How to Promote Your Fundraiser on Facebook

Using your Facebook page is a simple and easy way to communicate with your audience. When you post on your Facebook page, you can post the latest news about your fundraiser, showcase who is in the lead, talk about your prizes and remind your audience about contest deadlines.

In a hurry? Click on each link to jump to each section.

• Creating a Facebook Post for Your Contest
• Facebook Post Ideas
• Pinning Your Post to the Top of Your Facebook Page
• Why You Should Boost Facebook Posts
• How Do I Boost a Post?
• I Don't Want to Pay to Boost Posts on Facebook
• Don't Forget About Facebook Stories
• Facebook Stories Ideas

Creating a Facebook Post for Your Contest

Your post should include:

1. A call to action for people to enter, vote, and share your contest link
2. Your main prize(s)
3. Why you're having the contest (raising money for a certain project, fund, medical need, etc)
4. A direct link to your contest

💡 Don't forget to tag the Facebook page of any sponsors your contest may have! 

Basic example post:

Graphics for your Facebook post:

The easiest way to start is to create a new Facebook post with your marketing message, and include a link to your contest (https://wwww.gogophotocontest.com/yourcontestname).

Facebook will automatically pull in your contest's banner when you include the link to your contest in your post:

Another option is to create a fun graphic using an easy-to-use design tool like Canva.com.

Registered non-profits can gain access to all of Canva's premium tools for FREE-- find out more here!

Example of a quick graphic created using Canva

💡  Including your contest banner, a fun graphic, or even a video makes your post more likely to be noticed when someone is scrolling through their Facebook newsfeed.

Facebook Post Ideas

Here are some example posts that we recommend during the course of your contest:

• Check out our latest entry to our photo contest! https://www.gogophotocontest.com/linktoentry
• Have you seen who is currently in the lead of our photo contest? https://www.gogophotocontest.com/yourcontestname
• Only 4 hours left until our photo contest closes, and we're $xxxx away from our goal. Reminder: The top 13 photos with the most votes will be included in our annual calendar, and the photo with the most votes will be the cover star! It's not too late to enter or vote! https://www.gogophotocontest.com/yourcontestname

Great Examples of Facebook Posts

🔍 Click on each example to view larger 

⭐️✨Unique Facebook Ideas ✨⭐️

Pinning a Post to the Top of Your Facebook Page

Pinning a post about your GoGo Photo Contest will place it at the top of your Facebook page in the "Featured" section (see red box). This gives it maximum exposure whenever someone visits your page.

Pinning posts is free and easy-to-do. You can learn how to pin a Facebook post right at this link.

Why You Should Boost Facebook Posts

Facebook has made it harder than ever to reach out to your followers for free, and penalizes sharing what it deems "promotional" links.  This penalty is in the form of very low reach, meaning your post will only be shown to a small percentage of your FB followers.

While posting to your Facebook page is free, we recommend that you use the "Boost Post" advertising option Facebook makes available to ensure that your contest is getting out to your entire audience.

It's easy to tell if your organic reach is down: You may have 15,000 followers on Facebook, yet the posts you make may only garner 10 or 15 likes from your audience.

This means that only 2-5% of your Facebook audience are seeing the posts you make.

💡 At the very least, you should consider boosting the very first post that you make that's announcing your contest.

How Do I Boost a Post?

Facebook has step-by-step instructions right at this link:
How to boost a post from your Facebook Page

How Many Posts Should I Boost?

This depends on your budget.

We recommend boosting 1-3 posts throughout the duration of your contest: a post announcing your photo contest, a post in the middle (when participation may be dropping off), and a post at the very end reminding participants that the contest is coming to a close.

I Don't Want to Pay to Boost Posts on Facebook

And that's totally fine! Here are some things you can do on Facebook to make sure that your message still gets out:

1. Change your Facebook cover photo to the banner for your photo contest (see Brandywine Valley SPCA's example).
2. Post about the contest often-- if not daily, at least 2-3 times a week. Talk about the current entrants, prizes, etc (see Facebook Post Ideas above).
3. Pin your posts to the top of your Facebook page for maximum visibility (See Pinning Posts above).
4. Encourage other members of your rescue group/organization/shelter to "like" and share the posts you make about the contest. The more "likes" and shares a post has, the chances increase of your post appearing on the newsfeed of your other followers.
5. If you have any sponsors, encourage them to share posts you make about the contest to their own Facebook pages, or create their own posts about your contest.
6. You can try creating a Facebook post without a link to your contest in the main message, and instead include the link to your contest in the comments of that post. This might help to bypass the promotional link penalty.
   

You should also strongly consider email marketing, if you have any email lists. If you don't have email lists, it's time that you consider compiling one. Many organizations abandoned email as a means to reach their constituents, but in the age of boosted/promoted Facebook posts, it's perhaps time to return to this way of spreading your message. Learn more about email marketing here➝

Don't Forget About Facebook Stories

With Facebook Page Stories, you can share content that represents your organization directly from your mobile device. Stories engage your audience and allow you to develop deeper connections in a more frequent, authentic and casual way. You can share pictures and short videos to bring your audience behind the scenes.

Page Stories appear at the top of your follower's Facebook Feed in a highly visible area. People can also tap on your mobile Page's profile picture to see your Page story.

You can learn more about creating Facebook Stories here ➝

Examples of Facebook Stories