We know it can sometimes feel impossible to drive that cut-through, and your organisation deserves to be heard. That’s where we can help. Knowing how to increase social media engagement to drive brand exposure for charity and the third sector is highly effective when done strategically. Throughout this article, we will be sharing our top tips with you for driving social media engagement for charity and third-sector organisations.
How to Increase Social Media Engagement
Craft Compelling Narratives
An important tactic for any brand posting on social media is storytelling. This is no different for the charity sector. Powerful storytelling cultivates empathy and understanding, which, therefore, can lead to action.
A compelling narrative appeals to our senses and emotions, drawing our attention more easily—leaving an impact on us as audiences. This is exactly what you want to achieve to drive brand exposure and higher engagement on social media. Sharing compelling stories about the people or communities you serve with personal stories can evoke emotions and drive engagement.
Fostering connections and driving engagement with the audience is an imperative part of a solid communications strategy in order to ensure your narrative creates an impact and drives desired results.
Leveraging Social Media
So, you have a compelling narrative—but how do you leverage your captivating storyline with social media? There are many ways you can do this, such as:
- Knowing Your Target Audience: Identify your target demographic and understand where they spend their time online so you can choose the most relevant social media platforms to execute your content on.
- Visual Content: Use high-quality images and videos. The algorithm favours video content, which tends to attract more attention and is often more shareable.
- User-Generated Content: Encourage supporters to share their own stories or photos related to your cause. This can help build a sense of community and authenticity.
- Educational Content: Share informative posts about the issues your charity or third-party organisation addresses. Infographics, case studies, key stats, and how-to guides can be very effective.
Ultimately, it all comes down to you having an effective social media strategy that works and drives meaningful engagement—that’s where our trusted team of social media specialists at Wild Card can help.
Partner with Influencers and Advocates
Another way that you can drive social media engagement is by leveraging influencers and advocates. By collaborating with influencers who align with your cause, they can help amplify your message to a broader audience.
With a robust influencer strategy, you can tap into influencers that align with your brand values and, most importantly, resonate with your target audience. A key advantage of working with influencers is the ability to foster genuine connections without feeling intrusive or overly promotional. Influencers have built their audience on trust and authenticity – which means they have a strong platform for charities and the third sector to leverage to help deliver their message with an impact.
You can also look to partner with businesses that share your content or run joint campaigns together to further raise brand awareness and drive social media engagement.
Cultivating a Strong Online Presence
As a charity and third-sector organisation, you must build and maintain a robust online presence to help you achieve a high level of social media engagement. See a few top tips for how charities can do this themselves and with the help of a PR and social media agency like us.
- Regular Posting: Maintain a consistent posting schedule to keep your audience engaged. This well-thought-out content calendar should include a variety of content formats and themes, with the aim of capturing your target audience’s attention and driving desired results.
- Brand Voice: Ensure that your brand voice and messaging are consistent across all posts and platforms—this is key for building your brand identity online.
- Targeted Ads: Use paid social media advertising to target specific demographics, interests, and behaviours, to ensure your content is reaching the people you want it to and driving towards key objectives with tangible results.
- Boosted Posts: Increase the reach of important posts by boosting them to a wider audience to get more eyes on your content and drive more brand exposure.
Fostering Community Engagement
For a charity to truly thrive on social media, it is important to have a vibrant and engaged community. In order to get to this point, there are a series of actions an organisation or brand can take on social media to ensure the community feels seen and heard, and prompt followers to join in, engage and share their opinions.
From interactive content tactics to social media features that encourage collaboration, there are plenty of ways you can foster a community via social media. At Wild Card, we have thorough experience in creating social media strategies that maximise community engagement.
The key to fostering a community? Engage, engage, engage. Here are some top tips to drive community engagement:
- Respond to Comments: Community management is a powerful tool for building brand personality and consumer trust, which can ultimately lead to increased awareness and more action. Engage with users by responding to comments and messages promptly.
- Polls and Surveys: Use interactive tools like polls and surveys to engage your audience and gather valuable feedback.
- Involve your followers: Invite your community along the journey by interacting directly with your audience via behind-the-scenes Stories, Q&A sessions, etc. Opening one-to-one dialogue with people can make them feel valued.
- Donation Buttons: Add donation buttons to your social media profiles and posts where possible.
So, now you know how to increase social media engagement; leverage these strategies to enhance brand exposure, drive engagement, and provide support for great causes.
Want to hear more about how Wild Card can help you achieve your goals? Get in touch! hello@wildcard.co.uk