Facebook Subscriptions: 8 Reasons Why Your Nonprofit Should Pay Attention

Making a difference, a positive impact in the world, is the entire reason your nonprofit organizations exists.

Having a voice and a way to spread your message are critical components of making the impact you’re after. Without them your ability to create change decreases significantly. With them, the sky is the limit.

There’s plenty of ways to communicate, arguably more than we actually need. The trick is finding the right places. The places where you’re message sticks. The place where people respond, react and start.

So, how does Facebook fit into all of this?

They have more than 750 million active user and at least half of them log-on daily.

Facebook is a communications platform with close to a billion users. That alone should be reason enough to perk your ears up, make you investigate and cause you to think of ways to leverage the massive network of people who may want to hear from you.

Subscriptions

With the release of their new “Subscriptions” feature, Facebook has made it even more compelling to use the platform as a way to communicate, connect, engage and impact people.

What Facebook subscriptions does is allow Facebook to work more like Twitter or Google+ in that you don’t have to “friend” or accept someone’s “friend” request for that person to see your public updates. They can simply subscribe to see your public feed.

The key to Facebook Subscriptions is that you can now have staff members share information in the public timeline (not just to their friends) via their personal profiles that anyone who has “subscribed” to can see. What’s that mean?

8 Reasons Why Subscriptions Matter

Once someone has subscribed to see public updates …

• Your Executive Director can bring a more personal voice that comes from her perspective.
• Your Special Event Director/Manager can hype your next event to the Facebook world.
• Your Social Media Intern can engage from their personal profile with supporters, volunteers, donors and the like.
• Your Board Member can proudly share their personal connection and stories of impact.
• Your Development Staff can cultivate donors and let the world know how funds are making a difference.
• Your Volunteers can highlight personal experiences.
• Your Program Coordinator can engage with program participants.
• Your Major Gifts Officer can keep up with your highest value donors.

In essence, your staff can reach more people and bring the human side of your organization to life.

Want to Know More?

Check out what our friends at Care2′s FrogLoop have to say about Facebook Subscriptions and make sure to head over to John Haydon’s blog to get a step-by-step tutorial.

Your Turn

How do you see Facebook subscriptions working for your organization?