What if there was an easy way for your nonprofit to have its voice heard on key issues and get discovered by people interested in your cause, at the same time? Thanks to social media, there is – and all it requires is adding a couple extra words to your posts.
Including a hashtag in a social media post signifies that the post is related to a certain topic and, perhaps more importantly, makes the post easily searchable. Social media users interested in a specific topic often search by hashtag, so including one (or several) is an easy way to reach people who are likely to be in your target audience, even if they aren’t already following your organization.
Using hashtags will get your organization’s social media posts seen by more users – often people in your target audience. Click To TweetBut for people new to the hashtag game, figuring out which ones to use isn’t always obvious. Fortunately, there are a lot of great hashtags for nonprofits and plenty of ways to find new ones – and you can even create your own.
Best Hashtags for Nonprofits
Many of the top nonprofit hashtags are simply general words that relate in some way to the non-profit sector. These are hashtags that are widely used, including by large and influential accounts, and for which most of the posts are actually related to nonprofit work. Here are some of the best ones to consider using in your organization’s posts:
- #nonprofit
- #charity
- #philanthropy
- #fundraising
- #donate
- #volunteers
- #giveback
- #dogood
- #socialimpact
- #activism
Of course, the many different fields within the nonprofit sector have their own specific hashtags, which is often the name of the field, the issue it addresses, or the approach it uses. The right hashtags to use will depend on your organization’s cause, but these are some popular ones:
- #poverty
- #womensempowerment
- #publichealth
- #animalrescue
- #homelessness
- #humantrafficking
- #globaldev
- #aid
- #data4good
- #nptech
Where to Find Nonprofit Hashtags
If this list doesn’t have quite what you’re looking for, you may need to do some hashtag research to find the right ones for your nonprofit. One of the best ways is to see what hashtags appear in posts from influential accounts that are relevant to your organization. A good place to start is with your organization’s competitors, partners, and donors, particularly those that have an especially strong presence on social media. Scrolling through some of these organizations’ Twitter or Instagram accounts should immediately give you ideas for useful hashtags to start including in your own posts.
For ideas of new hashtags your organization could be using, look at the ones in posts from your competitors, partners, donors, and other influential nonprofit accounts.
Another way to identify new hashtags is by searching one you already know – such as #nonprofit – and then looking through the posts that appear in the search results. This will show you what other hashtags are being used by accounts that also use one you’re interested in. The search functions themselves are also useful for doing research. When you search for a hashtag on Twitter or Instagram, you’ll automatically see a list of other related ones, and at least some of them will likely make sense for your organization to use. No matter how you find new hashtags, be sure to check that they have a high volume and that posts including them are generally on-topic.
Creating Your Own Hashtag
When creating a unique hashtag for your organization, keep it short, clear, and concise – and double check for accidental connotations before you start using it. Click To TweetIf your organization has a specific campaign or event coming up, it’s a good idea to create a unique hashtag for it, or you may even want to create a general one that encompasses the organization’s approach or mission. When deciding what to use for your hashtag, try to keep it relatively short; this is especially important on Twitter, where it will count toward a tweet’s character limit. The hashtag should also be clear, so users will immediately understand what it refers to. To save your organization a potential PR nightmare, be sure to fully examine any potential implications your hashtag may have and any ways it could possibly be misread. Lastly, do a quick search to check that it isn’t already being used for some other purpose.
Whether your organization is creating its own hashtags or using existing ones, this is an easy and effective way to get your nonprofit’s social media posts seen by more people and ultimately raise the organization’s profile and increase its following.