Soapbox Engage Blog

Giving days have risen in popularity and effectiveness in recent years. As I’m sure you guessed, the most popular giving day is #GivingTuesday. By now, most nonprofits and charities have some kind of Giving Tuesday plan and strategy. Still, there’s always room for a bit of growth and improvement.

Social media can be an excellent way to reach new audiences and raise awareness about your cause on Giving Tuesday. After all, giving days are practically designed for social media campaigns. But there’s a lot of “noise” as everyone is vying for attention around that day.

Have no fear! We’ve rounded up some tips and tricks to help you boost your #GivingTuesday social media campaign so you can enjoy greater engagement and more donations.

Table of Contents

1. Start early and plan ahead
2. Prime your followers with impact metrics
3. Pin your #GivingTuesday announcement
4. Use visual social media posts
5. Transparent #GivingTuesday donation process
6. 5 critical #GivingTuesday social media posts
7. Use #GivingTuesday hashtags

1. Start early and plan ahead

Giving day experts recommend that savvy fundraising teams start at least two weeks out, priming the pump and getting their audience excited for all the #GivingTuesday festivities. But, two weeks out is really the absolute latest you’ll want to start preparing your social media posts and strategies. Earlier is much better.

Planning ahead gives you plenty of time to educate your followers about giving days and your specific goals.

By “plan ahead,” we actually mean start creating each social media post--especially the ones you’ll use in the days leading up to #GivingTuesday. It might seem like a pain now. Trust us… you’ll appreciate just having to “copy, paste, and post” when #GivingTuesday craziness kick into high gear.

2. Prime your followers to give by sharing donor impact metrics

Impact metrics are a way of showing what each dollar will accomplish. So, if your goal is to raise $45,000 to buy school lunches for food-insecure students, how much will each lunch cost (including your overhead, food costs, etc.)?

Create some social media posts that have visual representations of what each donation will accomplish. For example, if each school lunch costs $5, create some social media posts that tell your donors that just $25 will feed a student for a week! You get the idea.

An excellent “next step” is to put these impact metrics on your custom #GivingTuesday donation page. You might even create suggested giving tiers to help donors feed a child for a day, a week, a month, or a year!

Sharing exactly what a donation can accomplish will inspire your followers to participate. It also provides a real-world understanding of what your nonprofit does with each financial gift. Unfortunately, many organizations don’t explain these valuable donor impact metrics.

Clarifying exactly how you plan to use the money you raise on #GivingTuesday also helps make your nonprofit more trustworthy.

3. Pin your #GivingTuesday announcement at the top of your social media pages

Pinning a post to the top of your Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn pages helps ensure visitors don’t miss critical announcements and details about the upcoming fundraising extravaganza.

This simple step is small but can make a significant impact. Social media is a fast-paced environment, and even the most loyal followers can easily miss one or two posts. Write your announcement post and pin it to the top of your social media pages in advance to give your audience plenty of time to get all the information.

Pro tip: don’t forget to remove your pinned announcement post before #GivingTuesday!

4. Visual social media posts perform better than status or link posts

Your nonprofit probably uses social media to reach a big audience and draw viewers in so they like, comment, share, visit your website, or (most importantly) and make a donation!

Studies reveal that visual posts with images or video perform better than status posts or posts with links. As you’re planning your #GivingTuesday social media posts, consider giving extra attention to creating posts with:

• Infographics that show compelling stats
• Photos of beneficiaries
• Videos and pictures of volunteers or events and projects
• Impact videos

Another clever way to add some entertaining video is to do some live virtual events throughout the day with staff, influencers, celebrities, or other people your audience will appreciate seeing on your feed!

Having this content prepped and ready to go will reduce stress and pressure when #GivingTuesday actually rolls around and you’re trying to keep up with everything.

5. Don’t forget to tell people how to donate to your #GivingTuesday campaign

This one may seem painfully obvious, but you might be surprised how many #GivingTuesday social media posts don’t include instructions on how to donate! You probably find it easy and intuitive to navigate your website or donation pages but, you don’t want to leave new donors guessing!

