Social Media Plan

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Nodaway County

Compiled by: Kara Andersen, Becca Piercy, John Cerrone, Lee Volmer, and Andrew Benson

Social Media Plan

Social Media Plan

About Big Brothers Big Sisters of Nodaway County:
Big Brothers Big Sisters is a non-profit organization that matches kids with adult mentors to guide them
to their full potential. The program has been proven to improve childrens academics and social
confidence with family and friends. They inspire children through goal setting and building stronger
relationships within their community.
Big Brothers Big Sisters was started in 1904 in New York City, but in 1964, Big Brothers Big Sisters of
Greater Kansas City was created to reach children in the Kansas City metro area. Big Brothers Big
Sisters of Nodaway County is a satellite office of Kansas City branch, reaching children in the greater
Maryville area.
Market Area:
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Nodaway County focuses on Maryville and the surrounding area, including
Pickering, Hawkins, Fawcett, and Wilcox. Because Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Kansas City
reaches much of the area south of Nodaway County, and is aided by satellite offices in various
surrounding counties as well, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Nodaway County has a very direct market area
in Nodaway County. However, they are not the only non-profit organization in Nodaway County, which
means that there are other organizations vying for the same volunteers that Big Brothers Big Sisters is
trying to recruit.
Target Audience:
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Nodaway County has a target audience, when looked at in the broadest
sense, of anyone 18 and older, with potential to be a big brother or a big sister to a child open to anyone.
However, a more realistic target audience would be college students, especially those involved in
fraternities and sororities, and thus philanthropic work; people between the ages of 25 and 35, who make
up the largest percentage of volunteers in the United States; and persons who may be retired or single
who also have a higher volunteer rate than some other demographics.
Reaching Their Audience:
Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Nodaway County is currently reaching their audience mostly through
word of mouth and their website. They have links to their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages
through their website which is pretty plain and simple. They are currently using Facebook pretty well,
showing new matches of bigs and littles as well as announcing upcoming events. The issue here is
that people arent going to see these posts if they havent liked the page, so they are not really reaching
out to new customers here. Their Twitter is barely used, with the last tweet to date is from August 12th.
They are a member of the chamber of commerce which gives them some advertisement when it comes
to the community. Most of the people within these target audience groups are heavily involved in
various social media platforms. This makes the need for a well-run social media campaign even greater.
In order to reach people and let them know that there is a need to fill, an organization has to meet them
where they are, and in this case, that is social media.

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Using Traditional Media:

Traditional media seems to be mostly links to the website, as a nonprofit with a limited budget for
advertising, Big Brothers and Big Sisters seems to be focused on other aspects.
They have really good links on their website to all the information that anyone who wants to volunteer
would need, as well as the forms that volunteers need to fill out. The website does not appear to be
updated often though, as there is still an announcement/advertisement for an event that occurred over a
month ago.
Using Social Media:
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Nodaway County has a moderate presence on social media and the internet
as a whole. Their website, while rather abbreviated, does link to all three social media platforms that
they are on; Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
On their Facebook page, which has 585 likes, there are frequent posts, and often more than one post in a
day. There are a few positive reviews shared on their Facebook page, but no messages sent directly to
BBBS. This is possibly because they have set things up to allow only reviews. While this does keep a
handle on what people say about them, it also limits a persons ability to interact with Big Brothers Big
Sisters, which can be a downside.
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Nodaway County has a Twitter page with 69 followers. This is clearly a
platform that they do not use often, as there are lapses in time as large as six months between tweets.
Currently BBBS is following more people than are following them, a sign that their Twitter presence
could use a boost.
The Instagram page for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Nodaway County has no pictures on their account.
They do have eight followers, and they are following one person, but clearly their Instagram presence
could use attention.
Competitors and Social Media:

