# Better social media strategies required to keep up with supporters says report

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2016/04/28/better-social-media-strategies-required-keep-supporters-says-report/
- Published: 2016-04-28T08:32:06+01:00
- Author: Melanie May

**A gap between the expectations of digital savvy consumers and the digital confidence
of charities means too many charities are targeting the same shrinking pool of supporters,
according to a new whitepaper from [Equimedia](http://www.equimedia.co.uk/).**

The [_Social Media and Fundraising_ whitepaper](http://www.equimedia.co.uk/work/whitepapers/fundraising-social-media/)
says that while many charities are comfortable with using social media channels 
to reach and interact with their supporters, it is now time for charities to create
more structured social media strategies.

The whitepaper points to the growth in smartphone penetration and social network
use across all age groups, and states that with the introduction of payment and 
donation routes within these platforms, there is growing potential for social media
to play a crucial role in supporter recruitment.

## Advertisement

 [⌊Posthub advert. You create the campaign. We'll handle the postal journey. Get started at post-hub.co.uk.⌉](https://fundraising.co.uk/ads/posthub-20261007-300x250/)

However, it also highlights the need for social media activity to reflect offline
and online campaigns, across all channels, to maximise impact, as well as the need
to consider the sort of support each channel is likely to generate. For example,
Snapchat and Vine, it says, are more popular among a younger audience so might be
best used for recruiting volunteers, event participants or raising awareness, rather
than generating Direct Debit sign ups.

Therefore, the whitepaper says, charities need to understand which supporters will
get involved with different campaigns, and which segments use each social network
in order to identify the right influencers to approach.

It recommends using the huge amount of data generated by social media to gain insight
on supporters, and employing attribution analysis, which studies the data generated
by every single digital exposure to see which exposure was the most important and
to help identify the value of each social channel used.

 

 * **Read [Attribution analysis](https://fundraising.co.uk/2016/06/14/attribution-analysis-measuring-value-campaigning/)–
   a guest blog post by Louise Burgess, COO of Equimedia**

 * **[Just 1 Project sets challenge of raising £500,000 in five months through social media alone](https://fundraising.co.uk/2016/07/11/just-1-project-sets-challenge-raising-500000-five-months-social-media/)**(
   11 July 2016)
 * **[Body Shop launches social media campaign in support of Bio-Bridges project](https://fundraising.co.uk/2016/08/12/body-shop-launches-social-media-campaign-support-bio-bridges-project/)**(
   12 August 2016)
 * **[#OneBigTweet auction to raise funds for African farmers](https://fundraising.co.uk/2017/03/14/onebigtweet-auction-raise-funds-african-farmers/)**(
   14 March 2017)

![Loading](https://fundraising.co.uk/wp-content/plugins/page-views-count/ajax-loader-
2x.gif)