# 9 Social Media Myth-busters & charity champions (Part 2) - Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2012/11/05/9-social-media-mythbusters-amp-charity-champions-part-2/ - Published: 2012-11-05T12:18:42+00:00 - Author: Howard Lake Previously on [9 Social Media Myth-busters](https://www.fundraising.co.uk/blog/2012/10/22/9-social-media-mythbusters-amp-charity-champions-part-1): 1. **Social Media is free** Charity Champion ## Advertisement [Diabetes UK](https://www.facebook.com/diabetesuk) 2. **A Facebook page is a social media strategy** Charity Champion [Gingerbread](https://twitter.com/Gingerbread) 3. **You can’t control social media** Charity Champion [Breast Cancer Care](https://www.facebook.com/breastcancercare) 4. **You can’t fundraise on social media** Charity Champion [MS Society](https://www.facebook.com/MSSociety) 5. **We must have a presence on all the latest channels** Charity Champion [WSPA Animal Protector](http://www.wspa.org.uk/latestnews/2012/wspa_uk_wins_third_sector_excellence_award.aspx) Vicky Browning from [CharityComms](http://www.charitycomms.org.uk) continued with social media myth-busters 6 to 9 so for your eyes only, here they are: 6. **Social Media is cosy** Charity Champion [Dyslexia Action](https://twitter.com/DyslexiaAction) Social Media is far from cosy. Charities need to come out of their comfort zone, and embrace them. Dyslexia Action with its presence on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr was presented as the champion for this myth-buster. 7. **An audience is a community** Charity Champion [RNLI](https://twitter.com/RNLI) A brilliant example from champion RNLI was presented here. I’ll let the photo do the talking: ![RNLI Facebook page screenshot](https://www.fundraising.co.uk/files/images/rnli- facebook.jpg) 8. **It’s all about the numbers** Charity Champion [Missing People](https://twitter.com/missingpeople) “Join The Search”, a very successful campaign from Missing People was illustrated as the best practice, when the charity got everyone going on Twitter and other social media to join the search for Missing People. 9. **Our audience doesn’t do social media** “Charity” Champion The UK Government (???) A bit puzzling but Vicky pointed out that the guys at number 10 are very keen for all charities to be social media active and accepts that 99% of audiences does do social media. Seeing David Cameron being now active on both Twitter and LinkedIn proves her point, your charity’s audience is most likely doing social media. Vicky concluded with the **10th bonus social media myth-buster** that “social media is a fad” – clearly a decade on since LinkedIn started, with Facebook surpassing 1 billion users, and Twitter being the first point of information for “Sandy” victims and concerned audience, social media is clearly NOT a fad! _Vasileios Kospanos (@vasilakosp) is the NFP Marketing Exec for @theaccessgroup. He’s an online marketer, __into social media, blogging and fundraising, committed to the third sector and fundraising best practice. Some __of his previous blogs:_ [_Fundraising through gaming_](https://www.fundraising.co.uk/blog/2011/12/16/fundraising-through-gaming) [_Coupons For A Fundraising Event: Any Publicity Is Good Publicity?_](https://www.fundraising.co.uk/blog/2012/03/28/coupons-fundraising-event-any-publicity-good-publicity) [_Glühwein fundraising_](https://www.fundraising.co.uk/blog/2011/11/29/gl%C3%BChwein-fundraising) [_Seducing a donor on Twitter_](https://www.fundraising.co.uk/blog/2012/01/18/quotseducingquot-donor-twitter) * **[The virtual fundraising feast](https://fundraising.co.uk/2013/01/18/virtual-fundraising-feast/)**( 18 January 2013) * **[Barcamp Nonprofits: cut and paste your own conference](https://fundraising.co.uk/2013/02/13/barcamp-nonprofits-cut-and-paste-your-own-conference/)**( 13 February 2013) * **[Want a graphical glance at UK Fundraising?](https://fundraising.co.uk/2013/02/13/want-graphical-glance-uk-fundraising/)**( 13 February 2013)