Make it as easy as possible to donate by giving a direct link to your custom donation page. Some nonprofits go one step further and offer text-to-donate options as well.

6. Include these 5 critical social media posts in your #GivingTuesday campaign

#GivingTuesday is one of those days where “more is better” is definitely the rule of thumb. With all the noise on practically every platform, your followers will likely only see a few of your posts throughout the day. But, there are four critical posts you’ll definitely want to make sure you share:

• A “day-before soft ask”: Remind your followers that tomorrow is #GivingTuesday and update them on any matching gift opportunities. If you’re planning any live events, be sure and remind them of these opportunities as well. Share a link to your donation page and gently prompt them that early gifts are much appreciated.
• Morning post with giving instructions: Start the day with an engaging, visual post that includes online giving instructions and links to your donation page.
• An afternoon update: Share a progress report sometime midday to alert donors about where you are in relation to your fundraising goals. Highlight matching gift opportunities that might be remaining.
• A “last chance” post: As #GivingTuesday winds down, post a “last chance” message with details about how close you are to your goal. The objective is to gently prompt those last few donors to make a gift before the end of the day.
• A “final results” post: Whether you hit your fundraising targets or not, your donors want to know the final results of your #GivingTuesday campaigns (and their generosity). When everything is tallied, share a massive thank you post with some specifics about what you accomplished! If you’re savvy with infographics, this could be a great place to put those creative juices to work! Don’t just tell your donors you raised $40,000… highlight how many school lunches that amount will purchase!

Be sure to sprinkle in lots of visuals, graphics, videos, and live events to keep things entertaining and engaging. Highlight the story of your nonprofit and focus on things that will help donors feel emotionally connected to your organization and your cause.

7. Use #GivingTuesday hashtags… but not too many!

Hashtags are like salt--the right amount enhances the dish but too much just ruins everything. Using a few hashtags related to your cause can help you get found on #GivingTuesday since posts with hashtags tend to attract more engagement than posts without.

It can be hard to know the exact right balance of hashtags. Too many hashtags just look spammy, and engagement tends to drop off.

One rule of thumb is to include one or two related to your cause, one specifically for your organization, and one #GivingTuesday hashtag.

You can skip the variations and stick to one key hashtag. For example, including several variations of #GivingTuesday really isn’t necessary, so cut the #GivingTuesday2021, etc., and stick with the primary hashtag.

One way to save time is to use the free tool over at Best-Hashtags to find new hashtags related to your specific cause or mission.

Incorporating these seven strategies and tips into your #GivingTuesday social media campaign can help boost donations and audience engagement. Remember, both of those are really valuable. Even if someone doesn’t give to your giving day campaign, helping them get to know, like, and trust your nonprofit is a valuable part of the process of leading followers to become financial supporters.

Now that you’re primed and ready for #GivingTuesday social media success, here are three more resources to help boost your fundraising strategies.

• Fundraising Lessons From 2020, Plus Fundraising Trends to Watch in 2021: If 2020 taught us anything, it’s that we can’t really predict the future, but we can rise up, get scrappy, and overcome incredible challenges. Some of the fundraising strategies that became popular during the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to stick around--or at least influence virtual fundraising going forward. Head over to this blog to glean some lessons from 2020 and learn what trends or strategies you might want to hold onto going forward.
• 6 Tips for Facebook Live Virtual Fundraising: Facebook can be a great tool, especially on giving days like #GivingTuesday! Practically everyone you know is probably on Facebook. Facebook Live is a great way to host live events on #GivingTuesday (and throughout the year) to boost your storytelling, update your donors in real-time, and stand out from the crowd! This blog has some great tips and tricks to help you get started with Facebook Live!
• Email Marketing Tools for Nonprofit Success: Email remains a popular marketing and communication strategy for nonprofits and businesses. But how is an organization to choose the right email marketing tool or software to maximize its potential? There are too many options to choose from. This quick guide will help you find the best email marketing tool for your nonprofit’s unique needs and wants.