10 Social Posts Every Fundraiser or Event Needs

April 15, 2022

Elizabeth, our resident social media guru is going to take us through our posting paces today giving us the ins and outs of promoting events and fundraisers through social media.

These posts and suggestions are coming directly out of our online offering 10 Social Posts Every Fundraiser and Event Needs.

The download outlines what to put in your posts, some examples, and a template for you to copy and paste. Hop over and download it! Then listen to the podcast and Elizabeth will break it all down for you.

Podcast Notes

Monica Pitts  

So Elizabeth and I cooked up this nifty little downloadable guide as part of our year-end giving training that we did at the end of 2021. It’s good stuff. It doesn’t just need to be used for your year-end giving either. I think that the things that Elizabeth put in here are valuable for any type of event, because social media is a big part of promoting stuff. 

Elizabeth does social media for our MayeCreate clients, but she’s also very involved in one of our local nonprofits. Elizabeth, tell us about how you work with your favorite nonprofit and what its name is.

Elizabeth Alexander

I am both the artistic director and marketing director for Columbia entertainment company, which is a local community theater. One of my main roles is maintaining our social media presence. Anytime we have an event, we’re putting it all over social media, particularly Facebook, and promoting the heck out of it there. So that’s kind of where I spend my non-MayeCreate time.

Monica Pitts  

So let’s start at the top. Elizabeth has these in pretty much time order. In the offering, she also has a weekly breakdown of how she would mix these up and put them into a promotion campaign. I found that useful as I was helping plan the CoMoGives promotion campaign. 

Okay, Elizabeth, what is the first type of post?

SAVE THE DATE

Elizabeth Alexander

Well, you have to tell people when your event is, so the very first post you’re going to want to do is “save the date.” Pretty simple, pretty basic. You might not have ticket information yet. That’s totally okay. Think of it like a save the date you’d send out for a wedding and you just want people to know it’s coming up, to get them excited for it.

Monica Pitts 

Do you do this type of post more than once? Or is it like a one-and-done type of post?

Elizabeth Alexander

I would say it depends on how big the event is. If it’s like your Annual Gala and you’re inviting hundreds of people, you want to get that information out more than one time. If it’s maybe something new, or a smaller event, maybe just post once a couple months before and then you’re going to start trickling in with the rest of the information. So scale it on how big the event actually is.

TEASER

Elizabeth Alexander

Next you’re gonna start teasing the event. So like if you have sponsor items, you’re going to take a photo and share so people know what those items are. 

Facebook in particular loves a photo of a person more than any other kind of photo. So anytime you can share something that has people’s faces in it, the algorithm is going to like it better, and your audience is gonna like it better because you’re going to see the people behind what you’re doing. 

Monica Pitts 

And if you need an example of how to present the items, just watch kids YouTube. 

There are viral unboxing videos that my children watch on repeat. There’s one for a lady who runs an Exotic Animal Rescue. She’ll get this huge box of supplies from her donors so she unboxes them and gets excited about each one. And my kids are like, “That’s so awesome!” 

So anybody can do it.

THE BIG “WHY”

Elizabeth Alexander

Particularly with fundraisers, tell people why you want their funds. People might give if they’re just a consistent donor, but most people are going to hold off until they know what the money is going towards. Maybe share a story about how you used donations for last year, or the story of someone you’ve been able to help out. Put a face behind the cause, give people the reason you’re doing what you’re doing.

Monica Pitts  

Even if people think they know why you’re doing what you’re doing, they might not quite be able to articulate it the right way. Also, the more specific that you are, the more people can attach their dollars to a particular value. So make sure that if you do have a very specific cause, like if this event is going to remodel the bathrooms at the theater, then your donors need to know that.  

Elizabeth Alexander

Exactly. We’re always raising money just to help the theater program or secure licensing fees or anything like that. But for a fundraiser, you definitely want something specific. We actually do need to fix the bathrooms. But maybe your organization is in need of supplies to build a product for people. Let people know there’s a specific tangible thing their donations are going towards.

