Your nonprofit may not be raising much money off of Facebook, but fan pages are useful tools in helping nonprofits build community with their supporters. Here are five tips that any nonprofit can utilize to drive up engagement via fan pages.

Keep It Simple, Short, and Sweet
Your nonprofit is competing with many other Facebook user updates, fan pages, groups, etc so get to the point fast. Provide links to additional resources so fans can click to read more if they are interested in learning further details.

Take advantage of polls and contests
Nonprofits typically use Facebook fan pages to post the latest news about their organization’s issues and campaigns but often forget that people online like interactives such as taking a poll or participating in contests.

Be responsive
Social networks were meant to be “social” so make sure your nonprofit is truly engaging your supporters by having two-way (not one-way) conversations. Carve out time to respond to supporter’s comments, questions, thank them, etc. At the end of the day, social networks is about building relationships.

Cross promote
Does your nonprofit have an active presence on Twitter, MySpace, or LinkedIn? Make sure those other social networks are prominently highlighted on your fan page. Chances are, fans are part of those social networks and can join you there too.

Boost Your Nonprofit's SEO. Secure a Vanity URL
Brand your nonprofit on Facebook by securing a vanity url. For example, Planned Parenthood secured the obvious url http://www.facebook.com/PlannedParenthood which is the perfect url when users are searching for them on Facebook. Over 20,000 Facebook pages have a vanity url.

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