Ways To Promote Online Auctions On Social Media

If you are running an online auction and are hoping to get potential bidders excited beforehand, social media is the most powerful tool you have. Here are three tactics you can use to promote your online auctions on social media. Facebook and Twitter are both extremely effective tools for online auction promotions. Each platform requires a slightly different approach.

Create a Facebook Event for Your Auction

The best way to get people to attend your online auction is to create an event on Facebook. Potential attendees will receive notifications when the events are posted and will be able to RSVP. One of the biggest benefits of this approach is that it can reach people who are not on your email or direct mail lists. You must make it a public event, of course, so that everyone can see it.

Use images from past events as a way to promote the upcoming one. This will help people to know what to expect from the new event.

Invite All Your Followers, Then Encourage Interested Attendees To Do The Same.

Once you have posted the event, invite donors, volunteers, staff and other supporters. Then, when they respond to the invitation by indicating that they are going or interested, the event will show up on their timelines. For wider exposure, you can include the event link in your marketing emails. Ask all your guests and supporters to invite friends personally, as well as sharing to their entire news feed. Post regular updates on the event and your page fairly regularly - just enough to keep people interested, and not so much that they unlike or unfollow notifications from the event.

Twitter: Write Concise, Punchy Posts

On Twitter, you can’t create an event as you would on Facebook. You need to make good use of the 280 characters you are allowed for each tweet. In fact, you should keep it even shorter - somewhere between 71 and 100 characters appears to be the most effective. Write a single sentence that can promote a particular attribute of the auction, include links to your home page, auction site or catalogue.

Utilize Hashtags

When using Twitter to promote your event, you will need to make use of concise, impactful tweets that link back to your website, online auction page, or catalogue. The most vital tool in your kit is a good hashtag. Facebook relies on personalized invitations, while Twitter reaches your target audience through the use of hashtags. People can use the Twitter search function to find tweets containing relevant keywords. Create a special hashtag for each event and include it in all your promotional material. Encourage your staff, supporters and donors to use the hashtag on any posts related to the auction, both before and during the event.

Auctria provides efficient and affordable tools to help nonprofits and other organizations run successful nonprofit auctions. For more information on how to run a nonprofit fundraising event, including how to promote online auctions on social media, contact Auctria today!