Every year, there are animals in shelters that have a difficult time finding their forever homes. Sadly, just looking cute and waiting to get adopted isn’t enough anymore. Therefore, shelters need to do everything they can to help each and every animal in need. Social media is has become a huge part of making sure animals find their forever homes as soon as possible.
How Do Shelters Use Social Media?
Every shelter takes advantage of social media in their own way, but there are some common methods that they use. Each of these methods has proven that social media is important for animal shelters.
Sharing Adoptable Animals
Shelters love to post their adoptable animals, especially the ones that are the most in need of a home. They will often share cute pictures or silly videos of these animals to help bring attention to them. These posts should always be public so that people can share them. Click here to see our posts about Instagram and Facebook and for more information on how to make your posts public
Success Stories
Shelters will post success stories of past animals on their social media. When an animal gets adopted, the shelter will often celebrate by sharing a cute post about how that animal finally found their forever family or what their new life is like. These types of posts will bring smiles to people’s faces and help others want to adopt too. These posts show how shelter animals can make wonderful companions and live happy lives.
Making Requests
It might seem a bit up front to ask for donations or volunteers on social media, but that is the best way to reach out to people. Shelters run on the support that they gain from the community, so it’s okay for them to ask for help from time to time. A social media post about saving animals in need could be the perfect way to tug on people’s heartstrings. Plus, if people are very supportive of a shelter, they will likely share the posts and encourage their friends to volunteer, donate, or even adopt!
Shelters will often list what supplies they need and sometimes they will even link to their Amazon wish list to make donating easier. This allows donors to quickly choose items within their budget and send them straight to the shelter without even having to leave their home. Shelters can also easily add a donate button to their Facebook page!
Events
Rescues post about events on their social media, such as adoption events or fundraisers. By having these on social media, they will reach more people and it will be easier for those interested to share the events with their friends. Plus, Facebook events can give shelters an idea of how many people are planning to attend.
How Does Social Media Help Animals Get Adopted?
By posting available animals on social media, more people will get to see them. Even if someone wasn’t planning on adopting a new pet, they might see an animal on Facebook and fall in love with them or share that information with someone that they know is looking for a new family member.
Word spreads much faster with social media. Without it, people would have to stop into the shelter to see which animals were up for adoption, which wouldn’t be quite as efficient, especially for the animals that have been waiting for a long time. Plus, social media is a free way to advertise.
When people adopt pets from the shelter, they are likely to share that information through social media. They’ll post a cute picture of their new family member, and they will likely post where they adopted them from. Therefore, by seeing their post, more people will feel inclined to check out that shelter’s page and see what they’ve posted recently. Make sure to encourage adopters to tag you on social media and to have a social media presence so alumni can easily find and tag your shelter.
Over time, social media has made animals that need a home so much more visible. The more often shelters share their adoptable animals, events, and success stories, the more people will be interested in adopting and helping. Social media posts might seem like such a simple thing, but they could end up saving the lives of many animals as they find their forever homes.
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