Social Media

Fellow cause marketers, wouldn’t you like a dollar for every time someone told you to "make it go viral"? The beauty and frustration of virality is that you never know what will catch on. Context, creativity and conversation all have to align to get tens, hundreds or thousands of people to talk about your idea at the same time.

Imagine this: What you say and when you say it are completely out of your control for a full 24 hours. That’s what Surrender Your Say participants experienced via this imaginative campaign from Tourette Syndrome Foundation of Canada (TSFC). TSFC launched this out-of-the-box Twitter takeover to boost gut-level understanding of what having the disorder is like. Here are the four steps to Surrender Your Say’s success: show, not tell; make participation as active and energizing as possible; spur emotion and surprise; choose a platform that makes it easy to spread the word.

The landscape of social media changes so rapidly, it’s hard to keep up. Social media giant Facebook has unveiled a slew of changes in recent weeks. In order to maximize engagement on your Facebook page and use it to the best of your ability, it is important to stay on top of the changes. Here are five new features of which you may not have been aware but could change the way you interact with your fans. Enjoy!

It seems that most brands and nonprofits are still trying to get their head around what works on Facebook. What content works best, what time to publish updates and how to use sponsored stories are just a few of the topics discussed among nonprofit marketers. But these issues are just symptoms of bigger challenges that we all need to better understand.

Here are five reasons why Facebook marketing is presenting new and/or unusual challenges to you and your colleagues.

There absolutely is a math to social and mobile media. If your nonprofit has a good content strategy in place and understands the power of integrating all your nonprofit’s communications channels (website, e-mail, Facebook, texting, etc.), then as your numbers grow on social networks so will your e-newsletter and mobile lists, which in turn significantly increases your fundraising success. Below is selection of metrics to track and a brief explanation as to why.

Can lightning strike twice? The Human Rights Campaign's Go Red for Marriage Equality campaign impacted millions of Facebook profile pictures in what seemed like the blink of an eye. And now the organization is gearing up to do it again.

Maybe the question is not whether social media is BS, but whether it is fundraising.

Back in September 2011, Heather Mansfield, owner of DIOSA Communications, gave FS an exclusive peek at her then soon-to-be-published book, “Social Media for Social Good: A How-To Guide for Nonprofits." In this article, she discussed the "11 Qualities of an Effective Social-Media Manager."

If your key donors are not active in social media, how much time should you spend there?

It seems like all the “experts” tell us is to post photos on our Facebook pages to get more likes, comments and shares. Text updates aren’t as sexy, but they can be equally as effective. Here are three specific ways you can boost the number of comments on your text updates.