Social media is something that can help garner attention for something or someone very quickly. The ability for something to go viral or get picked up by a major news outlet is always a possibility. For these reasons and many more, charities are getting into the social media game and yielding incredible results.
Viral Content Is Worth Its Weight In Gold
There was no lack of awareness of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, this spread throughout social media like a wildfire and stayed for quite some time. This tapped into social media by challenging the participants to also challenge their friends. By the end of the challenge, there was over $100 million raised for the research of ALS. Genders tend to differ on their social media preferences when it comes to sharing on social media versus actually donating.
The campaign #NoMakeUpSelfie is a great example of how a campaign for good can go viral in an organic fashion. The campaign raised 8 million pounds in a matter of 6 days in March. This money goes to cancer research and led to donations to many different groups that had to do with cancer research. Famous women including Beyoncé and Rihanna took part in this as well. This campaign was targeted in the perfect fashion as females under the age of 40 take more selfies than men according to a study CNN covered. The fact that celebrities took part also helped it snowball into a great success!
According to On Stride Financial, 56% of males tweet about causes and charities versus 44% of females. When it comes down to the actual donations, 27% of males versus 73% of females tweeted that they had donated. These stats were gathered from the UK.
Cost Effective Way of Marketing and Giving
Social media is far less costly than other forms of media and as charities are trying to save the most money for their cause, this becomes paramount. It doesn’t cost anything to send out a tweet or post an article on a timeline and this is giving charities ways of marketing their cause without cost. There are so many different outlets that also allow you to pay a charity while online whether it is Paypal or the popular charitable awareness platform JustGiving. In the past, giving could require you to mail a check or attain a money order but now giving is just a few mouse clicks or swipes of a phone away. The reach spans across countries as quickly as the push of the button as well which allows a much greater audience to be impacted than print or television promotion/marketing.
Allowing Engagement Is Important
Engaging with supporters is a great way to receive more donations, this is why somebody should respond to every kind message. Donors like to be engaged and engagement also keeps your conversation in the feeds of other social media users which can lead to their joining of the conversation. Celebrity involvement is a great way to engage supporters and spread the word of your charity. The Ice Bucket Challenge by certain celebrities were watched by many and even encouraged a few to do it without being nominated!
The Numbers
As was stated earlier, the ALS Ice Bucket challenge made over $100 million this year for ALS research. Movember is the growing of moustaches during November to make people aware of men’s health issues and male cancers. Movember has raised $559 million to date globally with over 1 million people participating around the world. The media coverage is incredible on the viral charity movements, there is global as well as local coverage. Being able to turn on the news or pick up a newspaper/read your news website without seeing a charity campaign that has caught fire becomes impossible.
As you can see, social media as a tool for charities lacks very little. The costs are low and the reach massive which is a perfect scenario for a charity. So share, tweet, pin, and engage with your favorite charities as you can help them without even knowing it!
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