights, animal rights, etc.)
- Shortlist candidates by researching: frequency of posts and paid posts, follower count, social biography, connections, social mentions.
- Establish contact with these potential ambassadors. Emails, Twitter mentions, Instagram messages, or calling agents are common ways of contacting a celeb.
- Write up a contract listing: The number and nature of posts to publish, the caption and hashtag to use, and CTA.
- When the influencer(s) is onboard, draw up a timeline for the posts, and assign a staffer to monitor the posts and help the celebrity team.
You May Also Like: Website Prep Tips for Giving Tuesday Campaigns
3. The messaging of your post
Charity: Water has helped over 11 million people get access to clean water. The number is super impressive, but their social media posts rarely portray that. Rather, they go on a micro level and share personal stories and ground-level impact.
That’s because real-life stories make your cause human.
Best practices for sharing real stories:
- Include a photo of the volunteer, beneficiary or staffer. For a video, use these images as the thumbnail.
- Let the person in focus look into the camera and use semantics to emphasize your messaging (e.g., the person working in a field if you are raising funds for farming)
- Use scripts only as a general guideline for videos. Let the protagonist share their story in their own words—this makes the posts more authentic.
- Encourage peer-to-peer fundraising in the caption—to nudge people to share your post and increase engagement. Like this post by the Gates Foundation:
4. The objective of your posts
Giving Tuesday social media posts don’t just have the singular objective of raising funds. They also aim to:
- Expand your donor base
- Spread the word about your campaign
- Increase engagement levels on your social handles
- Build Lists (for phone or text contact lists)
If collecting donations brings you closer to success for the current Giving Tuesday campaign, the others also solidify support for future fundraisers.
Best practices to follow:
- For text-to-donate, display the keyword and shortcode prominently in your posts (make image posts with the keyword and shortcode, add them to your profile picture, cover photo or in your captions.) A texting tool like CallHub allows you to set auto-responders for when a person opts-in. You can start collecting their name, email IDs, and other information via text and pave the way for future contact.
- For platforms with a word limit (e.g., Twitter), give a brief explanation of your cause and impact you hope to create—rather than your organization.
- Provide a direct link to your donation page in the caption. Make it short and customized. That keeps the copy looking clean and can give up to a 39% higher click-through rate.
- Encourage people to share your posts even if they aren’t ready to donate yet.
Related Reading: Giving Tuesday Toolkit – Plan a Successful Fundraising Campaign
Tips for an effective Giving Tuesday social media campaign:
Research and plan your content
For well-planned content, you need to start research long before your first #GivingTuesday post rolls out.
Track your social media posts—which of them get higher engagement rates, and the desired results. Remember, sometimes unconventional posts or channels may yield better outcomes, and you should leverage them for a high-risk event like Giving Tuesday.
For instance, if your followers have previously engaged with long text posts rather than images on Facebook, it would be fitting to include long captions or status posts—even if generic studies recommend otherwise.
How to do that:
- Start research before the current giving Tuesday campaign begins (before the first post is designed).
- Look for high open rates, engagement rates, and conversion rates on your posts via analytics on every platform.
- What kind of posts have worked for you previously? It would be a good practice to replicate the model, but not the same posts.
- Leave room for trends that have come about in the current year and posts that work for other organizations.
Keep content ready ahead of time so your posts are always timely.
Use trending, relevant hashtags—in limited quantities
Hashtags make your post relevant to a cause, easy to discover, and consistent (all your #GivingTuesday posts can be grouped together by using a unique hashtag).
However, overusing hashtags will undo your work. Too many hashtags in one post make it look like spam and, more importantly, decrease the engagement rate. Here’s how posts with hashtags perform across various social media platforms:
Use one or two hashtags for each of your Giving Tuesday social media posts. Keep them consistent throughout the campaign.
Hashtags trending for Giving Tuesday 2019 Vs Giving Tuesday 2020:
| Giving Tuesday hashtags 2019 | Giving Tuesday hashtags 2020 |
| #givingtuesday – 60% #giveback – 6% #repost – 5% #charity – 4% #donate – 4% #nonprofit – 4% #blog – 3% #cybermonday – 3% #donatetoday – 3% #bethechange – 3% | #givingtuesday – 44% #givingtuesdaynow – 14% #nonprofit – 7%#donate – 6% #charity – 5% #covid – 5% #givingback – 4% #community – 3% #giveback – 3% #fundraising – 3% |
Set the mood for Giving Tuesday on your profile
Branding your social media accounts with pictures, posts or badges for Giving Tuesday makes it obvious to followers that you are participating in the event. The right hashtags also increase visibility among non-followers.
Here are some simple things to do for branding social media accounts:
- Add the Giving Tuesday logo to your Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts.
