Social Media Tips for GiveNOLA Day

Written By Alicia Vial

The Greater New Orleans region is home to several nonprofit organizations caring for the needs of our community. One of the biggest online giving events of the year is coming up on May 6 and today we wanted to share some tips on how to use social media for GiveNOLA Day as well as other online giving campaigns.

GiveNOLA Day is a 24-hour online giving event on May 6, 2025, organized by the Greater New Orleans Foundation, enabling individuals to support over 900 local nonprofit organizations. Social media is the perfect outlet for online giving campaigns.

Every successful campaign starts with a plan. We recommend building a calendar or timeline of posts for your campaign – from the week’s leading up to it, for the day of giving and recognition posts following the event. By laying out the days and times you are going to post, it will alleviate the pressure to post daily and ensure you have a clear plan of how you will let your users know you are participating.

Creating a timeline in advance also allows you to utilize scheduling tools like Meta Business Suite, Hootsuite and Buffer (to name a few) to schedule posts in advance. When creating your timeline it is also important to use analytics from last year. Pull your social media report from a year ago and see what days/times users engaged with your posts as well as the types of posts they preferred.

The great thing about GiveNOLA Day is you can use a variety of content types – infographics, videos, images – in your plan. Always include your donation link on every post. After all, the end goal is to collect donations, so it’s important to include your link in every post so users do not have to go searching for it.

The theme of your content should also be about storytelling:

  • Who is your organization and what need are you filling?

  • Give real life examples or testimonials on how your organization helps

  • When you can link a dollar amount to your impact – for example $50 can provide a meal kit to feed a family of four

We all have nonprofits that we support and we can also use our own social media to help them have success on May 6. Consider posting a video of why you support certain nonprofits and tag them! Elevating the testimonials and real-life examples of why we support the groups add to the content already being shared.

Speaking of that – share their posts! Go to your favorite nonprofit’s page and share their post with a message to your followers on why you are donating or asking them to join you in donating. This will not only elevate the impressions or number of people who see their post, it will also put that donation link right where it needs to be – in front of like-minded people who may just click and make a donation.

 

Alicia Vial

Alicia Vial is a New Orleans native with more than a decade of experience elevating client stories and leading crisis response. As the senior director of strategy, Alicia acts as a leader within the Gambel Communications team ensuring each agency team member is positioned to deliver strategic public relations services that meet the highest standards of the industry. In addition to supporting the agency’s long-term business growth and development, she coordinates day-to-day account services and oversees strategic direction while staying abreast of best practices and industry trends to provide innovative solutions to meet client’s needs.

Before joining Gambel Communications, Alicia served as the communications director for the Louisiana SPCA, the oldest and largest animal welfare organization in Louisiana that impacts more than 74,000 animals per year. During her nearly eight-year tenure, Alicia oversaw numerous crises, served on national communication taskforces, oversaw all aspects of internal and external relations and worked alongside the development department to raise critical funding. Prior to that, she worked in the fast-paced New Orleans hospitality industry focusing on digital public relations for multiple hotels.

Alicia is a member of the Public Relations Association of Louisiana (PRAL), Southern Public Relations Federation (SPRF), a board member of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) New Orleans Chapter and a member of the New Orleans Regional Leadership Institute. An accredited public relations practitioner (APR), Alicia is also certified in crisis communications, organizational leadership, content marketing and social media.

A well respected and trusted public relations practitioner, Alicia has been recognized by SPRF as a ‘Senior Practitioner of the Year’. Dubbed early on in her career as one to watch, she also received the ‘Rising Star’ award by PRAL and was profiled in St. Charles Avenue Magazine as part of their Young Bloods series. Most recently, she was recognized at PRSA’s annual Fleurish Awards and received four Awards of Excellence for her work along with the ‘Plate Spinner’ award for her efforts on the board of directors for the chapter.

An LSU graduate, Alicia received a bachelor's degree in mass communications with a concentration in public relations and minors in business administration and leadership development. She is a frequent speaker and presenter on public relations topics, most recently presenting at the Jefferson Economic Development Commission and SPRF annual conference.

When Alicia is not at work, you can find her at the ballpark with her three boys or cheering on the Tigers in Death Valley.

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