There are many ways to promote a fundraising event, and social media is one of the most cost-effective and wide-reaching ways to market a fundraiser. Event organizers can save on their advertising budget if they get creative using free social media. Social media is wide-reaching for all demographics and ages, so it’s a versatile tool to market your fundraising event. Here are eight ways to use social media to promote your next fundraiser.

1- Create a Facebook Event Page

Creating a Facebook event page helps keep your event details all in one spot to make it easy for guests to keep track of your fundraiser. You can utilize the discussion area of the page to post any announcements before the event, and you can also tag other Facebook pages that are a part of the event such as event sponsors. You can also sell tickets through the Facebook event page if you’re hosting your tickets through processors like EventBrite that integrate into the backend of Facebook.

2- Hire a Keynote Speaker

Hiring a keynote speaker is one of the best ways to promote your fundraising event. Not only will you be hiring top industry-leading professionals but speakers also love to promote the events they’ll be speaking at on their own social media accounts. Keynote speakers draw a lot of industry attention as well as guests who oftentimes will attend an event just to see the speaker in person.

3- Host a Giveaway

Giveaways are a great way to reach new potential followers and guests for your fundraiser. If you have access to a prize that you can give away such as from an event sponsor then you can create a collaboration giveaway to reach the sponsor’s audience as well. You can set the entry rules for the giveaway, and one rule should be asking people to share your giveaway or tag friends in the giveaway post so that your contest has a further reach.

4- Event Countdown

Instagram Stories has a countdown timer sticker that helps build the hype before your fundraising event. You set the end date and time for the countdown, and your followers can subscribe to receive a notification when the timer is finished. You can also utilize a countdown timer for pre-event deadlines such as early bird ticket sales.

5- Utilize Sponsors

Utilize event sponsors that your fundraising event is already working with. Sponsors are usually proud to work with events and you can ask them to post about the fundraiser to their social media accounts to help spread the word.

6- Pre-Event Teasers

Create a pre-event social content strategy by posting teasers leading up to the event. Teaser content is a great way to get the buzz going for a fundraising event. Teaser content can include the event decor, sponsors or vendors you’re working with, or any booths or special setups.

7- Create a Hashtag

Create a branded hashtag and let your guests know to use this hashtag in any posts they share on social media. This is great day-of event marketing as well as post-event marketing as well. Hashtags make it easy to find posts about your event through hashtag searches, so if you plan to make the fundraiser a consistent event then you can re-use the hashtag in the future as well.

8- Create an AR Filter

Branded augmented reality (AR) filters are gaining popularity because it’s a great way to encourage user-generated content that guests can create at the event and then post to their own social accounts after the event is over for extra long-term promotion. There are many free software programs that will generate custom AR filters for your guests to use.

These are just a few ways that fundraising events can harness the power of social media to promote their event that’s beyond traditional advertising. Create a social media strategy with your time and capabilities in mind to reach new audiences as well as engage your current followers and guests.

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