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How To Make A Social Media Marketing Plan
Current Analysis
The St-Lawrence Alumni is an association who try to inform, invest and involve the current and past graduates to give back to their college. In addition, the Alumni Association is in place to keep graduates connected to each other. They are connected to the foundation of the college because, the foundation is also concerned in raising money for the college.
To inform the alumni, the college has numerous ways including the voyager news letter which is printed once a year, they have a job bank for the graduates and they plan reunions to help graduates stay connected. They are always looking for new ways to raise funds for the various projects including the uncommon campaign which is currently in place. Currently they receive funds from annual givers, Major gifts, corporate sponsorships, wills and bequests and much more, all from people in the communities in which the colleges are located. In addition, the alumni association gets involved in the colleges and the communities. They accomplish this by planning events, advisory board, volunteer opportunities, steward ship programs, and more.
Each year, the Alumni Association, raises an average of 1.5 million in donation but every now and then there are long term campaigns. Currently there is a five-year campaign called the Uncommon Campaign which is aimed at raising 11 million within five years. Currently after only 14 months, they have raised nine million mostly from major sponsors and corporations. However, the issue of donating comes back to human nature in which they tend to donate to face to face interactions. This is hard when there is only seven members of the team.
In addition, there are 92,000 alumni that the college is aware of however only 60,000 are included in the database in which we know their name, phone number and address. The other 32,000 are “lost”. That becomes an issue, how to reach these lost alumni for donations. Other issues include, low return on equity for bursaries, how to attract alumni as they tend to stay within their small communities and how they will reach the goal for the Uncommon Campaign.
Therefore, the research below will mainly be focused on how to attract donors, retain alumni and inform alumni of their benefits.
Research
How to make a social media marketing plan:
According to Evan LePage’s blog, there are six steps to making a proper marketing plan on social media. The first step is to create SMART goals, objectives and mission statements. These goals are used as benchmarks for measuring the return on investments. In addition, it is easier to modify the plan as it goes around. SMART goals are a great idea because they are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely, this means they can be assessed to see if the campaign is going well.
The second step is to conduct a social media audit. To accomplish this, we look at which social medias the alumni association is currently using and who oversees the pages. We also look at what other social media pages out there that represent the company but not owned by the college. This looks at the most common social medias such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and more. The next step in the audit is to report any social media claiming to be the alumni association as they are fraudulent. This may have to be done multiple times before the social medias remove them. In addition, during the audit, look at the audience and how they are using social media. For example, most alumni are using Facebook to stay in touch with their friends and acquaintances while the school of business alumni might be using LinkedIn to stay connected.
The third step is to create and improve social media accounts. For the Alumni association, good social medias to look at is Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn to name a few. According to Facebook, their current page has approximately 1,500 individuals who are following. With this information we know there needs to be improvement as there are 92,000 alumni now and it will continue to grow. There should be approximately 50,000 members. One way to gain members is to cross-post the links to other social medias. That is because members not only use one social media but multiple and may not be aware of the Alumni Association different socials.
The fourth step, it to gather social media marketing inspirations. To do this, look at other alumni associations social media plans. these ideas are not limited to one organisation and can be used for your own use as well. Also, we can look at how the target audience writes their posts and look for common terminology and phrases, this can be used to connect with them on a more personal level.
Step five is to create a content marketing plan and a social media content calendar. The content plan includes what time of content will be used to attract the target audiences. it should also have tailored content for the different ages blocks because a 50-year-old does not have the same interest as a 25-year-old. It should also include the frequency of posts, how to promote the pages and who oversees the various social media platforms. A calendar can be used to identify which days each platform will have posts such as every Monday morning, Facebook posts include a donor picture and recognition. This is a time saver. When everything is set out in time blocks the individual who is in charge can multitask and do other tasks throughout the day without worrying about the social media. It can also separate the three tasks of the alumni association, by delegating a percentage to all three areas will make sure that nothing is left out.
The last step is to evaluate and adjust the plan. For this, every social media platform will let the owners of the pages track the traffic on their pages, including the number of likes, number of views and comments. Once all the data is analyses against the goals and objectives, modifications can be made.
Return on Investment
Dominique Jackson posted a blog relating to social media return on investment. That is how much does a post actual help the organisation, especially a not-for-profit. Since this revolves around money, the individual involved with the social media platforms should be able to quantify the goals and know how much it is costing the organisation on the social media. In addition, there are 3 reasons why Return on Investments are important. The first is to look for improvements, the second is to help with decision making on which social media platforms to continue to use and which do nothing for the company and thirdly, to see how some changes impact social media.
To continue, there are also three steps in evaluating the ROI of a social media platform. The first step is to define the quantifiable goals for each specific platform as they all work differently. For example, how many new followers or how many are active on the page. This will be hard to determine for a not-for-profit because there is no physical product for sale, but rather the need for donations. On the other hand, the social media platforms can be used more to inform individuals of all the benefits the alumni receive and some of those benefits can be quantifiable.
The next step is to track and measure the goals to the outcome. there are many different analytical tools to help, such as the Google Analytics. These tools allow the user to analysis what is important to them and how areas that relate to their goals. For example, if the goal is to gain 50,000 followers within a year, simply track the number of new followers each week to see which posts are gaining the most interest.
The last step is to track the social media expenses such as hours worked on the platforms. These expenses will be higher at the beginning as it may take longer to set up accounts on platforms that the company does not currently use. Other costs include, social media tools and memberships that cost money, any advertising costs and more. In addition, there is more than just the monetary impact but there are some influencers might share a post and indirectly drive followers or donations.
Statistics
According to The WordStream Blog the following stats are of interest.
As we can see, there are more people on Instagram and Facebook then the other platforms. Females are on social media more than man and LinkedIn is not widely used yet. In addition, there are more college graduates who use social media, and much more.
Challenges with Social Media Marketing
There are many challenges when using social media as a marketing platform. According to Lucy Hitz here are the three biggest challenges. The first is calculating ROI, this includes collecting and analysing data to aid in marketing. When an organisation does not know how to use the data collected then it is impossible to calculate the return. In fact, there are 33.6% struggle to tie the goals to the social media pages, 12.2% do not know how to collect the data and 24.4% do not know how to use the data for future decisions.
Therefore, the second challenge is trying the social media pages to the strategic goals. This is a challenge because the 16% of digital advertising are now on social media. These advertising spending on these types of advertising has reached 35.98 billion dollars. In addition, there are 31.6% of marketers who do not have goals or ways to measure if these ads really work. To calculate this, we look at two things. the first, does the advertising bring people to the webpage and do these people give us money? These are idea to have because the more traffic to the page the more chances of people donating to the cause or registering as some alumni.
Finally, the last challenge is budgeting for a social media marketing plan. Starting one of these campaigns can become costly because there are multiple tools that can be used to measure performance. Since there is a lot of products there is a lot of confusion on what to buy that will meet the standards of the organisation. In addition to software, there also needs to be people monitoring and posting on the social media pages. On the other hand, it also takes time to make all these decisions.
Another challenge for social media that was not mentioned in the article but is faced by everyone is the privacy agreements. These are strict rules that explain what is not allowed to be posted online. This can include, pictures without the individuals’ permission.
The Big Idea
Our idea is to make a social media marketing strategy that will touch on all three aspects of the organisation. It will inform future and present alumni on the benefits of being a St-Lawrence Alumni. For the investing aspect, there will be updates on the current and future fundraising campaigns, including the uncommon campaign. And to be involved will replace the voyager because all that information can be posted online for the followers.
Most alumni do not know what benefits that can receive from simply being registered as some alumni. Also, there is more than 75% of individuals who are current users of Facebook. This means that the alumni association can reach not only past graduates but the high school students who are entering college as well. This has the potential to boost enrolment. In addition, social media can be used to inform everyone on the progress of the fundraising campaigns in real time.
