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How charities can get the most from social media

By Mercurytide Team

March 14, 2012 | 3 min read

When social media is used effectively and a marketing campaign is spread across several channels, the results can be staggering. There are many ways a charity can utilise these free resources to attract supporters and raise money but it’s important to be proactive with them and use imaginative ways to connect with people to help you stand out from the crowd. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Tweetathons

Arranging 24-hour tweetathons can be a powerful way to promote your cause, raise funds and allow your supporters to get involved in a short period of time.

It is important to build interest prior to the tweetathon and to have a unique focus that will excite your supporters so that they want to get involved. The focus can be anything from linking the tweetathon with an event where supporters can share its progress with their followers, to asking them to collaborate to produce a collective piece of writing or perhaps submit videos related to your cause based on a theme. Whatever your focus, a successfully run tweetathon requires a lot of organisation before, during and after with constant monitoring of tweets and replies to keep it alive.

Twibbons

Spread the word quickly by providing your supporters with a twibbon to show others they are a supporter of your cause. The twibbon will sit on their Facebook or Twitter profile image and can be a small transparent version of your logo that sits in the corner, a sash that wraps round their profile image or a full size advert for your cause.

Facebook Causes

‘Facebook Causes’ was set up by the founders of the social media platform to help people to promote a cause or something they strongly believe in. With over 170 million members and 40 million dollars raised for over 500,000 causes, it can be a very powerful and free resource. Setting up a cause is simple and can be done at www.causes.com.

YouTube

Set up a YouTube profile for your charity and keep it updated with regular videos of events or marketing campaigns to engage supporters and encourage them to add their own videos in response.

Send new visitors to a promotional video for your charity by setting up a QR Code that immediately plays the video on their smartphone when the code is photographed. Learn more about QR Codes here.

Get a free website worth up to £10,000

Enter our competition to receive a free website from design and digital company Mercurytide, who are partnering The Drum to provide a charity with a website worth up to £10,000.

Nominate a charity at www.10kcharitywebsite.co.uk

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