The top 10 Empower articles of 2020

Every year, we look at our Google Analytics dashboard and share the top 10 posts (by page views) over the course of the previous year.

The list for 2020 covers everything from Facebook Ads for charities, social media stats and communicating about climate change

So, here’s the list. Just click through from the headlines if you want to read more.

1. Charity Logo Quiz: How many causes can you name?

Empower’s charity logo quiz tests you on our favourite charity logos to inspire you on how you want your brand to be recognised by your audience. Found this charity logo quiz too easy? Try the hard version of the charity logo quiz!

2. How to track PDF downloads in Google Analytics

We love using Google Analytics to track how people are interacting with our website, but by default Google Analytics will not track how many times people download PDFs or other file types. This is simply because those files do not have the ability to request a tracking pixel, which is the method Google Analytics uses to track what people are doing on your website.

In this article, we look at several ways you can set up Google Analytics to properly track PDF downloads. Some of the methods are easier than others, so have a read through and check which method is best for you.

3. Facebook Ads for Charities: Driving Charity Donations and Fundraising ROI

How do you use Facebook to generate enough awareness among the right people, and create an engaging campaign that will persuade people to donate towards your charity or cause?

Asking for straight donations on Facebook is a hard task. You have to have massive brand awareness (think Cancer Research UK levels) and strong creative in order to get donations cold.

All is not lost. Empower is here to help through our extensive experience of how facebook ads are driving charity donations.

4. How to turn an offline event into an online virtual conference

While the logistics might be challenging at first, we believe an online conference can turn a day-long gathering of passionate and experienced professionals into months of information and insight for a diverse and global audience. 

Empower has gone through the experience of developing online conferences, which you can read about in our recent case study where we delivered a record-breaking relaunch of #FRO and increased attendees by 73% over previous years. We’ve also seen how TedXLondon Women have used digital content used well to complement their offline activity.

With this unique situation in mind, here are our tips for going digital-first with your conference or event.

5. How To Find Where Your Facebook Page Likes and Unlikes Come From

Facebook insights already provides lots of useful analytics around how your Facebook page is performing, but looking at the sources of where your page likes and unlikes came from is particularly useful when planning your social media strategy.

For example, keeping a close on your Facebook Page likes and unlikes gives you a good idea if the content you are posting is resonating with your audience.

If you see a steady increase in page likes, you know you’re on the right track. But if you see a spike in unlikes when you post “hilarious” cat gifs, then it might be time to rethink your social media strategy.

6. How to use Facebook Crossposting to drive views

If you’re not yet crossposting on your Facebook page, to drive views, tackle the algorithm and share more great content, you should be.

Facebook crossposting is simple, quick and easy to set up and action each day on your Facebook page, and can be a huge low-resource traffic driver and page booster.

7. Black Lives Matter and being an active ally

It is not enough to merely recognise racism when we see it. We need to call it out and be active anti-racists ourselves. Every person of all backgrounds needs to educate themselves about how racism manifests in all parts of our society, from education to crime to health to under-representation in the roles that shape our democracy.

Here are some resources that the Empower team have been reading and sharing in light of recent events in both the US and here in the UK, with the aim of helping us all to plot, plan, strategies, organise and mobilise to become better allies in the move towards racial equality.

You can also take a look at how Empower are working to recruit a diverse workforce.

8. Social media stats for charities and nonprofits

This article contains a collection of stats to help you understand the effectiveness of social media for charities and nonprofits, including benchmarks for fundraising, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Although a lot these stats aren’t from brand new research,  this will still be useful to you if you manage social media activity for a nonprofit or charity.

There is a great deal of analysis in this report in individual reports and surveys, so click through on the source for each stats, but the summary of each report is given here.

9. How to effectively communicate about climate change

Communicating climate change is getting increasingly complicated. Here’s how the way we talk about climate change affects the way people think about it.

10. How to benchmark your GDPR opt-in rates (aka re-permissioning)

While there are no hard and fast benchmarks for GDPR opt-in rates, there are a few ways you can work out a benchmark for your own organisation and decide on a target that your team agrees with. Or see how your re-permissioning exercise performed in retrospect.

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The list for 2020 covers everything from Facebook Ads for charities, social media stats and communicating about climate change.