How to Use Facebook to Raise Money – By Dick Morris

By Political Consultant Dick Morris

With over 4 billion video views per DAY, Facebook is emerging as the most popular app for posting and sharing videos. But while Facebook is the best place to share your campaign videos, it’s not the best place to conduct online fundraising. Current restrictions leave you with absurdly low click through rates.

Facebook limits you to a single link in your post. Most campaigns utilize this feature to link to donation forms. While this may technically be “simple,” studies show Facebook users prefer to stay in the Facebook feed. Your donors want the ability to donate without being sent to a foreign page. And they want all this in a mobile solution.

When you start to scan your options of what’s available on the market, you’ll want to choose a platform that allows donors to donate within the Facebook news feed. The donation form should sit on the post, allowing users to complete the donation without leaving their personal news feed. Total-Apps has released Video Checkout For Facebook fundraising that sticks to this criteria.

Donors also need the option to share the video with their friends and family, further increasing the viral potential. Sharing is the ultimate Holy Grail when it comes to increasing engagement for your video content on Facebook. Engagement is key when trying to spread your video, and video receives twice the engagement compared to average posts. You’ve seen it happen in your timeline. Your friend interacts with a video and now you’re exposed. Don’t underestimate the power of video this metric.

When it comes to converting donors on mobile, the stats speak for themselves. 86% of Facebook users access the platform from their mobile device. In fact, 40% of users are mobile-only, furthering your need to offer a mobile-friendly experience. Studies show that mobile users are much more particular when it comes to the amount of clicks it takes to donate. The more clicks, the lower the conversions.

Facebook is continuing to grow with nearly 1.5 billion monthly active users and in the fourth quarter of 2014 alone added 3.1% new users. It’s only a matter of time before your opposition uses Facebook as a fundraising tool with compelling video. In fact, some of them already are. The tools are available and they’re extremely easy to use. So the question is, how will you incorporate video for your next political fundraising campaign?