When it comes to promoting via Facebook , I emphasize the importance of:

capturing great moments with whatever device you have on hand - having it in video or photos is more important than quality. (Have you read our article, "10 Years on a Chain?")
even with an amateur level of graphic design ability, adding a clear message, eye-catching headline or call-to-action to your photo
using happy, positive images that make people smile or inspired
including your organization's logo or website address when possible (especially if you think it will encourage Shares)

Many people love to see a big number of "Likes", but "Shares" is really what you want. When a post is Shared, each instance has introduced your photo, message, and the original author of the post to a whole new set of eyes - and that number of eyes can be dozens, hundreds, even thousands! That means amazing exposure for your organization.

Click the image to see the current number of Shares little Jake has received to date

In 2 days, this image received over 125 shares. Even if each person who shared this photo has as little as 20 friends, that would be 2, 500 new people introduced to Jake and Muttville. It only takes one ideal home for Jake - and 2, 499 potential new adopters for Muttville. This image also promoted an Adoptathon event in the photo's caption. Therefore this image potentially (1) found Jake a forever home, (2) introduced new people to Muttville, and (3) invited potential adopters to its next outreach event

Another fun example was this advertisement that offered a unique way of celebrating our senior pets.

This beautiful photo was taken by volunteer photographer, Kira Stackhouse and the ad design created by Switchblade Creative Studios. It is a simple composition, and the pearls really added that special touch.

We show these two examples because they are very different in both quality and their messages.

These are fairly modest examples. Posts are known to reach over 1000 Shares.

Kudos to Paw Protectors Rescue. They do a wonderful job posting images that get hundreds of Shares. Here is one of our all-time favorites. At first, it may appear to be a "sad" image. It's a beautiful image, a volunteer photographer capturing the final hours of an animal's life, sacrificing her pain to honor an animal with a moment in the spotlight. For me, I do not want to cry when I see her tears. It makes me proud to know that she is one of us. It makes me proud to be an animal rescue advocate.