Promoting a charity has become much easier in recent years, thanks to social media and the far reaching possibilities it has created. With just a small and cost effective campaign, awareness can be raised by more than 100%, with some non-profits seeing as much as a 600% boost in participation.

It is this potential that has led other charities to begin looking into their own social media campaigns. But before you start your own promotion, you might want to see a couple of examples of organizations that have had success in the past. These five charities have, without a doubt, gotten it right.

Breast Cancer Awareness

You might remember the infamous “bra color” status updates of two years ago, or last year’s “I like it on the (blank)” hangbag updates. This was not just a random game. It was actually part of a massive media campaign by Breast Cancer Awareness.

It works. Hundreds of thousands of people participated by putting it as their status, with many getting female friends on board. Those who played along found it fun and interactive, and it caught global media attention.

While there are some who are cynical enough not to believe it did any good, it brought a lot of awareness to the organization, and so the cause. Just the implications for sponsorship and corporate donations is huge, as a result.

Target

Though a multi national corporation, Target had taken part in a number of charitable events through the years. They host a great deal of these through Facebook, where they have become well known for their social media campaigning.

What they do right is the simplicity of their promotions. They give frequent updates on their wall, and otherwise have a little tab on the side that will take you to the latest event. That links to a third party off of Facebook, where you can get more details and participate.

They have that same simple format with their sweepstakes.

Greenpeace

Greenpeace set a new goal last year after Facebook announced the opening of a new super center, which they claimed would be more “energy efficient” and eco friendly. But the whole thing would be run on electricity, which burns coal in massive amounts. As coal is one of the most dangerous substances to the environment that can be used, it caused a lot of concern.

So, they put their campaign on Facebook itself, and amassed a huge amount of support. More than 100,000 users liked the page, with an overall 500,000 member participation effort on some level.

Facebook has since announced that a number of their centers will be solar powered for both electricity and heat. This has not yet expanded into their super centers, but it is a positive step forward that probably wouldn’t have happened with social media pressure.

ASPCA

This US based non-profit for the protection and kind treatment of animals has been a center point for responsible pet ownership. They have an active Facebook page that has gathered a great deal of interest over the years, which currently have over a million likes.

One of the things that they do that is so effective is provide a constant stream of pictures of dogs and cats currently up for adoption at the ASPCA centers around the country. They also have regular updates, feel good animal stories, stories of tragically abused pets that you can help and more.

It Gets Better

It Gets Better is an incredibly successful ongoing campaign, working as a positive message to LGBT teens in response to the recent surge in gay teen suicides around the world. The message is simple: however hard things seem now, they get better.

A huge number of celebrities and high profile people have taken part in this, such as Ellen Degeneres, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The Facebook page utilizes these recorded messages for easy sharing, and has over 230,000 likes.

Conclusion

When promoting a cause on Facebook, it helps to see how other charities have been able to find success doing it? These five provide fantastic examples that we can learn from, in different areas and in different ways.

Are you aware of any other examples of successful Facebook promotional campaigns? Please let us know in the comments!

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This has been another awesome guest post by Jessy Troy. Jessy is a creative blogger for Mobile Phone Finder, the free mobile phone comparison app based in Australia.

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[main image: photostock]

Charities ‘Doing It Right’ Through Facebook Promotions is a post from: Social Media Revolver

Online advertising is becoming more and more popular in modern marketing. Two of the biggest companies that provide online advertising are Google with Adwords and Facebook with their own advertising system. But which one is the better one?

I have used both and I have to say that the Google Adwords is just dreadful! It’s very unpleasant to work with and almost impossible to master. You might think differently but based on my personal experience the Facebook advertising system beats Google Adwords hands down. Let me explain.

Top 5 Reasons Why The Facebook Advertising System Is Better Than Google Adwords

There are actually several more reasons why you should use Facebook Ads instead of Adwords but here are the main ones:

1. Facebook Ads Have Better Targeting

Unlike in Google Adwords, where you can use just about any keyword (which can really get you into trouble) Facebook Advertising system allows you to use only the words which are in their database. This ensures that there is real potential behind the keywords that you can choose.

Facebook keywords are based on interests, activities, books, TV-shows, movies, job titles the 800+ million Facebook users have listed in their profiles. This ensures that your ads will always have a highly interested audience for the keywords your are using.

For example, if you own a Karate Studio in San Fransisco (like Oyama Karate here) and you want to advertise your lessons to 22-39 old men who like karate and live in San Fransisco, or within a 50 mile radius you can do that using Facebook Advertising. Try doing that on Adwords!

Google Adwords doesn’t know that much about their users or their preferences, therefore they can’t target them accurately. Facebook, on the other hand knows everything about their users! You must have heard about the privacy issues related to this. Yes, that’s right, the big brother knows…

2. Facebook Advertising Account Is Easier To Set-Up And Manage

Oh, boy, this is a no-brainer! Have you ever tried to set-up a Google Adwords account? If you have, then you’d know how difficult and awful the process is. The Adwords ad management requires a huge effort in order to use it properly. Facebook Advertising system is faster to set up and it is much more user friendly.

