Social media round-up for charities #19

Keeping up with changes and new features, when it comes to social media, can be hard. That’s why we do all the hard work for you! Welcome to our nineteenth social media round-up for charities.

Instagram rolls out Donate button to profiles

Just in time for #GivingTuesday and end of year campaigns, you can now add the Donate button to your nonprofit’s profile page on Instagram although you have to be registered with Facebook’s Giving Tools to do this. Will it revolutionise fundraising through Instagram? Probably not as the donor experience and user journey is still quite clunky. Read this great blog post by Nicola Gee, senior social media manager at WWF UK on their insights so far on raising money through Instagram.

Twitter rolls out ‘hide replies’ feature globally

Good news for charities – Twitter has rolled out its ‘hide replies’ feature meaning you can be in control of which replies you don’t want to be visible. Think of it like Facebook’s hide comments feature, which has been in place for years.

The replies aren’t deleted and can still be seen if a user clicks on the little page icon on the far right of the original tweet.

We’re always looking for ways to give everyone the ability to have more meaningful interactions. With this feature:

📄 Replies to a Tweet can be hidden only by the author
📄 Replies that are hidden aren’t removed — anyone can see them using a new iconhttps://t.co/Agwt2M7vD8

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) November 21, 2019

Whilst this is a great feature, remember to only use it when the reply is spam, offensive or not relevant. It’s not good practice to hide genuine replies that are perhaps critical or questioning.

Facebook removes Post scheduling on Pages

Facebook has now removed the ability to schedule posts directly on your Page. Instead, you now need to use their Publishing Tools or Business Manager to be able to schedule. Yet another reason to use Lightful to schedule all your social media posts (we’ve also just announced that you can schedule unlimited posts on both our free and paid plans!).

Now you can follow specific topics on Twitter

It’s not rolled out to everyone yet but Twitter has introduced a new feature called ‘topics’ where you will see suggested topics in your timeline that you can then follow. For example, you might see ‘charity’ as a topic which you can then follow. You will then be shown relevant tweets – even from accounts you don’t follow. This is a good way to keep an eye on particular topics that are relevant to your cause so that you can be in the know and stay up to date.

See a topic, follow a topic! Customize your timeline with Tweets, people, events, and ads about topics that interest you.

You’ll now see an option to follow relevant topics in your timeline and search results. When you tap "Follow", your profile will show you follow that topic. https://t.co/s50XcqnAjM

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) November 13, 2019