Tech monopolies: are they hurting donations?

In early October 2021, the findings of a 16-month congressional investigation by the US House Judiciary Committee into tech giants Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook revealed that these companies had ‘monopoly power’ in their respective spaces.

 

It stated, for example, that Facebook (now Meta) had ’monopoly power’ in the social media space and that it maintained its top position by using its vast amounts of data and resource to “acquire, copy or kill” any imminent threat. Simply put, any new or existing social media networks that were gaining traction or showing potential were either acquired and brought into the Facebook brand, or popular features on other platforms were copied. 

 

Facebook is nearing its 20th anniversary, meaning that charities have long established communities on the platform and, with the introduction of their Giving Tools a few years ago, have been ever more reliant on the platform to help raise funds.

 

In recent years, the platform has experienced a number of significant issues, such as the Cambridge Analytica scandal and more recently the exposé, titled The Facebook Files, where former employee-turned-whistleblower Frances Haugen alleged ‘a culture of profit over safety’.

 

Despite these issues, one more worrying issue for charities is just how vulnerable they are when these platforms experience outages. In the same week that Haugen testified, a major outage lasting several hours affected Facebook and its other networks, Instagram and WhatsApp. Charities lost potential donations and support from ad campaigns that they were running and others who had Lives scheduled, couldn’t go ahead with them.

 

It was a stark reminder of the reliance charities have on one or two platforms - for both raising awareness and funds.

 

 

Diversification is key

 

Whilst certain platforms, such as Facebook, are so important for raising funds, charities need to ensure they are not over-reliant on them and that they are investing in other forms of digital. As Zoe Amar recently wrote for Charity Digital, “... not diversifying has become a risk in itself.”

 

 

How charities can diversify their digital streams

 

 

Build your email list

 

Email marketing should be high on your priority list as it’s a very effective channel for soliciting support, as people have actively opted in to hear from you.

 

An Email Marketing ROI report, by US email marketing platform Litmus, reported that email generated a return on investment (ROI) of $36 for every dollar spent and that 74% of Baby Boomers ( people born between 1946 and 1964) feel email is the most personal channel for brands to communicate with them.

 

Now is the time to review your email marketing and get it in tip top shape. Are you spending enough time building your email lists? Are you marketing your email sign-up effectively? Have you made it easy for people to sign up to hear from you? Have you segmented your list to ensure you’re sending relevant emails to your database?

 

 

Invest in Google AdWords

 

Eligible charities can sign up to Google for Nonprofits and apply for $10,000 dollars of free Google AdWords each month. However, be aware that there are a number of limitations and requirements – for example, you are required to maintain a 5% click-through rate each month, at the account level, to keep the grant. If done well, it’s a very worthwhile investment as it can help drive lots of relevant traffic to your website.

 

Marina Chenery, Digital Manager at Operation Smile UK, outsources the management of their AdWords account and says, “Successfully running Google AdWord campaigns takes not only time but a number of skills and technical expertise. So unless you have a large team or a dedicated team member, getting an agency to manage it will bring much better results.”

 

 

Up your SEO game

 

Websites are extremely important for helping people find access to services, information or support as well giving people an opportunity to sign up to email, make a donation, attend an event or fundraise.

 

Whilst email, social media and ads can refer people to your website, a lot of traffic will come from organic search results. In order for your website to surface in search results, you will need to do some work on search engine optimisation (SEO), which means researching keywords that people are using to find information and ensuring that your website is optimised, in terms of meta and alt tags.

 

Depending on the resource and skills you have within your charity, you can either improve your SEO in-house or you can outsource it to an SEO agency.

 

When researching keywords, use free tools such as Google Keyword Planner or invest in paid tools such as Moz and Ahrefs.