Facebook can be a very powerful tool for nonprofit organizations. It provides a platform to not only tell your organization's story, but also to engage with your patrons.
When your desired outcome is tied to a specific deliverable such as a ticket sale, donation, or event RSVP, there are a few things you can do to optimize your posts.
1. Keep Your Post Copy Short
Our instinct is usually to try and put all of the applicable information about a particular event into the body of a Facebook post. Resist that urge! As readers scroll through their feed, shorter messages have more of a chance of being read than longer ones. Try to keep your posts to 3-4 lines of text including your URL.
2. Natively Upload A Photo Or Video
Be sure to natively upload a photo or video with each of your posts. This means clicking on the photo icon at the bottom of the post and uploading the media directly from your computer. Typically, people tend to engage with images and videos so you will get more traction out of a post that includes them.
3. Include Tags
Remember to tag everyone and everything that is applicable in the body of your post. Tagging will increase your reach as well as provide an opportunity for engagement.
4. Add A URL
Ultimately, you want people to take an action after they read your Facebook post. Add a URL that links to additional information (on your website is best) related to your post. Not only will people move over to your website, but the act of clicking on the link counts as a Facebook engagement as well.
Pro Tip: If your URL is quite long, use a shortener like Bitly to make it more manageable.
