Facebook Dublin to offer free courses to charities

Facebook’s Dublin office is offering free courses to registered charities which will tell them how to improve their social media campaigns. The 75-minute classes will go through how the charities can use the website, which has 2 million active Irish users and 1.5 million daily Irish visitors, to enhance their awareness, as well as discussing innovative ways of fundraising.

Last week, Cystic Fibrosis Ireland took part in a master class on how they use Facebook. Fundraising and PR officer for CF Ireland, Ciara Enright said the way the charity engages with its audience through Facebook has changed over time and they now know what works best for them.

“Social media allows us to show people that it’s not all doom and gloom. We’ve learned what people like seeing and sharing. It almost happened organically. People like reading about personal stories [of people with CF],” she said.

Manager of global marketing solutions at Facebook Catherine Flynn said the workshops will show charities unfamiliar with the optimal way to create a community online how to build a two-way conversation with their audience.

“What Facebook is really good at is converting awareness to action. If you see it as a one way system, it’s not going to work as well as it could for you,” she said.

Spokeswoman for CF Ireland Katie Murphy, who has cystic fibrosis, said social media and online communities are very important to her charity.

“Although there’s nothing better than face-to-face conversation, methods like skype, instant messenger and Facebook are very beneficial [as people with CF who cannot meet in person].

“It also provides an opportunity to create general awareness within the general population about what cystic fibrosis is. This is extremely important to everybody with CF, because greater awareness means greater acceptance and less stigmatisation.”

Registered charities who are interested in taking part in a course at Facebook Dublin can register by emailing fbcharityworkshop@fb.com. There is no deadline for applications, but if there is enough demand, Facebook will arrange new workshops.