How To Drive Traffic To Your Nonprofit Website Using Social Media

Believe me, I know. I remember when Facebook was launched, I was a sophomore in college (you look up the date!) and it truly was simply … being social online with only your college friends. WOW has it evolved since then.

Not only has it evolved but according to statistica.com over 233 million people are subscribed to any number of social media platforms in 2020 in the USA. That’s a lot of eyeballs on content, content that could be your content!

Let’s leverage this essentially free advertising platform to drive traffic to your nonprofit website. Here are some of the top ways you can do this:

1. Your ProfileStarting off with the basics…if you do or don’t have a social media profile, make sure your profile actually has information in it. Make sure your information clearly states what you do and you have your website address listed (and it works).
    
2. Promote ContentWhether you do or don’t have a “blog” you should be promoting any content you write on social media. If you aren’t writing a lot of content, repurpose the same content with different titles or different quotations from that article.
    
3. Make it SharableThis one is a little ‘…’ (eye roll) but human behavior is what it is! We, as users like to see if other people like your content. Make sure your users can clearly see how to share your content, and bonus points if it’s users can see how many times others have shared it.
    
4. Pay AttentionOnce you’ve gotten some likes and some follows, make sure you are paying attention to their posting habits (of course you can use a tracker). In other words…are they active in the morning, lunch time, evening? This is important, as you want to share your content when you know they have eyes on their feeds.
    
5. VisualsImagine the intense amount of content a single person consumes in a day, it’s wild! In a previous blog I wrote about imagery – you must (simply must!) post an engaging visual, video, meme or gif with your content to break the monotony of the social feed.
    
6. Optimize Call-To-ActionAt the close of your post or even in your visual, tell your users what to do! We like this. Do you want us to “Click here” or “Sign up”?   We need to know, so we can do exactly that.  Make sure it’s a button so we really, really know what to do.
    
7. Ready To Invest?If you feel like you’re in a good place, test it out! Look into buying some paid advertising on Facebook or LinkedIn – it doesn’t cost a lot and you can learn a lot about your reach. 

What To Expect

Keeping it real, no, you aren’t going to get instant results. Social Media is almost a living breathing thing. You have to cultivate it and pay attention to it, give it some water and a good meal. It’ll like that, and it will come back for more!