Third Sector have carried out a Charity Web Check which allows charity digital communication teams to evaluate their digital strategy against competitors. The report provides an in depth analysis of 300 charity websites and their social media activity and ranks the charity on their overall performance.
The report profiles each charity’s web presence as well as presenting the specific areas that charities excel at and also how they need to improve their strategy to stay competitive. This is a great resource as it will enable charities to evaluate their position and highlight how they need to improve their approach to enhance their online presence, increase donations and how to reach a wider audience.
We are proud to say that our client Beating Bowel Cancer have ranked 15th out of 300 charities which is the same position that Oxfam and RSPCA have achieved. This is a great result for the charity and they are continuously working hard to raise awareness to the UK’s second biggest cancer killer.
Beating Bowel Cancer have an annual income that is less than many of the charities listed on the report, so it is great to see them coming so far up the list against other charities as it shows that the hard work they put into their digital strategy is really paying off.
How the analysis is conducted
A team of five were tasked with collating the required information between 25 July to 5 August 2011. The organisations were scored according to social media and website, these scores were then added together to give an overall ranking:
Social Media
Loyalty – Number of Facebook “likes”, number of Twitter followers and the number of YouTube subscribers.
Activity – Number of Facebook charity wall posts, number of Twitter tweets by the charity and the number of uploaded YouTube videos.
Engagement – Number of comments to charity posts, number of likes for charity posts and number of Twitter @ mentions of charity.
Website
Website – Can font and colour options be changed? Are social network links on homepage? Is there a donate now button? Is the charity number on the homepage? Are contact details visible on homepage? Is there a contact us button on the homepage? Is there a search function on the site? Is there a page which shows how donations are used? how many clicks does it take to make a donation and how many clicks does it take to get to the vacancies page?
The number of Facebook ‘likes’ and Twitter followers was recorded during this time and the numbers of Facebook wall posts and Twitter tweets were counted for the same allocated two week period, while ‘@’ mentions on Twitter were recorded for a one week period and YouTube video uploads were counted for a three month period.
Details of the method used are outlined here – www.thirdsectorresearch.com/charity-web-check.php.
To view the compiled list and rank of all 300 charities click here.
