Facebook – The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
While concerns about Facebook’s role in our everyday interactive process and the negative consequences of fake news, disinformation, and the facilitation of the development for dangerous movements, remain; on the other hand, Facebook’s connective efforts are yielding positive results in several ways.
One of them is through the promotion of causes, with Facebook’s unrivaled reach opening up new ways for nonprofits to raise awareness and funds through the platform’s different tools.
Facebook recently revealed that it had surpassed a new milestone in this regard, having raised more than $5 billion in total through Facebook’s fundraising and donation tools on its leading platform and Instagram.
For better or worse, social media is a big part of how we communicate and meet new people. That also applies to your nonprofit. It’s challenging to ignore platforms like Facebook and its reported 2.13 billion active users as you work to raise awareness and steward your community of followers. To put things in perspective, that’s almost a quarter of the entire population of the planet.
We summarize the available possibilities to leverage, potential issues to consider, and how to create a well-rounded approach to help your organization understand the tools available through Facebook and think about the best ways to weave them into your strategy.
Facebook has added a variety of tools to help nonprofits get the most out of their efforts on the platform over time, including more recent additions like the ability for users to produce and share nonprofit fundraisers directly within their Instagram feed, which it added last November.
The COVID-19 pandemic has raised awareness of such efforts, and according to Facebook, ‘Humanitarian and Environmental’ causes were the top priority for donors in the past year.
As previously mentioned, this is one of Facebook’s bright spots and a key benefit of its connective efforts. Yes, there are worries about its size and the potential for people to use it for nefarious purposes. However, the opportunities that Facebook offers can be substantial and can result in significant benefits for people worldwide in a variety of ways.
Aside from these figures, Facebook has also offered some advice on how to get the most out of your fundraising efforts on the platform.
Do the platform’s positive aspects outweigh its potential drawbacks? It’s difficult to argue, but Facebook is doing more to clean up its platform and remove harmful use while also developing an awareness of several positive movements. There’s always something there.