3. You Can Use Images On Facebook Ads

You might have heard the saying ‘A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words’. As words are in short supply on online ads this is one of the most powerful features of Facebook Ads. The ability to use images in your ads on Facebook is a huge advantage over Google Adwords. Have a look at this example here and you’ll know exactly what I mean:

Guess which one is a Facebook Ad?

4. Cost Per Click Is Much Cheaper

Over the past few years Google Adwords has become exceedingly expensive. Even the medium popularity keywords are sometimes terribly expensive. For instance “email marketing” on Adwords costs $2.63 per click whereas on Facebook the average bid is only $0.78. That’s almost 70% less! Generally you can get good results using Facebook Ads at about a quarter of the cost of Google Adwords.

Facebook Ads are much more cost effective. This is great especially for small businesses trying to do online marketing without a big budget.

5. More Freedom Setting Up Your Ads

Setting up an advertising campaign on Facebook is much less frustrating than Google Adwords. As mentioned earlier you benefit from using images in your ads, but you also have more space for your ad description.

Adwords allows you to use only 75 characters, whereas you can use a whopping 135 on Facebook! Facebook Ads also allow you to use more restricted words than Adwords in terms of possible copyright issues. You can even use the exclamation mark in your Facebook Ads. (!)

Well, there you have it folks! I’m sure there are people who still think Adwords is better than Facebook Ads, so please feel free to leave a reply below. If you have been using either of these systems let me know about your experiences.

Promo Warning: If you are interested in learning more about Facebook Advertising read the Facebook Advertising Guide.

[image: Stuart Miles]

Top 5 Reasons Why Facebook Ads Are Better Than Google Adwords is a post from: Social Media Revolver

This week our guest blogger Jessy Troy shows that you too can be a winner on Facebook giveaways and sweepstakes.

Plenty of people really love giveaways. I have known a few people who will spend an hour or more a day applying for contests, and they make a pretty good bit of loot from it. Not just cheap little prizes either; some of my friends have won things such as iPhones, Wii consoles and cash in the thousands. A coworker’s cousin even won a new car once!

Facebook is a great platform for these contests, because so many are updated on a regular basis. If you put your name on enough forms, you are bound to win something. Sometimes it is as easy as just pressing ‘Like‘ on the right page. You will be surprised by the success you can find in this simple way.

But you might be wondering how it is you go about finding, watching and then winning these amazing contests. After all, there is no such thing as a free lunch, right? Wrong! I have won quite a few of those myself.

Just follow these simple tips and you will be on your way to joining the ranks of Facebook sweepstakes winners.

Finding The Contests

The most simple way is by doing a basic Google search. “Facebook”, “giveaway”, “contest” and “sweepstakes” are all good keywords. The only downside is that there is no way to control how recent the top results will be, and so you might have to do a little bit of digging to find what you are looking for.

Facebook itself has a page that you can use to find popular contests currently being held all over the site. This is the Facebook Sweepstakes App, which separates the different promotions into categories. It is a fast way to navigate, but it usually only has larger company sweeps, rather than those for smaller sites, blogs or local stores.

About.com has a page of contests on Facebook listed that they update regularly. You can usually find anywhere up to 100 listed at any time, but some will inevitably have passed before you get to them. Especially since these contest types have a tendency to  be short, which increases your chance of winning by reducing the number of entries.

Another great site that lists more selective (but higher winning) contests is Sweetie’s Secrets. It is maintained with next to constant updates, and most members have found a great deal of success with full time sweeping using this program. However, it does cost $25 per year to join.

What Contests Are Worth It

Technically, anything is worth entering, especially with how easy it is to put in a bit of information. Your browser will even keep a lot of it cached, so you can just select the proper info and submit that. I wouldn’t say anything is actually not worth trying out, just in case.

But some will have better odds than others. The best way to calculate your odds of winning is by checking to see how many people have liked the contest.

Since you have to select ‘Like’ on the page of most to be eligible, it gives you an exact count of how many names you are up against. For example, a recent promotion for Explore Sedona had only 720 likes. Only one will be given, and so you will have a one in 720 chance.

If you want to increase you chances of winning, try and get to the contest near the end. This will let you see how many have entered, and what your odds happen to be. The only exception is if you are allowed to enter multiple times, in which case starting early and keeping at it is your best bet.

Conclusion

You can really win a lot using Facebook sweepstakes. All you have to do is find them and enter, which is as simple as typing a few lines of text. So get started now, and see what you end up with!

Let us know if you have entered any Facebook sweepstakes recently and if you had any success.

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This has been a guest post by Jessy Troy. Jessy is a frugal writer for Square Deal, the free source of up-to-date sweepstakes and Karmaloop coupon codes. Check them out for your budget Christmas shopping!

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The Trick To Finding, Watching And Winning Facebook Sweepstakes is a post from: Social Media Revolver

Which social network sends the most traffic to your website or blog? There are four big contenders for this title. Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and the new kid on the block, Google+. When we compare these one must remember that their target audience profiles can be quite different. Where Facebook, for instance is more useful in targeting the ‘normal’ consumers, LinkedIn is better suitable in reaching business people.

