Tuesday Tip - Non-Profits, Highlight Your Events

Non-profits are often reliant on member or local participation. Whether it is a community event or a fundraiser, non-profits need more people involved to help spread their message, push their cause or reach their goals. Leveraging social media and online communications is ideal for non-profits who have tight budgets and need to reach larger amounts of people.

Get Better Event Participation

It is important to communicate your events in every aspect of your online presence. Add a full calendar to your Facebook Page and to your website, clearly displaying all your events. Publish reminders about your upcoming events to social media so your followers know what is going on.

You want to remind people about what you have going on and send them easy information on getting involved. Include links in your social messages that send people to your Facebook or website calendar. Add a link to a registration page or even provide a phone number. Make it as clear and easy to get involved as possible.

Encourage Sharing - Multiply Your Reach

You will also want to encourage sharing of your information. This can help multiply the number of participants and drive more traffic to your events.

• Describe the need or mission. This can appeal to different types of people. Telling them your story and what you are trying to accomplish can help motivate.
• Ask people to share. Send messages like "Hey everyone! We are trying to get more participants for our fundraiser tomorrow. Please retweet and share this."
• Share past stories, photos and videos. It is important to show that other people are involved. Sharing testimonials, photos of people in action and videos can help encourage others to get involved or share your information.

Track your Views

Pay attention to what events are being viewed most on your calendar or from social media. If you have an event getting a lot of views but real world participation is lacking, you may need to modify your call to action or how you have presented the event. Once you start seeing what is working and not working, you can optimize your plan to maximize your follower participation.