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3 Free Things Your Non-Profit Should be Doing on Facebook Right Now

October 25, 2018

Facebook remains a tool of paramount importance in the digital marketing world and looks set to remain this way for a while. For this reason, every non-profit is using the channel and it’s more important than ever to stay ahead of the game. As no-profits can have very tight budgets, here are three cost-free ways for your charity to use Facebook more efficiently. 

1. Schedule Facebook posts better

One of the top questions I get asked when speaking about high performance Facebook pages or campaigns is “When should we post?” The answer is far simpler than you think: “When can you monitor that post and interact with people?”

Social media is supposed to be social. Facebook algorithms will favour those that are liking and replying to other people’s comments, questions and reactions. I like to post right when I arrive at work, or schedule something a little before then that I can check during my commute, then take the time to reply when I arrive. Then I like to make another post in the afternoon that gives me at least a couple of hours to monitor. At the time of writing this, Facebook is favouring 2-3 posts per day if they are monitored, but that could change tomorrow – they are constantly updating the algorithm! 

2. Invite your ‘likers’ to follow your Facebook page

I am baffled by how many people don’t know about this feature. This is something you can only do through Business Manager, but for best results you should have that set up already. Click on the ‘X people have liked this’ link and you will see that you can invite those people to follow your page – an important part of growth. This is especially important to do if you have boosted a post or are running adsas those are being seen by more people outside your general following.

3. Use the four A’s of Facebook post types

Who doesn’t love a good Venn diagram?! Ask, advocate, acknowledge, algorithm – this is what a balanced Facebook content calendar looks like. A third of your content should be asks – donate, sign up, read this etc. Another third should be advocacy for your cause, and the other should be acknowledge your supporters and audience for their contributions. All of these should fall under what is working in the algorithm. None are mutually exclusive; you will almost always have cross over. 

To summarize: