Optimise your digital platforms to build brand trust

In a nutshell, nonprofit organisations must improve their digital platforms to build brand trust, boost audience engagement, and ultimately attract resources and donors. Now, we appreciate that there are other goals and expectations of having an online brand presence, but the key takeaway is that all of your digital assets need to be set up to support your business objectives. Otherwise, why invest time and money in these things?

Speaking of investment, donors need to adopt more flexible and innovative funding approaches. Unrestricted funding can empower nonprofits to enhance their brand awareness, diversify their donor base, and make a significant impact in their communities. Leading organisations like the Peter Cundill Foundation and the Freedom Fund have already embraced this approach. The Mackenzie Scott Foundation goes even further by providing multi-year, unrestricted funds to reduce administrative bottlenecks for social impact organisations. Such funding can be transformative for nonprofits seeking to improve their digital presence.

For such organisations, or those just starting out, we highlight some simple steps to take to advance digital maturity.

To create an effective social media plan, it is important to first understand your audiences by creating ‘buyer personas’ and a stakeholder journey map, and establishing your goals and measurement metrics. But before any of that nerdy stuff, here are some simple steps that you can take to build strong foundations.

Ensure your names and handles are consistent across all platforms, and ideally matching your website URL. This makes it easy for users to find, recognise and trust your organisation online. It also makes it simple for users to tag you in their posts, and as a result, boost your engagement. So often we see brands using different names and handles across various platforms, such as (for example): magnia, magnia.partners, magnia-org, magniadubai, and magpartners. Yikes!

We always recommend having a ‘short description’ of your organisation in your key messaging, which is usually a condensed version of your ‘about us’ text. Ideally, 160 characters is your maximum to stay within character limit restrictions across all platforms. Now, make it consistent across your digital platforms, so users understand and believe what you do!

Resize your post, profile and cover images for each of your platform’s specifications. Pixelated, uneven and inconsistent images can be frustrating for your audiences and hurts your brand’s trust and engagement. Use this cheat sheet by Hootsuite to create templates for your team to use whenever you’re creating images.

Ensure your pages are set up in the backend according to what your organisation does; for example, as a ‘nonprofit organisation’ you will be able to host a ‘Nonprofit Page Fundraiser’ on Facebook and Instagram (both being part of the Meta company) and utilise the charitable giving tools, such as adding a Donate button to your profile. To utilise these benefits, your pages need to be set up as business pages and linked via the Meta Business Suite. Having the correct setup also allows you to identify competitors within your sector, and how your pages rank in comparison

Social media advertising and digital marketing can be expensive, but most of the platforms and scheduling and measurement tools (such as Hootsuite and Sprout Social) offer discounts or free premium features for nonprofits. Additionally, Google offers up to USD $10,000 in Google Ad Grants per month for eligible nonprofits. Make the most of it!

Your website is one of your most essential brand touchpoints and becomes part of a much larger ecosystem within your inbound marketing. Consider some of the following recommendations to ensure your website is optimised and being used with purpose.

A call to action is where a user can download information, get in touch or fill in a form. In a non-retail environment, these are considered to be the most important conversions. Additionally, a call to action helps navigate a user through the information and to the conversion, which could also include making a donation.

Your website should be user friendly and enjoyable to navigate. Establishing clear website objectives can offer guidance on what information to prioritise and how to make this easy for users to find. Ultimately, there should be clear paths to conversions with no wasted time, otherwise, you may lose the interest of users and potential donors. Furthermore, your website ranking will be rewarded for high content relevance and clear conversion pathways.

While technical SEO often requires working with a specialist, you can optimise some important elements easily inhouse or with your web developer. Use free tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to identify and resolve speed issues. Organise the site’s structure logically, making it easy for users and search engines to navigate. And, because a huge portion of your visitors are using smartphones and tablets, ensure the website is fully responsive and provides a user-friendly experience on mobile devices.

Donors are interested in your financial information and how you are committing their money to do good. Being open and transparent about your financial information on your website builds credibility and donor confidence and strengthens social proof for your brand.

By implementing these steps, nonprofits can easily enhance their digital platforms, establish brand trust, and ultimately, attract further support to create lasting impact. Investing in your digital maturity is a crucial investment in the success of your organisation and the communities that you serve. On a lighter note, your digital platforms will look great and you will feel a sense of pride!