Almost two thirds of European nonprofits now spend on social media advertising

The majority of European nonprofits questioned for a global survey (63%) are now spending on social media advertising, with half of these increasing their spend in 2021. Facebook Pages and Instagram were by far the most popular social media channels for posting ads last year, followed by LinkedIn and Twitter.

The 2021 Global NGO Technology Survey also found that 60% are engaged in online fundraising with a further 15% saying they planned to do so soon. Over a third of European nonprofits said they used Facebook charitable giving tools, with Facebook Page fundraisers created by supporter, and Donate buttons on nonprofits’ pages and posts raising the most. However, little over 1 in 10 use Instagram charitable giving tools – many of those surveyed were unaware of this functionality on Instagram, while others said the tools were not available in their country.

In terms of tracking, 4 in 10 European nonprofits are currently using UTM codes to monitor website traffic from social media, compared with 2 in 10 globally.

Global trends

According to the global survey, 87% of nonprofits worldwide use social media with Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter being the top three platforms used.

The vast majority (97%) use Facebook Pages – up from 84% in the 2019 study. Overall, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are the most popular channels, although almost half of respondents also use LinkedIn, and YouTube. Most have also seen significant increases in use since 2019, particularly Instagram and Twitter. TikTok, Snapchat, and Twitch however are the least commonly used social media channels.

Only one channel has seen a decrease in use since 2019 however: WhatsApp. 16% of the nonprofits worldwide using social media said they used it last year – falling from 28%.

Just over half of nonprofits globally are spending on social media advertising. In 2021 46% increased their budget, while 38% said it had stayed the same as their 2020 budget, and 16% had seen it decrease. Again, Facebook Pages is the most popular channel for these ads, with 98% of that spend on social media advertising using it. 47% advertise on Instagram, 17% on Twitter, and 16% on LinkedIn. Few spend on the other channels.

While social media use is rising, there is a downside identified by the study. Over half (52%) of nonprofit staff responsible for managing their nonprofit’s social media accounts said they have experienced social media burnout within the last year.

A survey of 1,160 nonprofits worldwide, the 2021 Global NGO Technology Survey includes 194 nonprofits in Europe. A quarter of these (24%) were based in the UK with the next biggest percentage 8% in Germany, and 7% in Switzerland, then Italy, Belgium and Netherlands (all 6%), Romania at 5%, and France and Ireland at 4% each. ‘All others’ accounted for 30%.

The data from the survey has been released as part of the Open Data Project.

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