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Although Big Brothers Big Sisters of Nodaway County has a rather narrow audience when compared to
many other, large-scale organizations, they also have some competitors in Maryville and the surrounding
area that have the same need for volunteers, and nearly the same audience. Some of the key
organizations competing for similar audiences in Nodaway County include, Habitat for Humanity, New
Nodaway Humane Society, and the Nodaway County Ministry Center. Each of these organizations has a
Facebook page, while three of the four have Twitter accounts. Habitat for Humanitys Facebook page
only has 71 likes and is posted to about once weekly. Their fairly new Twitter account has only five
followers, but is used at about the same frequency as the Facebook page. New Nodaway Humane
Society has a Facebook page that is frequently updated, as well as a Twitter page with 545 followers.
The Nodaway County Ministry Centers Facebook page has 183 likes and is posted to a few times a
month.
Goals and Engagement Strategy
In order for Big Brothers Big
Sisters to successfully reach their goals,
they must reach their target group of
volunteers, and cultivate a community
that is energetic, committed, and
dependable. It is important to reach Big
Brothers Big Sisters target audience
where they are, and an easy way to do this is to leverage their existing behaviors. In this case, it would
be important to reach the target audience through social media platforms. Using various social media
vehicles will help to fulfill the goal of increasing volunteers for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Nodaway
County. The following are some goals for Big Brothers Big Sisters and some suggestions to help satisfy
those goals.
Goal: Increase volunteers
Strategy: Share childrens stories on YouTube for emotional appeal to potential
volunteers.
The campaign on YouTube would primarily revolve around telling the stories of children.
Many times, stories that are used to appeal to potential volunteers are those from other
volunteers. Using childrens stories about their time with their Big Brother or Big Sister
could show the impact that mentorship could have from a childs perspective.
Strategy: Appeal to potential volunteers child-at-heart through a Facebook campaign
A campaign on Facebook would revolve around the theme of adults getting to re-live their
childhood. Big Brothers Big Sisters could begin putting out posts to encourage Bigs to do
activities with their Littles that remind the Bigs of fun times during their childhood. In order
for this to work, BBBS would need to encourage Bigs to take a picture and share it on
Facebook and tag Big Brothers Big Sisters of Nodaway County. This would add pictures and
posts to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Nodaway Countys Facebook page, and increase
awareness of the opportunity to volunteer and have fun with a child. Another way to help this

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campaign reach potential volunteers is to create a hashtag, such as #childatheart or

#relivethefun. These could be used within each post to help create a theme.

Strategy: Encourage the 30-and- younger demographic to get involved by showing

them fun and easy ways they could use Pinterest to find fun things to do with their Little.
Pinterest is a social media outlet that can be used to reach Big Brothers Big Sisters target
audience of women 30 years old and younger. Pinterest can create more engagement with
BBBS by creating boards that are directly helpful and inspirational to those followers with
Littles. There is also the potential to have shared boards where followers of BBBS contribute
their own ideas and pins, thus engaging with volunteers. The types of boards that are created
could include crafts, books, snacks, activities, and more. Some examples of these boards and
the type of pins in each are shown in pictures. Boards could even be dedicated to facts about
the organization, facts about children who have mentors, or even upcoming events.
o Examples of Pinterest Boards

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When writing descriptions on the pins, it is important to suggest that Bigs and Littles who
complete the activity share a picture on Facebook, Twitter, etc. This will create engagement
across platforms and can be a sub-promotion of sorts because people will see Bigs and Littles
doing fun things together and be interested in how they might also be able to get involved
and have fun. An example of an engaging pin description is shown in the pin of the Rice
Krispy treat with sprinkles.

Goal: Increase Brand Awareness

Strategy: Create shareable content that Twitter followers can
easily retweet and share with their followers.

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Creating shareable Twitter content gets the Big Brothers Big Sisters name out to new people,
but does not necessarily need to always be related to BBBS events and marketing. While
sharing important brand-based information via Twitter is important, it is also helpful to create
content that followers can enjoy purely for humors sake, and then tie it back to BBBS with a
link or question.

o Example Campaign: Kids Say the Darndest Things

Do I look fabulous or delicious? -Finn, 3
Sometimes kids say the darndest things. Make an impact with #BBBS
https://bit.ly/al3.674
I love Harry S. Truman. -Trevor, 6
Sometimes kids say the darndest things. You can make an impact! #BBBS
https://bit.ly/al3.674
Strategy: Utilize Facebook and YouTube campaigns
The Facebook and YouTube campaigns mentioned above that would be used to attract
volunteers could also be used to increase brand awareness. If the content created is
interesting and shareable (fun, interesting, or humorous) those who see it will be more likely
to share and spread Big Brothers Big Sisters posts and videos throughout their sphere of
influence.

