Facebook is a giant in the social media space; a giant who is getting bigger and bigger by the day. Their official site says in June 2016 there were more than 1.03 billion mobile daily-active users on Facebook! With a billion people using their mobile app everyday, there is a high chance of finding a group of people who might relate to your cause, support your nonprofit and get involved in your campaigns.
With a well-optimised Facebook page, you can fulfil most of your nonprofit social media marketing objectives:
- You can build awareness for your cause
- You can raise funds for your nonprofit
- You can recruit more volunteers
- You can tell your story & communicate your vision to a wide audience
- You can build a global following
- You can be an influencer in your space
- You can gather support for the issues you like to highlight
- You can connect with more like-minded people who can help you grow so that you can help more people
But first you need to lay the foundation of setting up your Facebook page right.
10-Point Checklist for Your Nonprofit Facebook Page Settings
Checklist #1 – Is your ‘Page Info’ section well-optimized?
Visit the Page Info section once in few weeks and ensure that all the details like Category, Sub Category, Long Description, Short Description and your Contact Information are up to date. These are important details that could impact the way you show up on search results within Facebook, and it will also influence a new visitor who is checking out your page for the first time.
How to access this feature, as an admin?
- Go to your ‘Page’ menu
- Click on the ‘About’ tab on the left side of your Facebook Page
- Click on the ‘Page Info’ sub tab
- Click on the ‘Edit Page Info’ button
Checklist #2 – Is your Call-To-Action button ready?
One of the recent changes from Facebook includes a bigger call-to-action (CTA) button. Using this button, you can get your Facebook visitors to give you a call, sign up for your newsletter, send you an instant message or visit your website. As a nonprofit, you have a special provision of adding a ‘donate’ button in this section, making it easier for people to support you financially (as of now this feature is available only to US-based 501(c)(3) nonprofits. If you fulfill the criteria, click here to learn more about how to get the button for your page).
I suggest you change this button based on your marketing calendar or the campaign calendar. For example: If you have a special video that you like people to watch, you can have a Watch Video CTA button.
How to access this feature, as an admin?
- Right below your cover pic, on the right side you will find the big CTA button
- Hover over it and you will see options to edit, test, delete, etc.
Checklist #3 – Do you have the right tabs in place?
In August 2016, Facebook changed the layout of the business pages and gave a lot of importance to the tab section in its redesign. The tabs are now lined up on the left side of the page, almost like the sidebar menus on a website, and now they have higher visibility than they used to have. Click on ‘Manage Tabs’ and you will have the option to add or remove tabs. If you have a technical team, they can visit this developer page on Facebook and learn how to develop custom tabs for a specific objective.
How to access this feature, as an admin?
- Tabs are on the left side of the page
- You can click on the ‘Manage Tab’ link to edit them
Checklist #4 – Have you given access to the right people?
Giving access to the right people within the organisation (or even volunteers) can help you delegate various tasks like content creation, posting and engagement, etc., to different people, keeping your page active and responsive at all times. But ensure that all posts and activities are aligned with your policies, by creating a social media policy guideline before you get volunteers involved in replying to comments, posting, etc. You can have 5 different roles starting from Analysts who can only view insights to Admins who have all super powers. Check out the table below to learn more about the roles and give required permission to the right people.
How to access this feature, as an admin?
- Click on ‘Settings’ in the top right corner of the main page
- You will see ‘Page Roles’ tab on the left, click on it to give access
Checklist #5 – Do you check your Insights regularly?
Measurement is especially important in social media because you need to fine tune your content, approach and strategy based on the evolving needs of your audience. Develop a culture of checking key metrics regularly on your Facebook page. Include the data from Insights in all your marketing strategy meetings and take decisions based on how your past campaigns performed, the type of content that worked well, etc. There are many parameters in insights that can help you as a nonprofit, for example, the engagement numbers will show you how each post is performing and which type of post resonates well with your audience.
Checklist #6 – Are you responding to your audience quickly?
Social media is all about instant response. Facebook will now reward you with a ‘Very Responsive to Message’ badge, if you have responded to 90% of the messages from your visitors within 15 mins of receiving them, in the last 7 days. Even though having the badge need not be a priority on your Facebook marketing plans, being responsive should definitely be. With or without the badge from Facebook, you should evolve a culture of responding quickly to your audience. One of the practical ways of doing this is by asking your page admins to keep their ‘notifications on’ in their Facebook Pages mobile app.
Checklist #7 – Are you making full use of the Publishing Tools?
In the admin section, you should see a Publishing Tools section on top of your page. This tab gives you publishing options for posts, videos and ads. Facebook has created this section to be the one-stop destination for the content that you publish on your page – drafts, scheduled content, published content, etc. The video section has a + LIVE button which will give you useful information on how to start a Live Video from your laptop or desktop, do check it out.
Checklist #8 – Have you optimised your General Settings?
If you click on the settings cog wheel on your page, you will get to the general tab. Check and review each section of this tab, since these settings determine the way in which your page works. For example: You can control the interaction levels with your audience by setting your Profanity Filter to strong or medium (or off) based on your page objectives. You can even exclude certain words that you do not like to appear on your page content by adding them to the Page Moderation section. So, double check each option and ensure they are just the way you like them to be.
Checklist #9 – Have you set your featured pages and featured page owners?
Facebook gives you the option to pick 5 Facebook pages that you have liked (as a page), and feature them for your visitors. You will find this section in the settings tab. This is useful if you are partnering with another organisation or an influencer. You could also add this feature in your donation pitch to companies as one of the benefits for your nonprofit sponsors.
In this section, you can add a featured owner whose personal information will be publicly displayed in the About section of your page. The page will also appear in the personal profile of the owner. This is especially useful if you like to add the credibility of a particular person to your page. For example: If you are church, your senior pastor may have a high credibility, adding his profile in the featured owner section might increase the visibility and traffic for your church page.
How to access this feature, as an admin?
- Click on ‘Settings’ in the top right corner of the main page
- You will see ‘Featured’ tab on the left, click on it to set featured owners and pages
Checklist #10 – Are you crossposting your videos on other pages?
Videos are one of the most important types of content today. Facebook allows you to crosspost your videos to other pages. You will find the Crossposting section in the settings tab. You can establish a crossposting relationship with another page. After the two pages add each other in the crossposting section, videos can be crossposted on each others page. This will help you save time if you have multiple pages within your organisation or if you are working with other partners who are happy to share your content.
How to access this feature, as an admin?
- Click on ‘Settings’ in the top right corner of the main page
- You will see the ‘Crossposting’ tab on the left, click on it to set crossposting pages
Facebook is one of the most innovative social media channels today. Almost every other day we see a new feature being launched and this is one of the reasons why the platform is experiencing such an unprecedented growth. Having your presence well established on this platform can help your nonprofit in many ways. So keep track of the new trends and make suitable changes to your Facebook page on an ongoing basis. All the very best for your Facebook marketing efforts.
Do you have any specific area which is challenging for your nonprofit Facebook marketing efforts? Let us know in the comments section and I can try to help you. If you have any specific questions, share it in the comments section and I am happy to answer them for you.
