Many shelters and rescues have seen an unprecedented number of pets go into foster homes recently thanks to emergency foster initiatives. Now that these pets are in foster, it’s time to take the next step: getting them adopted.  

With the need for social distancing, social media is more important than ever. Volunteers, many of whom won’t be able to visit your building as regularly as before, may be interested in helping from home in any way they can. Organizations have a real opportunity to channel volunteers’ passion into online marketing so more pets get seen by potential adopters.  

While most people have a basic knowledge of how social media works, it can be helpful to specify the actions you need volunteers to take on your social media pages. Training them in what they can do to help your organization leverage your followers on social media can help further invite engagement on your main social media pages. Theoretically, the more people who engage, the more who are comfortable with engaging. 

Several organizations have been using their volunteer and foster social media groups to train volunteers on how to engage with main page posts. The training is simple, and you can find a template here. The 6 short segments can be scheduled to post regularly in your volunteer and/or foster social media group by an administrator. 

The goal of the training is to educate volunteers about how much their engagement main page social media posts affects the number of potential adopters who see pets’ posts. Volunteers often have a general idea of how social media works, but they can’t see the statistics on post reach and engagement that are available to page administrators and editors. Seeing real examples helps to make the connection more concrete and lets them see how their actions affect a pet’s reach. 

“I can’t think of a better use of my time,” says Kimberly Williams, a volunteer with Lost Dog and Cat Rescue Foundation, one of the organizations piloting the training series. Networking and learning new ideas will give us the tools we need to help these dogs and cats that truly are depending on us!”