Your nonprofit should not be using Facebook. Here are ten reasons why.
1. Your website sucks
A Facebook page should make people head to your website to see more about you. But if your website is unattractive, hard to read or navigate, and impossible to view on a mobile device, then you don't want to send people there.
2. You don't have a blog
So they came to your website once. Why should they come back? A blog gives people a different reason to visit, each time you post. If you're not blogging, why are you bothering with Facebook?
3. You post stuff that nobody wants to see
Who cares how many people your nonprofit served or what awards your Executive Director won? If you're not telling people how their donations made a tangible difference in one person's life, you're talking to yourself.
4. You don't capture people's email addresses
Remember, you don't own Facebook. Zuckerberg does. You own the email addresses that people have given you permission to use. First, make sure that you have ways to get that permission.
5. You don't have something concrete to offer
Why would people give you their email addresses when they get so much email already? Only because you give them something even more valuable in exchange: information they're eager to have. What can you offer?
6. Your contact management system is broken
When you get those emails, are you still storing them in Excel? Or are you recording them in a database that lets you send each person the message that matters to them, and keep track of your relationship with them?
7. Your customer service sends the wrong message
What you do speaks louder than what you post. Do you answer the phone, respond to voicemail and email, and greet walk-ins with courtesy and professionalism? Do they get the help they are seeking?
8. You don't want to devote enough time
Heather Mansfield estimates that to participate effectively in just one social medium like Facebook, it takes seven hours a week. Are you trying to do it in an hour a week? Then you're wasting that hour. Don't bother.
9. You don't want to spend any money
Facebook is making it harder and harder to reach even the people who already know you and like you without paying for the privilege. You don't need megabucks, but have a budget for boosting your Page and your posts.
10. You don't have a communications strategy
"Outreach," "visibility," and "awareness" are not good reasons to be on Facebook. Do you know who you're trying to reach, for what purpose, and what they would do if you engaged with them successfully?
Do these ten points sound like you? The good news is that with a little help, you can fix each and every one of them… and build a community on Facebook too.
If you do all these things right …then maybe you should be on Facebook already!
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