Taking Action for Children on Facebook

What is your charity’s name and mission?

We are Action for Children, committed to helping the most vulnerable children and young people in the UK break through injustice, deprivation and inequality, so they can achieve their full potential.

Why do you use Facebook and which services do you use?

We use Facebook to reach out to all of our supporters, letting them know what Events we have on, linking them to research, news stories and uploading photos to show them what we get up to! We have about 1,600 fans which has increased by an astonishing 1,400 in just two months which we’re over the moon about! We take full advantage of the photos, links and video capability of status updates. It makes them much more fun and interesting to read on people’s new feeds!

Have Facebook supporters done something wonderful for you?

They follow us, comment, send in photos and generally make it a very friendly forum for us to communicate in!

Do you consider Facebook an important part of your work online?

Absolutely, its the most commonly used social media website – not everyone wants to join Twitterverse, so it’s a way of communicating simple messages that appear in supporters’ feeds whenever they come online! It’s also a constant space that although is always updated, shows everything that we have done, including with our three-year Neglect Appeal that we recently launched. We have some really important messages to deliver about child neglect, so knowing they are always there and visible on our fan page is brilliant.

Have you encountered any problems using Facebook?

We’d love to develop our own tabs and design features, but do not have anyone html / coding minded, so we’re quite restricted in what we can do with it at the moment, but hoping that will all change very soon!

Do you have any tips for other charities?

Facebook is a very difference audience to Twitter. Content needs to be longer lasting, interesting, and something that you would be interested in seeing in your own personal news feed when you signed in. Encourage photo uploads as much as possible, those are the kinds of things that people like seeing. Also, respond to any questions or queries, that’s what you’re on there for – but remember you don’t ALWAYS have to respond! It’s a place for supporters to have their own conversations about the charity as well.