- Create buzz by sharing tweets, posts, and images for Giving Tuesday ahead of the campaign.
- Add a #GivingTuesday frame or pin to your display pictures.
- Add stories on Instagram, tagging the relevant handles and adding hashtags.
Active engagement and direct contact for donors who interact with posts
Regularly monitor your posts and engage with commenters and followers on a personal level. Thank them, answer their queries, encourage them to share your posts, and always maintain an active account throughout the campaign.
Supporters are more likely to give if they feel appreciated and special. That means extra effort from your side to engage with them and establish direct contact to introduce your campaign.
On social media, this can be quite difficult, if you have a large follower count. Segmenting the audience by engagement levels and targeting those who have a stronger relationship with you can lessen the efforts and give better results.
- Identify major or repeat commentators (FB has a “Top Fan” badge, which is an excellent clue for your loyal followers).
- Send them a personal message introducing your Giving Tuesday campaign.
- If they respond, send them a donation link and mention how their contribution will have an impact.
- Request the phone number of those who donate and ask their preferred communication channel for future contact (this is a fantastic opportunity for list building. Do not miss it).
- Add these numbers to your contact list. Invest in a text messaging and calling software like CallHub to send them a personal thank you message as soon as the donation is made.
Once you have the resources ready, it’s time to draw a timeline and schedule posts for optimum results. Nonprofits and businesses usually start churning out the posts a month before Giving Tuesday (1st December in 2020). Here’s the general timeline you can follow:
Timeline for Giving Tuesday social media posts
30 – 15 days before Giving Tuesday
- Publish posts to inform people about the date of the event (Save The Date posts.)
- Start with creating a buzz but also keeping suspense.
- As you near the 15-day timeline, elaborate more on the campaign and the impact you hope to make.
Ideas for #GivingTuesday posts: Infographics, beneficiary and volunteer stories, list building posts (asking people to subscribe to text and email campaigns).
15 – 7 days before D-day
- Ramp up the number of posts per day.
- Actively engage with your followers (by replying to comments, thanking them, and sending messages to top fans and active supporters).
- Ask volunteers and staffers to share the posts in their social circles.
- Remind followers that Giving Tuesday is just X days away.
Ideas for posts: SMS opt-in posts, influencer posts, beneficiary stories, infographics.
7 – 2 days before D-day
- Soft ask for donations by sharing links.
- Begin the countdown (Giving Tuesday is just seven days away! Donate now to get 2x matches for your gifts!)
- Activate direct outreach with your loyal followers and donors on social media. Contact existing donors and supporters on phone calls and text messages.
- Send reminder texts to those who have confirmed interest in donating but haven’t contributed yet. A broadcast text messaging software like CallHub lets you do this by sending the message to hundreds of selected contacts within seconds.
Ideas for posts: Opt-ins, influencer posts, videos, reminder posts, direct messages.
1 day before Giving Tuesday
- Publish videos or “go live” on Facebook and Instagram.
- Gather all-hands on deck to share content and social media managers to engage with commenters and likers.
- Send thank-yous and donation appeals on direct messages to everyone who’s engaged with your posts.
- Remind followers that Giving Tuesday is the following day.
- Send reminder texts, emails, and phone calls.
Ideas for #GivingTuesday posts: Influencer posts, reminder posts, direct messages, impact messages to inform how far the campaign has come, Giving Tuesday thank you posts.
Day of launch
- Ramp up the number of posts. One post every two hours (or more!)
- The first post should announce that the campaign is now live/last chance to donate.
- Follow up posts can talk about the funds raised so far and how much more to go ($15,000 collected within 4 hours! Help us reach our target of $25,000!)
- Send last-minute reminder texts to those who haven’t donated yet (texts have a 98% open-rate, so there’s a high chance they’ll read)
Ideas for #GivingTuesday posts: Reminder posts, celebratory posts, progress posts, and thank you notes.
Example of a Giving Tuesday social media posts calendar:
Social media is a great way to get the attention of a broad audience in a short time.
But, along with the fact that everyone is competing for this attention, social media also is not a great facilitator of major donations.
You need to make personal connections and have detailed conversations with supporters to earn their trust, and consequently, donations.
Social media may fall short here. But once people start responding to your opt-in posts, you can move the conversations to more personal channels like phone calls, text messages or emails. This is how the process goes:
You post the keyword and shortcode on social media posts – people text the keyword to the number – You confirm their opt-in and ask for preferred mode of communication (call/text) – Note it and follow through for a personal, 1-on-1 conversation.
Invest in software that integrates with CRMs, so all your new and old contacts are in one place. Try it here for free.
Feature Image Source: Giving Tuesday Logos.
