As a nonprofit marketer and fundraiser, I spend a lot of time on Instagram. My own Instagram account (@causespecialist) provides tips and tricks for fundraising and nonprofit marketing, so I follow a ton of amazing organizations that are killing it on Instagram. I also see nonprofits that could be doing so much better in terms of their Instagram growth and Instagram fundraising.
We all know how hard it is to fundraise without a dedicated following, so I want to share some tips for Instagram growth strategies for fundraising on Instagram.
First, I assume that you already have an active Instagram account, so I'm not going to walk you through all the different settings. However, I want you to make sure that your account is set up as a professional business account. This is super important for several reasons.
It gives your registered charity the ability to sign up for the Instagram fundraising features.
Many people do not follow private accounts. There's something that feels creepy about requesting to follow an account that is private.
Being a professional account also gives you access to better analytics.
SETTING UP FOR SUCCESS
Before we dig in, here are some quick tips on setting up your profile to maximize growth and fundraising on Instagram for your nonprofit. The profile picture can be your logo, but make sure it is sized appropriately and should fit in the circle. It can also be an image that visually explains what your channel is about. Perhaps your charity doesn't have a very good logo. You can use a picture that better describes your channel and mission and add your charity name.
Pro tip: I cheat and use Canva for many graphics and posts. I even deleted my Adobe account because Canva is so awesome. I can do pretty much everything that I did in InDesign and Photoshop with Canva.
Next is the name. This is just something I do, but I rarely use the actual name. I use this as a subhead. If you look at my Instagram account, you see that my username is my company name, so why repeat it in the name section. Instead, my name explains what we do. I also use emojis sometimes for a little extra attention grab. When people are scrolling through, they see the picture, the account username, and then the name, so you have those three things to catch people's attention and make them want to follow you. Perhaps your username is taken. You can also reverse this and pick a username that explains what you do and use the name section for your charity name.
Pro tip: I use a program called Linktree for the website. Instagram only allows for one URL. This cool little program bounces you over to another page where you can have multiple links to your website, campaigns, YouTube channel, or other social media. It's super easy to set up and use and has many great features.
We want the bio to be keyword rich and include hashtags and a call to action. Keyword rich simply means that we want to use words that people will be searching for. If you are a domestic violence charity, you want to have domestic violence in your bio so that people searching for domestic violence charities can easily find you. Try to include the who, what, when, where, why, and how in the 30 allowable characters. This takes some creativity, but it helps encourage people to follow and get to know your charity.
There are many other settings under profile information as well as in the settings section, so I suggest going through each and everyone and making sure that everything is as it should be. Such as category, I'm surprised how many nonprofits are not using this category.
FUNDRAISING FEATURES
It is also essential to be a Facebook-approved charity to access the fundraising features on Instagram and that your Instagram and Facebook are connected. Simply go to Facebook, click publishing tool, fundraising, and donation settings. Then pop back to Instagram, settings, business, donate and toggle to add a donate button.
CONTENT STRATEGY
I'm going to make a couple of other assumptions here. You've done your persona work, and you understand who your audience and prospective donor are. I am also assuming that you already have your brand guidelines, which will help you stay