When you create personas, you can boost your effectiveness by tailoring your social media plan. By identifying different personas to reflect the various audiences you are trying to reach, you can target which social media platform to target for each persona. For instance, you will have a different campaign for a young woman on Instagram than you will have for a baby boomer who is on Facebook.
As a marketer, you have a challenge knowing much about your best supporters. What you know about them is limited. You don't know what they like on Netflix. One way to learn more about your best donors is to create a segmented file and load it up on Facebook. As an example, you could load up your monthly donors this way. Facebook will allow you to target a similar group based on a group who already likes you and is nice and warm. This method is a lot easier than going to the a big mall and shouting at people "Do you like my cause?" as a way to acquire monthly donors.
Some people lose sight of the fact that the rules about marketing apply equally to social media. This means that any vendor you use should have conversion tracking for you, even if a third party website is involved. You need to know how you acquired each donor just like you do using other channels like direct mail or email. In both email and direct mail, you expect to know the source of the donor name and the same rules apply to names acquired using social media.
While you want to have the same expectations from vendors about sources, of names, you also want to take advantage of testing. One benefit of using personas on social media is that you can test stories that match your audience before you spend a lot of money on print. A strong rule of thumb is less talking, more images and keep testing. Because of the low cost, you can experiment on your own. A digital agency can help you but you don't need to go to an expert to play around with digital and test new ideas. Just like direct mail, you can do A/B testing and, even better, can pre-test before you move to using print.
Social media is particularly well suited to analytics and tracking. Whether you are testing a new story, a new audience or a new channel, think proactively about your goals and keep an eye on how you are trending. Just all all testing in fundraising, your goal is not just about conversion and analytics, it's also about what are the best sources for donors and what resonates with them.
Social media also lends itself to affordable advertising. In thinking about paying for ads, test the smaller, cheaper methods first. Don't rule out paying more especially if you are able to acquire donors who will help you acquire other donors. While careful to watch your funds, make sure you always have a mobile-friendly call to action. The majority of your audience is on a smart phone and you are wasting your money on your campaign if your effort is not optimized for mobile.
Bear in mind, that the money you spend on ads may not have to be your own. Since corporations are generally giving to you out of their marketing budget, it is smart to build an ad spend into your corporate sponsorship asks. Better yet, corporations already have a strong social spend and they may be able to divert some corporate resources to help you with a great infographic, great strategy, even share some of their ad spend.
By setting up personas and testing them, you can develop a robust marketing program that is surprisingly affordable. By being strategic, you can develop deeper relationships with donors.
