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Using digital marketing for charity is an excellent tool to spread awareness around your cause, enabling you to do as much good as you can. Building loyal social media followers who share and engage with your content then amplify your message even further!
We know that one of the biggest challenges in charities is resources. So, with that in mind, we’re going to talk you through how to produce blog post content that gets you more bang for your buck! To not only help you boost your website ranking in Google with some clever SEO so you can reach more people, but we’ll also talk you through how you can double down your efforts to create social media content.
Charity digital marketing is both an art and a science. For something to be scientific, it needs to be measurable and repeatable. Measuring is integral to get a clear idea of how your digital marketing efforts are working, so you know what to do more of and what to scrap. To do this effectively, you’ve got to come up with a plan and stick to it.
To begin with, come up with a list of keywords you’d like your website to rank for associated with your charity. Researching what people search for around your work is a good starting point. Then create blog content around those keywords. Include your keyword in your headings and distribute it evenly throughout the text. You can also add images to your blog post and include the keyword in the alt-text (the alternative text that describes the image).
Make sure to backlink your blog post to any relevant pages of your website by adding a hyperlink within the text. In addition, you can use tools within your website to help ensure your blog content is SEO friendly and monitor your website’s performance for ranking for your keywords. Here at Rigorous Digital, we use Yoast and Hike, respectively.
Use the link icon to create backlinks.
After you’ve created your content, you will be able to share it on your social media channels. You can link your social media accounts to your website to automate this process. Or you can use a scheduling tool to publish at certain times. There are so many on the market, but we use SocialPilot. You can even try posting at different times to see when you get the best response. Use this information to help fine-tune your digital marketing efforts and grow your social media following.
You will also need to decide on where to focus your efforts. You may already have your social media channels set up. But if not, work out where your audience is. It’s hard to do all the platforms well, and there is little point if some your audience just don’t generally use.
After you’ve figured out what social media networks to use, you will want to make sure you optimise your content to look its best because every social media network has slightly different dimensions for its images. Getting it wrong could make your content crop cutting off crucial information or simply look tacky.
Luckily, most content management systems feature some sort of social sharing function which will handle the image optimisation for you. If you’re hosting your own website or blog, you might need to add your own image customisation function, though. Thankfully, there are websites where you can find a detailed list of optimal dimensions for each social media network.
It never hurts to ask for what you need. Your Call-to-action could be for absolutely anything. Just remember to stay consistent with your charity’s goals. For example, you might include a section at the end of your blog posts asking your audience to share your content to their social media account using one of the social share buttons.
After all, how much work is it to push a button? It takes less than a second and costs the user absolutely nothing. It even lets them feel good about themselves, knowing they have helped in some way. Social sharing is a win-win for all involved. It also helps spread knowledge and raise awareness about your cause to the user’s audience and network, some of whom may become your direct audience, so the cycle continues.
Rigorous Digital is a Digital Marketing Agency based in Cheltenham, UK, servicing an international client base. Third Sector websites are one of our specialisms. If you would like any help with SEO or have any other web-related queries we can help with, get in touch.