Social Media Plan

Book
Social Media Strategies & Tactics
Fall 2015

The Helping House

SOUTHERN CHARM SOCIAL MEDIA AGENCY
Kirby Hilderbrand
Megan Morris
Linsey Bing
Symantha Dickens

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ABOUT THE AGENCY

Southern Charm Social Media Agency strives to provide quality service to any and
all clients needing assistance and management of their social media accounts. Our
members include Linsey Bing, Symantha Dickens, Kirby Hilderbrand, and Megan
Morris. We aim to make our clients well known within their target audience and to
help maintain their image. We also want to teach our clients the best social media
strategies so that they may eventually take over their accounts completely.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Research
Before doing anything we first had to decide with five social media platforms
we would use. Once that was decided we began gathering information on The
Helping House mostly by making a personal visit to THH. Once enough information
was gathered we observed Amanda Johnsons posting habits with THHs Facebook
page as she had decided to keep that under her control. Once we had enough
information on this we began the process of improving and growing THHs social
media presence.

Platforms
The platforms chosen were Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, and
YouTube. All of these were new accounts with the exception of Instagram which had
been created a while back but then abandoned. The obvious choice of Facebook was
left in the control of Amanda Johnson because she had done a great job of growing
and maintaining the page.

Goals
Our main goals for the semester were to grow each social media platform by
a respectable amount and to increase general awareness about The Helping House
and what it stands for. We also wanted to share our knowledge of social media so
that when the semester was over THH could continue posting with the chosen
platforms.

Strategies
Strategies used in the project would come from things that we learned in
class throughout the semester. These included how often and what time of day to
make posts on each individual platform. What to post and what not to depending on
the platform (i.e., dont post anything text heavy on Instagram.) As well as how
much to engage with your followers.

Results
Since all but one of our platforms were new we were tasked with building
from the ground up. Despite this challenge we were able build a small following on
Twitter and Pinterest while increasing the following on Instagram. Google + and
YouTube fell a bit behind but seeing as those are the most difficult platforms to grow
this was not a surprise.

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CLIENT RESEARCH
This semester, Southern Charm Media Agencys client was The Helping
House, located in Nacogdoches, Texas. The Helping House (THH) is a non-profit
organization that works with autistic children, providing them with necessary skills,
such as communication and safety, as well as increasing their general educational
knowledge. This organization also provides support to the families of these children,
helping to continue their education outside of the classroom.
Before setting up the social media platforms, our agency had to first
decide which five platforms would best benefit THH. This required some deeper
knowledge of how the organization worked, how they operated, and most
importantly, who they are trying to target. We began by doing some reading on
their website to better understand the organization and their goals. We first
needed to know the basics: what their operating hours were, their contact
information, and general information about what programs they offered. This
basic information was important to know and include in our social media efforts
so that people could reach out to the organization and create a dialogue with
them outside of social media. It was from their website that we also learned that
THH is just as much a resource for parents as it is a learning opportunity for
children. This piece of information would be a huge factor that would influence
how we chose our platforms and the types of content we would produce. It was
also important to have some general knowledge about what types of programs
they had available, so that we could be able to answer any possible questions
that may be asked of us on our social media accounts. We were able to get this
information from their website as well.

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In addition to getting information from their website, we made a visit to
THH to get a feel for how they ran their business. Seeing their business in
operation also gave us the opportunity to see how they presented themselves to
the public and what their unique identity was as an organization. This identity
would need to be something that we would have to keep in mind when running
social media accounts, because it would need to translate through our postings.

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SECONDARY RESEARCH
Our secondary research of THH was one of the first steps we had to
complete before we were able to start running social media accounts. Our main
goal with the secondary research that we conducted was to find out what the
organizations current social media habits were like, and identify the strengths and
weaknesses within these habits.
Our main method of secondary research was just to observe the way the
organization was using social media. Because THH had very few social media
accounts to begin with (Facebook and Instagram), it was fairly easy to get an idea
of how they were using these platforms. The Facebook account was the most
used platform of the two, and it is also where the organization had the biggest
following. Most of the posts on this platform consisted of upcoming events for the
organization, photos of the students and an occasional post related to other
autism groups. The organizations Instagram was utilized very little. There were
only a couple posts up before we began. It seemed as though they were unsure of
how to go about using this account.
After observing their social media habits prior to the start of this project, we
were able to identify their social media strengths and weaknesses. Their main
strength was in their large Facebook following. We concluded that this following
could be a good launch pad for our new social media platforms to gain followings.
The organization was also good at keeping their Facebook postings frequent and
up to date. The posts were well written and had a very conversational tone, rather
than a formal tone. This gave each post, and in turn the organization, a voice.
This would be something we would have to keep in mind when creating future
posts on other platforms. Their main weakness, on the other hand, was the lack

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of engagement that these posts created. While they were providing good
information, there wasnt much going on in the way of feedback and interaction
among followers. This would be something that we would need to improve in order
to create better relationships between the organization and its followers. Another
one of their weaknesses was the fact that their Instagram was not being used in a
way that would benefit the organization. We would also need to improve in this
area by increasing the posting frequency.