The data presented in this chart is from a case study by Larry Kim where he compiled analytics data for the WordStream Blog for seven day in July 2011. Total traffic for this period was about half a million referred clicks. The purpose of the study was to see which social media network drove the most traffic to the blog. Even though this study is very limited it still gives us a valid indication of the effectiveness of the four main Social Networks as traffic sources. Unfortunately the study did not include Stumble Upon, which is often regarded as one of the biggest traffic senders to websites and blogs.

As you can see from the infographic Facebook is the clear winner. It created almost half of the total traffic. Twitter came in a good second.

1. Facebook 47.3% of total referred traffic

2. Twitter 27.5%

3. Google+ 15.4%

4. LinkedIn 9.8%

If Stumble Upon would have been included in the study my guess is that it would have rivalled Facebook for the top spot. Google+ did amazingly well considering that it is only about a month old social tool and still in testing mode. No wonder Facebook and Twitter are worried!One of the easiest ways of utilizing these social websites in your marketing is to use social sharing buttons on your website or blog.

This allows your audience spread your commercial (or non-commercial) message to their networks whether it’s Facebook, Twitter or something else. This blog for instance uses a customised Word Press plugin called 1 Click Retweet/Share/Like -plugin. You can see it at the top end of the posts. Give it a go if you’d like to share this article for instance.

Let me know what are your favorite Social Platforms and how you are using them in your online marketing .

WordStream is a high traffic Internet Marketing website with a Google Page Rank 6 and Alexa ranking of 2.779 in US. See original post here.

Which Social Website Generates The Most Traffic? is a post from: Social Media Revolver

Remember the days when it was a must to have a website for your business? Well, those days are now long gone! Today, it is a must to have a Facebook Page for your business as well. Some companies don’t even have a website anymore. They are using Facebook as their front end to the Internet. Facebook has been traditionally a network for real people, individuals like you and me.

There are currently about 700 million of us using the network; and when there’s lots of people in one place it’s bound to attract some savvy business people as well. And this is where Facebook Pages come in to play.

When Facebook first introduced the Facebook Pages some years ago they became a big hit. The main idea was to provide Facebook users, who are also business owners an option to feature their businesses as well. Facebook’s Terms of Use prevent the use of Personal Profiles for commercial purposes, but with Facebook Pages you can promote your business as much as you like.

For instance Diageo, who own a brand of vodka called Smirnoff has created several Facebook Pages for the world famous drink. Smirnoff has built customized Facebook Pages for USA, UK, Australia, India, Brazil, Venezuela, Germany and Argentina. Together these pages have more than 3 million fans all over the world! What a great global marketing concept!

So, if you don’t have your own Facebook Page for your business yet, it is time to do so. Today. Here. If you already have one or two, then here are:

Ten Great Ways How You Can Promote Your Facebook Page

1. Invite People to Like Your Page

You’ve got your own personal friends on Facebook, and some of them would definitely be interested in your business affairs as well. Send them an invite and ask them to Like your page.

2. Secure Your Facebook URL

After you have managed to get 25 fans for your Facebook Page you are eligible to apply for a Facebook username. For example www.facebook.com/yourbusiness. This is very important as once it is chosen you own it for good. Facebook URL is comparable to registering your own domain name for your website; except Facebook names are free. You can set your username here.

3. Show Your Facebook URL

Put your Facebook URL everywhere in your business communications. Put it in your business cards, stationery and email footers as well as print and TV advertising.

4. Promote on Twitter

Add a link to your Facebook Page into your Tweets. Connect your Twitter account and Facebook Page so that they feed information to each other.

5. Send an Email Blast

Send a few emails to your contact list and opt-in list inviting them to Like your new Facebook Page.

6. Advertise Your Facebook Page on Facebook

This is one of the best ways of getting fans quickly. Run a targeted advertising campaign on Facebook inviting people to Like your Facebook Page. Related post: How To Get 10.000 Fans To Your Facebook Page in 90 Days?

7. Keep Your Page Fresh

Once your Page is up and running do not abandon it.  Keep its Wall content fresh. Remember the viral nature of Facebook; when someone interacts with your Page the action appears on that person’s news feed promoting your page to their friends.

8. Use Facebook Social Plugins

Install a Facebook Like Button or Like Box on your website or blog. This will increase you fan base and creates additional traffic to your Facebook Page. You can find the Facebook Social Plugins here.

This blog is using both the Facebook Like Box, which you can see on the right; and the Like Button which is part of the social sharing panel at the beginning and end of each article.

9. Interact With Your Fans

Remember to always respond to comments on your page. Ask questions in the discussion board.  When someone new becomes a fan of your page, sent them a welcome message. If you have staff working for you consider adding them as an admin. This way you can share the responsibilities of your Page maintenance.

10. Write an Article

Write a few articles about your business, services  or products and send them to the biggest Article Directories, such as Ezine Articles or Go Articles. Put your Facebook Page URL in the source box. This will bring additional traffic and fans to your Page.

If you like these tips, please share them at your favourite Social  website .

Want to know more? Get advanced Facebook Marketing guidelines and step-by step instructions from the Facebook Advertising Guide.

Ten Ways to Promote Your Facebook Page is a post from: Social Media Revolver