The Nonprofit Facebook Guy

Using your Facebook Page to effectively engage your supporters

Between my work with small nonprofits, webinars I conduct with Charityhow, and conferences I attend, I’ve heard hundreds of creative approaches to using Facebook to create awareness and raise donations (thank you for teaching me).

I’ve also gotten to know the most common mistakes:

Using a profile instead of a Page, selecting the wrong Page category. These mistakes are technical – and can be easily corrected.

But the biggest mistake – and the most common cause for a stale Facebook Page – usually lies in how an org perceives their Facebook Page.

Destination vs. Discussion

If you’ve taken the time to build an impressive looking Facebook Page, but still have very little fan growth or engagement, ask yourself:

1. From a tactical perspective, are we using our Page merely as a place to post news about our organization?
2. Has most of our Facebook research been about user demographics or about the Facebook communities that care about our cause?
3. Is our primary goal fan acquisition or fan engagement?
4. Have we spent an extraordinary amount of time, focus and money on Facebook Page technology instead of coming up with creative ways to conduct dialogue with our fans?

You’ve gotten this far on Facebook…

But are you doing it all wrong?