GENERAL REMINDER

Elizabeth Alexander

Next step is to keep people informed about the event with some general reminders. These might not be the most exciting posts you’ve ever put up in your life, but they are very important. These are things like a reminder of the dates, your ticket link, or your link to donate if people can’t make the event itself – that one is extra important. Make sure you provide a way for people to donate. You’re also maybe sharing your official campaign logo or a graphic you’ve put together. Maybe you change your profile picture to that graphic; just those consistent little updates that are going to keep it top of mind.

COUNTDOWN

Elizabeth Alexander

I love this type, particularly on Instagram where you can make it a little more fun visually. Let people know how far you are, how close, how excited you are that it’s getting close. On Instagram you can put a little story sticker up and it’ll count down. People can save it and/or share it and they get a reminder when it’s happening. Seeing a countdown timer is more exciting than just reading “we’re forty days out from…”  Wording can make a difference too; “We’re just over a month away!” sounds better.

Monica Pitts  

And the year-end CoMoGives campaign that Elizabeth helps us promote for our local nonprofits is a month-long giving campaign that’s powered by the Community Foundation of Central Missouri. Elizabeth does a lot of countdown posts for this. How far out do you start counting down? 

Elizabeth Alexander

I want to say we started official countdowns three months out, but I know we were doing periodic countdown updates six months out. And even now with the newsletter we’re sending out we’ve got a countdown to this year’s CoMoGives campaign.

USER-GENERATED CONTENT

Elizabeth Alexander

This is user-generated content. So in one way, it’s a lot nicer than maybe having to come up with the content yourself, because someone’s already writing it for you. Now you just have to hit the share button. But you do have to keep an eye out for it. 

So if you have a hashtag, you’ll want to check that at least once a week to see if anyone’s used it and posted some cool stuff you can share. If you have volunteers or staff who use these platforms who are talking about what you’re doing, but maybe not tagging you officially, you can ask to share it on your platforms. Very cool. It feels like it’s part of the community around you because other people are getting engaged in it too. And it’s not just you telling people about this. It’s bringing everyone together.

Monica Pitts

It’s social proof. It’s like a testimonial basically. Other people’s words make you look cooler than if you said those same words yourself. 

HASHTAG BASED

Elizabeth Alexander

I am a big fan of using hashtags where I can, so I like to use Twitter and Instagram a lot. This is a combination of hashtags if you have an established event that has its own hashtag to use. Or capitalizing on popular hashtag trends like your “Throwback Thursdays,” or your “Follow Friday” where you’re jumping on a trend that already exists and putting your name out there with it. 

Monica Pitts 

If your community has a hashtag, and you know that people are following it, you can piggyback on top of that. I hashtag “aerialist”, “aerial hammock”, “aerial hammock trick”, “Lira”, all these things, because I am basically a part time circus performer. I’m always following these hashtags. and I will find your posts if they are hashtagged.

Elizabeth Alexander

Yeah, and you once pointed out that the “Como” hashtag leads to a model instead of the city… So before you use a hashtag in any of your official posts, definitely click on it and see what other content it leads to out there because sometimes things get weird on the internet. If you’re new to the internet, things get weird out here.

THANK YOU

Elizabeth Alexander

Thank people, thank your donors, thank your sponsors, thank your staff, thank the people who attended, thank the people who donated but didn’t attend. People like to be appreciated, and you should show the appreciation that you feel for others who are helping you do the things you do. So this is one you can kind of sprinkle throughout your campaign, but especially towards the end, or as things are kind of winding down. This gives you a little extra content to keep the momentum going a little bit past when your event actually happens.

Monica Pitts 

And I do notice that reports, pictures of volunteers, volunteering and pictures of staff members working tend to do pretty well on Facebook. As Elizabeth mentioned earlier, Facebook has a thing for humans. But I think that people also just like seeing other people doing good things. 

I’ve seen a lot of great Thank you videos. They’re great. And it doesn’t have to be like just us sitting in front of a camera saying thank you. We did some fun ones for Como Kids where I stood on top of the chair and all local nonprofits came together and they yelled, “thank you.” 

Also, I was just recording a podcast earlier with Carol Bennis of Safe Kids Colorado. She described a post that was a little girl walking in front of the marketing person’s office on repeat, but just showed her feet. Because this little girl has a lot of stuff to work through. And so she runs laps around the center before she goes in and does her therapy session. It said “Thank you so much for your donations; they help these little feet,” you know, it was really, really sweet. It was an amazing post. 

