How to Find New Supporters & Donors Online (for FREE)
We all know that most of the social media sites these days are now pay-to-play when it comes to expanding the reach of your posts and advertising to new potential followers.
With that being said though, there are still some FREE techniques that any organization can use to FIND supporters on various social media channels to increase your following. Here are just a few ways you can organically grow your following:
1) Play in the space where your customers are
First thing you need to be doing is actually being present on Social Media and other sites that your supporters may be. This obviously includes the big players like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram — but don’t forget to check out other smaller channels where potential followers may be interacting online.
Sites like Pinterest, Quora, MeetUp.com and others give you the opportunity to SEARCH for like-minded people, questions and resources that potential followers may be interested in. An example would be to search for a question on Quora that some of your supporters may be wanting to know the answer to and providing your organization’s take on the subject in the comments and answers section. Just be sure to provide a valuable answer (and not just plugging your brand).
So, if you are an organization that provides meals to food insecure households, look up questions about “How many people are food insecure in the U.S.” and other questions similar to that subject. Surely, your organization has some statistics and facts they can share on the subject while also directing people to your organization’s site for more information on the subject (Reminder to use links & sources for your statistics on the website)
2. Check out other Organization’s Supporters
This is a tip that most organization’s forget to do or never thought about doing in the first place but can greatly increase your follower count. This follower acquisition method is to go to other organization’s social media sites to find potential supporters of your cause. The reason this method is so effective is that most donors/supporters of a certain Nonprofit are willing to give to more than one organization and have shown an interest in being a Nonprofit supporter by following that other organization. This doesn’t mean you should cannibalize supporters by convincing these online users to jump ship — but instead, you are giving them another cause that they might be willing to support as well.
So, in order to do this, you should go to places like the Twitter and/or Instagram of other Nonprofit organization’s and view their followers. You now have a collection of potential supporters that have already been collected in one area rather than wildly searching through the millions of users online for prospective followers. Go through and follow these individuals (from your Organization’s account) and you’ll instantly be receiving brand awareness when they receive the notification that “(Your Nonprofit) is now following you”. A lot of the time, they will view your profile and potentially follow you back (we’ve seen numbers as high as 50% follow back rates)!
Are there other ways that your organization finds and acquires new followers? Let us know in the comments!
We hope you found this information valuable and if you would like more tips, tricks and resources be sure to check out the rest of our HARNESS BLOG
Originally published at https://blog.harnessgiving.com on June 23, 2017.
