Facebooking for the greater good; how to raise thousands of dollars online

Do you Facebook for the greater good? Or just for fun?

If you happen to be one of my followers or friends, no one is spared from seeing pleas for funds, donation requests for support, or dogs in need of homes. I support the causes I believe in wholeheartedly. I figure there's an unfriend button and an unfollow option.

But let's be frank for a moment, my clients aren't interested in seeing my sometimes expletive-filled, usually emotionally-loaded, VagueBooking ecards that I write when I'm having a rough day.  You may have dozens of friends from grade, middle or high school that you're not really in close touch with whom you don't really want to share your "complicated" relationship status updates. Nor do you want your teenage son or daughter, nor their teachers, seeing your post on the six best sex positions.


Think about it:

1. Are the images you post constantly being reported for content?
2. Has your profile been banned from commenting?
3. Are you trying to raise funds, urgently, but are frustrated by the effort?
4. Do you know how to use the "ban" feature on your pages?
5. Do you monitor comments?
6. Do you study your insights?
7. Are you on social networking to network? To be social?  Or because everybody else is doing it?

This is where we leave your profile and decide how interested you are in each of your friends on your friends' list.

This is a lot of work if you have 941 friends but if you do this as you realize that you might not want to see that your cousin really loves the Back Street Boys, just uncheck the "Music and Videos" option. Or if you just can't stomach graphic images of dogs that need donations but you don't want to delete that friend because your heart tells you to contribute, uncheck "Photos."  Easy.


Nothing like an election year to find out your friends' opinions. I have admittedly unchecked a whole lot of friends "types of updates" and posts on my news feed cause, well, you know.... I am fascinated by the massive, never-before-seen social experiment called Facebook and the psychology behind our fears which lead to chain-letter like status updates burdening your friends with the responsibility of your privacy. If you don't know how to manage your own privacy, you don't get to determine that, they do.

You are more limited in your options for fan pages, but you do have the ability to "like" a page without seeing their updates. 

Perhaps you want the group to know you support them but don't necessarily want to see how many homeless pit bulls will die today throughout your feed wall when you really want just to see the photos of your newest, baby niece of your brother in Nebraska, just uncheck "Show in News Feed." Voila!  Isn't baby Grace just darling and growing SOO fast?!

If YOU have something to hide from a select group of people, there are many options for postings and I utilize nearly all of them on my personal profile but I already covered that that in "Post sexually explicit status updates and graphic images without getting banned" which has nothing to do with sex, just so you're not disappointed when you get there.

Frankly, I use Facebook for networking purposes as I am a firm believer in the 80s Faberge Organics Shampoo commercial "And they'll tell two friends- and so on, and so on..."  

If you're a celebrity, sure this might work. Otherwise...

I watch carefully what others do and how they engage their followers.  Beating them up cause they're not forking over ten bucks is not a successful attempt.  Posting frustrated, expletive filled rants about how the graphic images are putting their account on lock-down is not the correct approach.  Posting graphic images directly to your pages because "that's the only photo you have" to show your potential supports will only get you banned, unfollowed or unliked, because it IS offensive.  

There are solutions to all of these problems. I know them, I use them. You can too.

Between the days of MySpace and Facebook, I can comfortably estimate that I have personally raised (with help of volunteers, friends, followers and supporters) hundreds of thousands of dollars for animals in need in the past seven-eight years. How do I do it?  Well, I can't give away ALL of my trade secrets. But with options like events, polls, crowd-funding, and interest groups, I have no doubt that people can raise the funds they need for their cause.

Only individuals who sign up, login, post, "like" and "share" can answer the questions above for themselves. If you find yourself not being sure how to answer these or you can answer but have no idea where to begin, we can help.

You should be engaging, not offensive.  You should inspire, not insult.  You should be positive, not pessimistic. You should be inviting, not accusatory.

"I said 'Somebody should so something about that...' Then I realized I am that somebody."~ Lilly Tomlin

What's YOUR purpose on social media?

BLOG POST AUTHORED BY: Julie Miller, President of Lady Luck Consulting

 


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#socialnetworking #privacy #socialmediaprivacy #purpose #crowdfunding