But anyway, so just just think about these things that you see every single day that we’re all super grateful for. And those are the things that will do really well for you on social media. 

HIGHLIGHTS

Elizabeth Alexander

Now we’re gonna highlight the things we’re thanking the people for. So these are hitting benchmarks, or celebratory posts of any kind. This is a cool opportunity to use some quick video. I’m a big fan of Canva videos with maybe a little confetti explosion or something. Because as far as social media is concerned, that’s a video that’s going to get better play than anything else you’re going to post other than a live video. We’re just gonna use these to keep everyone up to date, celebrate the little victories, the big victories and just keep people excited. People get invested in how you’re doing and want you to succeed. So definitely let them know when you do.

Monica Pitts  

Every year for our CoMoGives goal, we make our posts with the thermometer or the speed dial to show our progress. It gets a lot of interaction from our users.

You can also let them know the outcomes. So X number of dollars donated means that not only are we X number of ways to our goal, but we can also do X, Y and Z. Now we can do the toilets, and the countertops. Help us with the cabinets and the mirrors and the floor.  

FEEDBACK

Elizabeth Alexander

All right, number 10 feedback. So let people tell you how they think things went. Don’t just tell them how you think it went, give them an opportunity to enter that conversation. So maybe you create a quick little Facebook poll and say how many who attended the event this year. And then have maybe a little celebratory icon or maybe a sad face if they didn’t.

Or you can create a survey for people to fill out and provide suggestions for next year. This is another way to keep that community engagement, that community involvement. Anytime on social you’re asking someone to respond in a specific way, you’re going to get great engagement on that. People want to answer a question if they feel like it’s something they’re invested in or it’s fun to click on the little poll and see where people voted. These posts are good for engagement, but also provide you some really good information.

SHARE FACEBOOK EVENT

Monica Pitts 

Elizabeth, tell me about when you should or should not set up a Facebook event for your fundraiser or event?

Elizabeth Alexander

I would recommend setting up a Facebook event almost every time. And just be careful; If it’s an in-person event, make sure you have an address. If it’s an online event, make sure you make that very clear to anyone who might be interested. We have definitely had online events for the theater where we forgot to mark that and people showed up at our building and no one was there. So keep an eye on that. Be super careful. 

Things that are annual and recurring are great candidates for a Facebook event because you can copy paste what you have done the year before and just make your adjustments. If it’s a month-long campaign, say like the CoMoGives campaign, we don’t necessarily set up a Facebook event for that because it’s this big, ongoing kind of ever-changing, fluctuating thing. So on that scale, maybe a Facebook event isn’t the right thing for you. But there are plenty of other ways you can promote it.

Monica Pitts

So if you’re having something like a virtual lemonade stand, and that’s your fundraiser theme, and it’s going to go for however many weeks, you don’t want to set up a Facebook event for it. But if you’re having a virtual pancake breakfast, and everybody is making pancakes on Saturday morning, this one morning, and that’s what it is, then you would set up an event for that. Am I right?

Elizabeth Alexander

Yeah. And even for an ongoing event, if you have an official kickoff for the event, maybe do a Facebook event for that. So people know, this is when it starts. Maybe you’re setting up a big kind of push for that first day. That could be a good way to kind of integrate the Facebook event for the bigger campaign.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Monica Pitts  

Okay, Elizabeth, any last thoughts? insights that you want to tell anybody about this whole social media promotion of events and fundraisers? 

Elizabeth Alexander 

I would say if you get stuck on what to post, think about what makes you excited about what you’re doing and share that. People will relate to that and they’ll connect with that. So if you know you need to put out a highlight today but don’t know what to do, just think for a moment about what makes you excited, what raises your spirits, what keeps you doing what you’re doing and roll with that.

Monica Pitts 

And every time that we have these conversations, I think to myself, Oh, man, last week XYZ happened. And we really should have captured that and we didn’t. So I definitely know that it is so much easier to do this stuff if you have a checklist, which is going to bring me back to that video guide. 

So friends, if you want to get example posts, copy and paste recipes for these posts, if you want a checklist for each one, and you want to have an actual calendar-like setup of when you would post them, go here: https://mayecreate.com/10-social-posts-every-fundraiser-event-needs 

And you can download this awesome thing.