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PRIMARY RESEARCH
In our primary research for The Helping House, our main focus was to
understand the main publics of the organization. We needed to know some basic
information about their demographics to help us choose which social media
platforms to use, as well as how to go about posting content on these platforms.
Our agencys secondary research, which we conducted first, helped guide our
primary research efforts. We had a good foundation of the types of programs the
organization offered, and we knew that the organizations goal was to serve autistic
children in the Nacogdoches area. We also knew that this was not our primary
audience that we would be trying to reach on social media. It was highly unlikely
that these children would be on social media. One of the major publics we would be
trying to reach would be parents of these children, as well as any parents who could
potentially be interested in enrolling their children into any of The Helping Houses
programs. We estimated one of our demographics would be parents anywhere
between their mid-twenties to late thirties. We would also need to consider trying to
reach out to anyone that would potentially recommend our organization to others,
regardless of whether or not they had an autistic child themselves.
We met with Amanda Johnson, director of the Helping House, to help us
conduct most of our primary research, and much of our secondary research as well.
When we sat down to speak with her, we already had a loose idea of which
platforms we wanted to use. However, she gave us some insights that helped us
finalize our plans. One of the major changes we made was with our Pinterest
account. Originally, we had planned to set up a Tumblr account. Mrs. Johnson
expressed concerns about coming up with useable content to post. It was then that
we thought about using Pinterest instead, since The Helping House does many arts

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and crafts projects. We figured that Pinterest would be the perfect avenue to
showcase this, and it would hit our demographic well. We also had some
reservations about our Google Plus account, and whether or not it would be able to
reach our intended audiences. However, we liked the convenience of being able to
link our Google Plus to our YouTube account. Much of our success with these
platforms would depend on our ability to both come up with exciting, relevant
content to catch our publics attention, as well as post frequently enough to keep
top-of-mind awareness with these publics.

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SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS & USES FOR THH

YouTube has only one follower.
YouTube was linked with G+, where four videos were posted. These videos were
great for a multitude of reasons: parents could see how happy their children are
at THH, donors could see where their resources have gone to help the children and
potential families could see if their Autistic child would benefit from learning at
THH.
Instagram has 82 followers and eight following.
Instagram was utilized to show a couple fundraisers to donors and to promote the
organization in an exciting, visual way.
Twitter has 18 followers and 24 following.
Twitter was used to promote the #rifleraffle which is beneficial for donors to know
where to donate money and receive something back in return. A few polls were
also run on this platform to promote engagement. In the future, Twitter would be a
great tool to promote, for example, educational events or fundraising events to
help grow the organization.
Pinterest has seven followers and 21 following and pinned 72 pins.
Pinterest is a great platform for THH because it can help parents find nutritional
recipes to feed their families and games to keep their childrens minds at ease
when not at THH.
GooglePlus (G+) has only one follower and had 465 views.

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This platform is used to reach out to fellow autism organizations to see what is
being done through their channel to get results. We had posted content of the
videos on YouTube and also shared event flyers to get donors engaged. We also
included a post letting families know that THH was not open during
Thanksgiving, followed by a Welcome Back post at the end of the holiday break.

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GOALS/OBJECTIVES
As a group, our goals revolved around helping to increase awareness of THH. We
hoped to gain more followers and new followers as we created four new additional
social media sites including Pinterest, Youtube, Twitter, and Google+. The Instagram
account was already created before we began, and our goal was to help increase
the followers for that account.
As a team our goals were as follows:

Increase at least 4 to 5 followers for every platform

Generate feedback

Increase in the number of shares/retweets

Show followers that THH is a fun and educational place for

autistic children

Engage with followers to help build a relationship with the

organization

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STRATEGIES
A few things to keep in mind for future posts:

Try to create or locate content that will cater to your set market.
Keep your YouTube channel as an outlet for anyone with autistic children to

see that THH is a great learning experience and a fun environment.

Instagram can be used to show donors some of the incentives for donating to

the THH silent auction.

Push to be innovative on Twitter by attempting a poll to engage with your
followers. Getting people to interact with your organization will solidify a

relationship with you.

Pinterest can show parents innovative ways to interact with their autistic

children either through crafts, recipes or games.

G+ can be a secondary location to post the same videos from YouTube and
may help keep content current.

