Facebook ‘offers the best results for charities’
September 25th, 2012
Facebook remains the most effective social network for charities, ranking far ahead of its competitors.
The 2012 Charity Social Media Index from Visceral Business found 64 per cent of charities believe Facebook provides the best social media results.
Coming in a distant second was Twitter with 26 per cent, while blogs trailed in third with just three per cent.
However, despite Facebook being seen as the clear leader in terms of results, charities appear to be spreading their resources across a number of social networks.
Facebook was classed as a main platform by 84 per cent of the charities polled, while Twitter was named as a main platform by 87 per cent.
YouTube ranked third, being named as a main platform by 44.5 per cent of those polled.
"Charities that participated in our survey were in broad agreement that Facebook has the highest volume of traffic of any platform. It was also cited as the biggest driver of users to charities’ websites, as well as the best place to generate online discussions," the report claimed.
Which charities are performing best on social media?
Transparency International claimed the top spot in this year's index, it was followed by Greenpeace, Beat Bullying, Breast Cancer Research and Children in Need in the top five.
Medecins sans Frontieres, Childs i Foundation, War Child, The National Gallery and Beating Bowl Cancer completed the top ten.
The report found £2,707 is the amount of income the average charity has per their combined number of connected social followers on Facebook and Twitter.
It made clear that charities are increasingly recognising the importance of earned media and content in their marketing strategies.
One trend noted was the "degree to which charities prefer and see owned and earned media as more valuable than paid or promoted media".
One in four now also record the number of shares they receive on content as a measure of success.
Learn more about the value social media:
Use Twitter to make – not break – your reputation
95% authentic is not enough – insights about the charity Retrak
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