At this point, we would like to review what the alumni association currently uses for social media and how we believe are changes could improve them. Currently the alumni association is only on Facebook and Twitter. The question remains should they expand their platforms to reach both the alumni and the business industry.
First of all, lets start with the alumni. They are individuals who have graduated from the college, some before the uprising of social media and others use social media everyday for class projects. Therefore, there are two types of alumni. To reach the first type will be hard because not all of them are on social media, however, they are slowly joining Facebook. In the recent years there has been an increase of 6% to the user base of Facebook. These individuals are not the ones looking for the alumni group. They are them to connect with friends and family. For that reason, to connect with them would be through sharable content such as pictures from the past, from specific programs that no longer exists and donor recognition. If they remember or know the donor, they are more likely to share. The other type are those who are very recent graduates and the future graduates. They are on social media all the time. They tend to use social media to keep in contact with group work, but also use Twitter and Instagram almost just as much. For this reason, posts with pictures will get the most views. Because of this, it is better to cross-platforms with links. This will drive more people to look at the other pages.
To reach the second audience, the business industry, it is important that they see the recognition of the other donors. This will aid in the possibility of them donating as well. Most people would like to see recognition before doing it themselves. Also, LinkedIn could be the social media platform to reach this audience, but a focus group would be needed to get the information needed to conform or deny this.
A focus group would not only be good for the business industry but also the individual alumni. This is because most alumni do not know what the status means. This focus group would result in which platforms to use and what content should be used for each platform and how many posts should the organisation post per week.
For the investing aspect, a simple picture (with the donors’ permission) can be posted online to thank and acknowledge them as soon as the donation takes place. This will encourage individuals to donate because it brings a realism aspect to donations. It shows people what happens when they donate. Social media can also be used to ask for donations which should include a link to where they can donate online or instructions on how to donate.
Social media will also help to get involved with the alumni. This is because there are fewer and fewer individuals who read actual magazines. Everything is becoming online and thus so should the voyager. However, the voyager can be split up into smaller sections and posts which are distributed throughout the weeks or months.
On a final point, social media marketing can be a tricky area and the college does have a marketing program. Because of this, one of the ways to cut costs and to help a student in need is to hire a student who is in the business programs with a focus on marketing. This student would gain expertise in the field of study and have the possibility to start their career plan now and continue it once they become and alumni.
For these reasons and more, the platforms in which the Alumni association should be a part of are Facebook and Twitter to get started this is because there are a higher percentage of individuals who are currently active on these platforms. With the ability to share posts and have contests there are more ways to engage with individuals within the communities. We believe that having a social media platform there is a high possibility to reach some of those lost alumni and a possibility to market for the bequests and much more.
Bibliography
Hitz, L. (2017, July 17). The 3 Biggest Challenges Facing Social Marketers in 2017. Retrieved from Convinence & Convert: http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-strategy/challenges-facing-social-marketers/
Jackson, D. (2017, February 06). Ultimate Guide to Measuring Social Media ROI. Retrieved from sproutsocial: https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-roi-guide/
LePage, E. (2017, June 28). How to Create a Social Media Marketing Plan in 6 Steps. Retrieved December 28, 2018, from Hootsuite: https://blog.hootsuite.com/how-to-create-a-social-media-marketing-plan/
Lister, M. (2017, December 18). 40 Essential Social Media Marketing Statistics for 2017. Retrieved from The WordStream Blog: https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2017/01/05/social-media-marketing-statistics
SLC ALumni. (n.d.). SLC ALumni. Retrieved from Twitter: https://twitter.com/SLC_Alumni?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
St. Lawrence Colege alumni. (n.d.). St. Lawrence College Alumni. Retrieved from Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StLawrenceCollegeAlumni/
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How To Make A Social Media Marketing Plan