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TACTICS
Youtube was a great vehicle for showing activities done at THH such as Happy
Friday with the children dancing to the song Happy by Pharrell Williams. Also, this
platform can show parents how their childrens skills are improving by posting
videos of them reading or putting together a puzzle, for example.
Instagram had been a place to promote the silent auction and the rifle raffle.
It shows these contests with an innovative graphic or a picture of the potential
prizes to engage the followers which may be good to promote to donors so they will
buy-in.
Twitter was way to give out short bursts of information pertaining to autism or
the organization in general. It provided a way to help families with some quotes of
wisdom, promoted contests and also had polls that were used to interact with
followers.
Pinterest was a great way to promote and re-pin healthy recipes, crafts and
activities to help their families engage more with their autistic child or children. It
proved to be a great vehicle to showcase the organizations teaching methods as
well.
G+ had been an outlet to partner with other non-profit autism organizations.
By posting photos of events that help the families in the greater East Texas region, it
helps the residents have a better understanding of what is done at the local level
and how to reach individuals that may be in need of assistance.

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RESULTS
Social Media Platform

Followers: Before

Followers: After

Twitter

18

Instagram

60

82

Pinterest

Google+

YouTube

The chart below shows the progression of followers on our social media platforms
throughout the course of the semester.

As the chart indicates, all but one of our social media platforms were new, so
we were faced with the challenge of building followings from the ground up.
However, our Instagram posed a special challenge because we had to pick up where
the organization had left off. Since THH had been using an Instagram account
before we began, and had very few followers, we had to strategize new ways to
build a following for them. Clearly, we had success in this area, as our Instagram
platform experienced the greatest growth. Second to the Instagram, our Twitter also
saw some excellent growth in the short time we operated the account. The
Pinterest did not exceed our expectations, but it may just need more time to take
off. Google+ and Youtube had the least growth, which was in line with our
expectations.
This chart puts into perspective the accounts that may have the most
potential for continued growth and success for THH. Our agency has concluded that
Twitter and Instagram are absolute musts in terms of future social media success.

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EVALUATION
Overall, the accounts could have succeeded more if there would have been
more content given to us or available for us to post to help spread awareness of
THH. The organization covers a touchy subject, which limited us somewhat in the
ways that we were able to conduct our social media posts. This demanded that we
think outside the box to come up with ways to cover a sensitive subject and still
maintain an upbeat, positive persona. Despite this challenge, we succeeded in
gaining more followers on our five accounts. As far as engagement is concerned, we
feel as though this is something that is just going to take time to grow. Establishing
a relationship with a social media following is a process that sometimes takes a
while to achieve. We believe that we have set up a good foundation for these
platforms to continue to expand in the future. Our main goal was to build followings
and get engagement, and we got great results that we believe illustrate our
successes in these areas.

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DISCUSSION
In operating the social media platforms for THH, it was determined that the
best way to gain followers and increase engagements was to engage with others
ourselves. When we first started the Twitter page, it was difficult to gain followers.
However, once we began following many businesses and well known accounts
around the Nacogdoches area, the number of followers began slowly rising. We
thought that posting often and consistently would be the key to growing our
accounts but that proved to not be the key as our posts were not seen by many
people until we started engaging with others. Future users should find a balance
between posting and engaging in order to properly grow their accounts.

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INSTRUCTIONS

FOR

USING SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS

Try to post on at least two of your social media platforms every day.
Pre-scheduling posts by using apps such as Hootsuite may be a good idea for

those busier days. This ensures that you are being consistent with your posts.
Be aware of the time of day you are making posts. Posting during prime work

hours may not go over well if you are trying to reach parents, for example.
Vary the content of your posts. Make sure you are not posting too many text-

driven posts or too many photos in a row.

Ask your followers questions or create polls for your followers. Try to entice

them to engage with your organization.

Be sure that your posts have an upbeat, friendly tone. Remember that these

posts are meant to be a reflection of your organization.

Be responsive to questions and comments posted by your followers. Try to

answer questions within an hour or two of them being asked.

Refrain from getting personal on your organizations social media accounts.
Always double-check that you are not logged in to a personal account before

posting.
Share and comment on posts from sponsors and potential sponsors. This

builds relationships and creates positive associations with your organization.

Use relevant hashtags or keywords in your posts so that your content shows

up in users searches.
Cross-promote your social media sites to drive traffic through all of your
platforms.

APPENDIX
(Log-in Information)

Instagram
Username: TheHelpingHouse
Password: stastudent
Twitter

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Username: @HelpingHouseNac (bethepiece@gmail.com)

Password: sfastudent
Pinterest

Username: thehelpingh0073 (bethepiece@gmail.com)

Password: sfastudent
Google+
Username: bethepiece@gmail.com
Password: sfastudent
Youtube
Username: bethepiece@gmail.com
Password: sfastudent

*To make the log-in process quicker and easier, you may link these
platforms together by using the Log In with (Google+, Youtube, Facebook,
etc.) feature.