Running Your Virtual Challenge Across Multiple Platforms
Virtual challenges started on Facebook, and many still run there successfully. But increasingly, the most effective campaigns use multiple platforms — not because more is always better, but because different supporters are genuinely active in different places. A 55-year-old donor might engage primarily through email; a 25-year-old might only see your content through Instagram Stories. Meeting them where they actually are tends to produce better results than asking them to adapt to a single channel.
Here’s how each platform tends to work in practice, and how to think about building a multi-platform approach without stretching your team too thin.
Instagram works particularly well for visual progress sharing and community motivation. Stories suit quick daily check-ins — short workout updates, behind-the-scenes moments, or a simple progress prompt that participants can respond to. Reels can carry further-reaching content like workout tips or participant success stories. Posts work for milestone moments and impact updates.
The community angle is where Instagram often earns its place in a Virtual Challenge. Encouraging participants to tag your organisation in their posts, and sharing user-generated content consistently, builds a sense of collective effort that participants respond well to.
TikTok
TikTok’s reach with younger audiences — Gen Z and younger millennials — makes it worth considering if that demographic is relevant to your challenge. The format is short-form and high-energy: workout demos, quick progress updates, before-and-after content. Branded hashtags give participants a simple way to contribute their own content and help the challenge feel like a movement rather than a campaign.
It’s worth being realistic about capacity here. TikTok rewards consistency and creativity, and it’s better suited to teams with some existing comfort on the platform than to charities trying it from scratch.
Email remains the most reliable channel for detailed stewardship. It’s where you can send content that doesn’t work in a two-line SMS or a social post — fundraising guides, weekly progress summaries, templates participants can copy and paste, and the impact stories that keep people motivated over the course of a challenge.
A basic email journey would typically include a welcome sequence at registration, weekly updates during the challenge period, and post-challenge follow-up. Each email should have a clear purpose: either helping participants fundraise more effectively or keeping them emotionally connected to your cause.
SMS
SMS gets read quickly, which makes it well-suited to time-sensitive moments: a morning motivation nudge, a milestone celebration, a reminder as a deadline approaches. The format demands brevity — one clear message per text, personalised where possible.
The main considerations are consent and timing. Supporters need to have opted in, and the messages need to be worth receiving. An SMS that feels like marketing noise is more likely to prompt an opt-out than an email in the same position.
Facebook Groups
Facebook Groups still perform well for community building, particularly for audiences who are already active on Facebook. Daily check-in prompts, peer recognition, live Q&A sessions, and shared progress posts all work well in the format. Engagement tends to be high when the group is actively moderated — which is the main resource consideration.
For challenges where community and peer motivation are central to the concept, a well-run Facebook Group can significantly increase both engagement and average fundraising.
How to think about combining platforms
The instinct to be everywhere at once is understandable but rarely serves teams well. A better starting point is choosing two or three channels where you’re already confident and your audience is already active, and doing those well. From there, you can add platforms based on participant feedback and engagement data.
The practical principle is consistency without complexity: the same core message in a given week, adapted to fit each platform’s format. A milestone celebration week looks different on SMS (a short congratulations), email (a detailed community spotlight), and Instagram (a visual progress update) — but the theme is the same across all three.
Letting participants indicate their preferred channels at registration is worth building into your process. It reduces opt-outs, increases engagement, and gives you useful data about where your audience actually wants to hear from you.
Measuring what’s working
Each platform produces its own engagement signals — Story completion on Instagram, open rates on email, opt-outs on SMS, post engagement in Facebook Groups. The more useful cross-platform question is which channel combinations are driving the most fundraising page creation and the strongest long-term retention. That’s where the real optimisation happens.
Want to see how GivePanel coordinates multi-platform supporter journeys? Book a demo at givepanel.com/demo to see how it works in practice.