Sometimes doing the same thing over and over again makes sense. Sometimes you can saturate your market. Giving Day runs the risk of doing this to your social media channels and email lists.
Timed Opt Outs
We don’t want people opting out of emails for ever because of Giving Day. That is why we offer a temporary opt out. We send our email lists a message about giving day about a week before that says – “if you would rather not hear about Giving Day please opt out of receiving giving day emails here” Be clear and up front.
You will find maybe 1% or so of your lists opt out, and if there is any spleen venting to be done it is done with time to spare – not when you are busy engaging with those that want to be engaged with, and you dont lose them for ever.
This of course presupposes you have agreement to send them emails about development under GDPR. If not that’s a separate post for another day.
Post wisely
There is online wisdom to say the ideal number of posts to social media is 10 a week. I think this very generic advice – and if you follow it – you wont upset anyone – but I’m not sure it makes sense for Giving Day. Indeed I am not sure there is any more validity to it than saying 10000 steps a day should be your target. It sounds considered and certainly doesn’t hurt, but its a rough target, not scientific fact.
I think you need to build your story early – start with thanking and explaining some fundraising successes – this might be multiple posts over a few days. This gives you chance to test your systems – make sure £ signs don’t come through as ASCII codes etc.
Then maybe a post a day in the fortnight leading up to the day itself – using images and video – again thinking where does each post take us on a story – is it a different image, a different project, a different perspective.
Remember you have multiple channels – and sometimes it is ok to send the same message to all, sometimes a bit more subtly is in order. The “head of tiddlywinks” doing a dance on tiktok yes – on linked in – probably not (until its gone viral anyway!)
On the day itself – then I think you can go for it – if you post 10 posts a day – so long as they add to the story then that’s fine. Also remember they take some time to have an impact. A 36hr giving day helps here. Also as much as you want to get prepared in advance there is nothing wrong with being responsive – we repost some of the comments made by donors along with their gifts to encourage others for example.