Facebook Insights Measurement

Facebook offers simple ways to track how a page is doing. Facebook Insights can help users
keep track of followers, post reach, and engagement in an easy-to-use way.
The page for the Northwest Missouri State Baptist Student Union was used to gather
examples of what this tab can show a user about a Facebook page and who it reaches. In
order to get more volunteers, one thing that Big Brothers Big Sisters could do is reach out
more on Facebook, since that is where a lot of different age groups, and especially college
students, will see these posts and be persuaded to volunteer. With this goal in mind, it would
be a good idea for BBBS to measure these things to see where they need to improve and how
they doing already.

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Overview Tab
o In the overview tab, Admins can see how many page likes they have and how many
new page likes they have for each week, which helps measure if the posts are
attracting new likers instead of just getting to the same people. It also shows how
many people the pages posts are reaching, which can help measure if the posts are
effective in reaching potential new volunteers. Engagement is also important with
current likers, through sharing and liking the posts, current likers can help BBBS get
more likes through sharing posts, and this shows if this is being done or not. Through
this overview, BBBS can quickly see how they are reaching fans and volunteers
through their Facebook posts.

o This tab also shows an overview of posts by the page, and briefly shows how the post
is preforming. This is an easy way to see how posts compare to each other and what is
attracting engagement from visitors to the page. It also shows what posts are reaching
the most people, which can be used to determine what is posted in the future and what
needs to be boosted in order to reach more people.
Likes Tab
o The second tab under insights is all about likes on the page. It shows the total page
likes on a timeline, which helps measure when the most amount of people are liking
the page, with BBBS it can show when the best time to promote volunteering would
be, based on when the most likes occur. It also helps to measure how well the page is

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doing currently, and help know where it needs to improve to gain more page likes
through comparing average likes over time.

Insights
o Facebook insights also shows where page likes occur, which can be used to measure
what techniques of attracting likes are already working and should be continued, and
what things are ineffective and should not continue to be funded or should be
improved. This can be used to measure performance on Facebook and determine how
successful Facebook campaigns are or if they should start advertising the search for
more volunteers through this medium.

Reach Tab
o The next tab is all about reach, this graph shows the engagement with posts that helps
reach others that are likers of the page. This can be used to measure what posts are
reaching the most people and what is engaging to fans and/or volunteers.

Page visit measurement can be used to measure how new techniques are either
gaining more page visits or not improving the number of page visits. New techniques
can be used to attempt to gain more visits. This also measures what is interesting and
draws viewers to the actual page, not just the original post

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o This graph is helpful for measurement because it shows when fans are online and
active which shows when it is best to post to best reach the audience of BBBS.

o These graphs measure the demographics of the fans of the Facebook, making it
possible to measure what posts are attracting and determine what needs to be done to
reach more of a certain sex or area of fans.
Other Measurement Tools

HootSuite
o Offers ability to monitor multiple social media accounts
o Free
o Can schedule posts and track popularity
Comparison Chart
o Useful for tracking changes over time
o Can see trends
o Simple
Example

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Social Media Policy

Creating a social media policy is important, regardless of the size of a business. Having a policy
in place to deal with disasters big or small that relate to the company can be the difference between
sinking and swimming when problems arise. A crisis does not need to be a massive event. Hateful posts
on a companys page or negative press coverage can both lead to a need for a plan of action.
A social media plan does not have to be complex. It simply needs to include how to deal with
problems that might arise on a social media platform and affect the company. One way to think of it is
like a flow chart. It should show how information goes through the organization and out to the public.
Things to consider include:
Who are the primary contact persons?
What are the responsibilities of key people?
Who are secondary contacts in case of vacation or illness?
When a crisis is seen, there are some key things that should be addressed immediately.
Find the context/source of the crisis (Who reported it? Did someone post an inflammatory
status?)
On which social network(s) is this occurring?
What is causing this to spread/go viral?
When dealing with a crisis, some things to consider include:
Address and respond to the conflict on the platform on which it originated (Did someone post an
inflammatory status on Facebook? Address it there first.)
Keep an eye on key words and phrases related to the crisis
Remember that social media monitoring tools cannot replace a person keeping an eye on
sentiment and responding appropriately.
A social media policy does not need to be lengthy or complex to be helpful. It simply needs to lay out a
plan of action should anything that negatively reflects on the organization happen.

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Overall, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Nodaway County is in a place where, with the proper social media
strategies, they will be able to increase volunteers and bring awareness to an organization that does so
much for the children of Nodaway County.

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