How to Stand Out This Giving Tuesday

Giving Tuesday, often stylized as #GivingTuesday on social media, is coming up. While Giving Tuesday’s mission has stayed the same since its inception in 2012 — setting aside a day that’s all about celebrating the generosity of giving — the ways nonprofits promote it has changed.

If you’ve read the Nonprofit Marketing Manifesto, you know that having a one-off mindset in your marketing won’t drive long-term, sustainable success for your nonprofit. That’s why it’s important to take an integrated approach to both your ongoing marketing efforts, and specific campaigns like Giving Tuesday.

Is your nonprofit doing enough to stand out from hundreds of others this Giving Tuesday? Here’s what you can do to make sure.

Audit your social media channels.

Giving Tuesday is largely promoted on social media, and platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have changed significantly within the last couple of months, let alone the last few years. Every social media channel has experienced shifts in its primary audience demographics, and people use each channel for different reasons today than in the past. For example, Instagram is now more than a photo-sharing platform — organizations have taken the app by storm as a place to share stories with various calls to action. Now, you can directly link to your website and other content through Instagram Stories, promote an event in real-time with Instagram Live and more.

As Giving Tuesday approaches, do a quick audit of your social media channels to ensure you’re promoting the most relevant content on each platform. You may find your audiences respond to different types of content — videos, stories or direct calls to action — differently on each channel.

Leverage social media ads.

The goal of Giving Tuesday is to drive donations for your nonprofit. While building initial awareness of your cause through organic posts is crucial for making your Giving Tuesday campaign a success, simply updating your cover photo likely won’t be enough to draw your followers in. To truly stand out from the crowd, you’ll have to invest in advertising.

Not only does advertising allow you to reach more people, it also gives you more control over who sees your content. Your organic posts may not be reaching your target audience, or they could be getting lost in people’s newsfeeds. Facebook advertising in particular should be a major focus of your campaign as it provides more options to drive people to your donate page than any other channel. If your organization is working with an ongoing social media advertising budget, or if you’re currently in the throes of an end-of-year fundraising campaign, consider devoting a large percentage of that budget to Giving Tuesday promotions on Facebook.

Find and share your organization’s best stories.

If you present your Giving Tuesday campaign solely as a direct call to action for donations, your followers will likely lose interest. Leading up to Giving Tuesday, share engaging content, like a video featuring what your nonprofit does or a beneficiary’s story.

When sharing stories, remember to think beyond social media, too. Use the same videos you would on social media in emails to ensure your audiences are getting consistent, frequent messages. You may even consider devoting a page of your website to your Giving Tuesday campaign, or including a Giving Tuesday popup call to action on your homepage.

Consider offering a donation match.

To truly stand out from the flood of Giving Tuesday messages hitting your audiences’ social media feeds and inboxes, consider matching donations up to a certain amount. Donors are more likely to give to your cause if they know their gift is going further –– at no additional cost to them.

You can do this either with a corporate partner, or through a generous board member or major donor. If you don’t have time to consider this type of effort this year, you can always implement it in the future.

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Commit to marketing beyond Giving Tuesday.

If you feel Giving Tuesday has snuck up on you or you could have given more thought or strategy to your campaign this year, don’t fret. There are plenty of opportunities to raise awareness for your cause throughout the year, especially if you view marketing as an ongoing effort that contributes to your organization’s long-term success. If you truly want to commit to and invest in marketing this upcoming year, the Nonprofit Marketing Manifesto should be your go-to guide.