Facebook Tips & Best Practices for Recruiting & Engaging Volunteers
Put Facebook in your basket of volunteer recruitment tricks and get more volunteers involved, participating, and loyal to your cause. Facebook pages, posts and events provide unique avenues to
reach potential volunteers where you know they are already hanging out - facebook! The average facebook user (which is most of us) spends over 700 minutes on facebook every month, with 50% logging on daily. This type of online access is unprecendented for many nonprofits, schools and community groups and begs for them to create social communities to help grow their real life communities.
Leaving your organization's social footprint on facebook is a sure-fire way to become a part of potential volunteers' daily lives - a constant reminder of what you are doing, where and when you need help, and an attractive call to join the conversation about your group.
Facebook Page: Create a facebook page for your nonprofit, school or community group that - captures what you are all about, the GOOD work you are doing (with a visual impact in the community), and keeps the conversation going about the topics and causes you are all about.
Large 'cover photos' that lay on the top portion of your group's facebook page like a banner provide a wonderfully visual representation of your organization or school. The About section allows your group to share a little bit about themselves and place a direct link to your own website.
Social widgets, like buttons, located right below the cover photo give your group a chance to get creative with your voice - you can link to photos/videos, share event details and promotions, write notes for public and private viewing, link to your twitter and pinterest accounts and more!
Create a facebook page for your group today - start here.
Facebook Posting: Once you have your facebook page in action, it's important to be strategic and creative with the posts on and things you share on your wall (status updates which appear in your follower's news feeds).
Rich media - photos and videos - are a great way to engage volunteers and get them liking and commenting on your post.
Taking a cue from Twitter, Facebook now lets users tag posts with hashtags. When posting on facebook, utilize the hashtag symbol to tag locations, ideas & events names, i.e. #Austin, #volunteering, #SummerFest2013
Linking to your own website from twitter, for example, to blog posts, volunteer appreciation pages, event listings and more is great way to drive traffic and spread the word.
Posting shareable links to your online signup sheets and volunteer calendars provides a convenience to volunteers to signup and get involved. More people see about your open volunteer needs and are incited to click and sign up right away.
Facebook Publicity: With a page set up and unique, exciting posts to start engaging your volunteer community, it's important to let potential volunteers know you are even on Facebook in the first place. Make sure to link to your
facebook page from your group's own website, even consider integrating a facebook stream of your posts onto your site. Share your facebook address on all publicity materials (eNewsletters, direct mailings, programs, brochures, flyers and even on printed banners and posters you may have up at events).
With this knowledge and these Facebook tips and tools, your social community will boom and directly drive the growth of your volunteer community too. Happy Facebooking!
