To a large extent, nonprofits are still using Facebook as a “push medium”. They push out information about events, news and asks on their wall, and occasionally reply to follow-up comments on these posts.
This push mentality isn’t necessarily bad – it’s just doesn’t the full potential of the Facebook status.
At Inbound Zombie, we work on a variety Facebook campaigns. The agreement that we have with our clients is that they grant me (John) permission to freely post updates on their wall during the campaign. This allows us to accomplish a few things:
- It puts another hand on deck during the campaign.
- I get to learn more about their cause through the voices of their supporters on their wall.
- New orgs get to learn how to manage their Facebook Page from the example updates I post.
- I get to “experiment” with new ways that nonprofits can use Facebook.
One of the most promising experiments is the use of Facebook Pages as a question box for fans. Asking the Page community thoughtful and/or provocative questions has consistently lead to an increase in fan growth and engagement.
As a way to expand upon this “research”, I’ve set up a Facebook Page for the sole purpose of answering questions posted by fans. There will be no “push” posts, no custom tabs, no photos or videos. In fact the only two tabs activated are the wall tab and the info tab.
Stop by and say “hi” to The Nonprofit Facebook Guy
