How to Maximize your Social Media Presence

Content, algorithms, SEO, backlinks...let's get to the bottom of it!

Social media is one of the fastest and easiest ways to:  

• Engage your supporters  
• Mobilize volunteers  
• Issue calls to action  
• Extend your reach
• Showcase your successes  

If your audience cannot find you online, they cannot donate, volunteer, or support you.  Our steps will help you form a comprehensive social media strategy to maximize your online presence.  

Our steps will help you form a comprehensive social media strategy to effectively leverage your social media channels to generate more ticket sales. 

Step 1. Determine your social media goals

• What is social media's role in promoting your raffle?

• What do you want to accomplish using social media?

• How will you measure your social media progress?

Step 2. Determine your target audience

It is important to establish whose interest you are looking to capture, as this will set the tone for your strategy and your content. Who is going to support your raffle and how will you capture their attention? 

Step 3. Determine other organizations in your space

Take a look at our available case studies and past raffles to find an organization similar to yours. Observe how they leveraged their social media channels and look for tactics to apply in your own strategy.

Step 4. Choose your channels

Every social media platform has its strengths and target demographics. Establish where your audience is and which platform(s) will yield the highest ticket sales.

Facebook: It allows people to connect with each other to share ideas, activities, pictures, videos, links, and more. People can leave feedback on what's shared by liking and making comments.

Twitter: A social media network that consists mainly of its users broadcasting short messages. These messages are primarily text-based and allow up to 280 characters (letters, numbers, punctuation, or spaces) per tweet. These may include ideas, opinions, pictures, links, and hashtags.

Instagram: With a shift in visual content, Instagram has flooded with over 700 million users. It enables you to share photos, short videos, stories, and live updates with your followers.

If you are a niche organization, consider branching out to YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and any other platform your audience may be using.

Step 5. Determine social media tactics for each channel

After determining which social media channels you are using, it is important to understand the strengths of each channel in order to maximize your impact. 

Facebook: Utilize Facebook live, photo albums, videos, and event pages. Set a cover photo with your raffle banner and attach the link to your raffle page. Post about your raffle and pin it to the top of your page and consider utilizing ad functions to boost posts. 

Twitter: Use 'hashtags' to join conversations, 'Re-Tweet' and 'Like', 'Mention' to engage with followers directly, and link to other content which promotes your raffle or cause. Upload a cover image pertaining to your raffle, pin the raffle link to the top of your feed, and add the link in your biography. 

Instagram: Post high-quality images in your feed and utilize the popular 'story' functions. This is a good way to update your followers with the growing pot size and approaching deadlines. Add the raffle link to your bio and refer people to each promotional post. Use strong visuals to convey your message and pair it with captivating captions. The use of hashtags and locations will help raise your discoverability, and ad functions can spread your reach even further. 

Step 6. Create a content strategy

Your content strategy will consist of; type of content, time of posting, and frequency of posts. The type of content posted on each social media platform will then be determined by the form and context, whether it is text, image, links, video, etc..

It is important to use creativity when putting together your content strategy; plan for a range of posts to showcase the raffle, ways to purchase, and determine how to build excitement for the growing jackpot. Whether you have prepared graphics, planned photo ops, or want to post gifs for each milestone, make it all part of the plan. 

What:

• Determine how you will generate your own content pertaining to the raffle

• Plan to create a variety of content to avoid repeating posts

• Develop content categories that you can cycle through for consistency 

When:

• Analyze the peak times of social media users in order to get in front of them

• Create a social media content calendar to help plan posts in advance

• Consider using apps like 'buffer' or 'later' to schedule posts ahead of time

How Much:

• Post consistently without spamming your supporters, ensure they are informed but not overwhelmed with raffle updates

• Just because you are running a raffle, does not mean you stop posting about anything else. You must continue to entertain and educate your base, not just to drive ticket sales. 

Step 7. Execute

Go out and have fun with it! Social media is there for you to connect and interact with persons you wouldn't have been able to engage with otherwise. Help your supporters stay engaged with your cause and make it easy for them to donate through your raffle. 

Step 8. Review

Keep in mind that social media is a long-term commitment and it may be difficult to gain recognition for your raffle immediately. Many of the social media channels have analytics to observe these trends, providing you with information of impressions, reach, and engagement of users. This review process will help you to adjust your strategy accordingly.

Step 9. Get us involved

The Funding Change marketing team is happy to help you along the way. If you would like more eyes to see your posts, tag us! We can share your content and work to promote your online raffle through our social media channels. If you would like a featured blog post or photos to share, get in touch with our marketing staff. 

If you need any further consultation, we would be happy to help.