SOCIAL MEDIA PROPOSAL

 

Executive summary

Digital marketing such as the use of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are one of the best ways to acquire customers and increase brand recognition. The advancement in social media platforms with artificial intelligence that can give content based on users’ behavior has facilitated the growth of many businesses. However, digital marketing requires tactical strategies that are fast-paced and concurs with the trends. In order to achieve traction on social media, companies need to devise strategies and track milestones to correct the failures and leverage on the success. Getting the right content and strategies that can engage users sometimes proves to be hard for some companies. BACI is a non- profit organization that is at the phase where the organization feels that its digital marketing strategies need to be revamped. Currently, the organization is encountering various challenges in its digital marketing techniques. These include; the organization feel that they ought to increase the number of followers in the social media platform.

They also feel that the number of users engaging with their content that is the users liking, commenting and sharing their post ought to be increased. Secondly, the organization intends to start using the Instagram platform to increase its brand recognition by utilizing Instagram stories. Lastly, the organization feel that the voice on social media is not engaging. Hence they have an objective of twerking the content to make their voice more engaging.  This project provides various viable social media strategies that BACI can apply to increase its engagement on social media, gain followers and improves brand visibility. Some of the tools recommended for increasing social media to help BACI meets its digital marketing strategy include the use of influences, creating engaging content based on various themes, creating competition like content and giving incentives to the winner, and lastly using paid adverts.

Introduction

The Burmese American Community Institute is a non-profit organization which majors in the provision of vocational training and education in order to empower the Burmese community members. This organization offer support to the target group globally, nationally and regionally by creating strategic partnerships with relevant groups. The organization also plays the role of advocacy within the target community. BACI has various programs which are tailored to serve various needs in the target community.  Some of the needs that the organization meets in the target community include helping high school graduate prepare for college life academically and linguistically.

The organization offers civic and cultural awareness in order to reinforce a community that values culture cohesion and acting as the helping hand for newcomers by assisting them to be economically sustainable. Hence contribute to the economy of their community. Other special needs that the organization tries to assist including offering cases for health education, literacy and bringing on board forums that can help the communities leaders’ identity the problems within the community and come up with solutions. Since its inception, the organization has successfully impacted 9000 community members. BACI advocates for inclusivity and openness among the Burma community members as they relate with each other. The company has around 15 employees with seasonal volunteers

Vision

BACI has a vision of providing education to all community members in order to grow a well-educated and stronger community.

Mission

BACI has a mission of building self-sustainability and integrated community that thrives economically through education, advocacy and employment.

Needs/Problems

Currently, the management BACI feels that its web presence is not enough to increase its brand visibility. From the tour to the organization’s web presence, it is clear that there are few engagements despite the fact that the company has been on the web platform for almost eight years. Due to this low media engagement, the company has various objective or goals that they would want to meet as far as their web media platform engagement is cornered. These include:

• Increase the number of social media followers in all social media platforms. These include Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, which it is anticipating to open.
• The organization has an objective of increasing its social media engagement. This includes the number of users that like the organization contents, the sharing of its content and comments.
• The organization has a goal of exploring Instagram stories as a method on delivering their content through Instagram. Currently, the organization is not on Instagram,
• The organization requires strategies or suggestions that can help improve traction in all their social media platforms.

A tour to its social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter shows evidence of the low web presence cited by the company. An in-depth analysis of the social media platform like Facebook and Twitter usage is discussed below:

 

An Overview of BACI Web Presence

Social media platform	Facebook	Twitter
Date opened	June 2011	July 2012
Number of friends	0	–
Number of followers	–	135
Number of following	0	572
The highest number of likes ever gotten in any content posted	0	4600
The highest number of tweets/comments	0	1400
Frequency of post	Posted once	One month or more
The last date of content posted	July 2011	6th.March.2020

Table1: Analysis of BACI media presence

Some of the identified challenges might be leading to the low social media engagement in each social media platform are discuses below:

Facebook

According to an article written by Google on how to drive Facebook engagement, updating status and content posting are one of the mainly recommend methods to increase users’ engagement. BACI organization has never posted any content since its page was opened in 2011. The organization has no friends or followers.  From touring the organization’s page, it can be concluded that the organization is dormant. In addition, the organization opened the Facebook web as an individual account instead of a business or a Facebook page. This implies that the web positioning of the organization does match the conventional ways recommended to position a business entity.

Twitter

The twitter account of BACI organization is well engaging compared to the Facebook account. The account has 135 followers. However, the content being posted in this account is not well engaging. The content can be said to be very official and lacks a key call to action. In addition, the organization only post content once a month.  In order to draw engagement, it is important for the organization to deliver content on a daily basis.

Website

BACI website has great content that is well stipulated in a way that the visitors or key audience can comprehend. In addition, the content for the various programs has been well placed in the different pages of its website page.  The website stipulates the organization’s goals in a manner that can be understood. Generally, the content of the website is of high-level illustration fit for scholars and their target users. However, the website colors are very dull and do not match the theme colors of the company. The logo of the website cannot be easily viewed due to the background color.  The black background color of the header seems to have blocked some content. The website is generally attractive and is not engaging enough for the visitors to have the eager to explore different sections of the websites. Even though it is easy to find program or content that a user might be looking for through the drop-down menus, the call action on the website is not clear. The impact has not been brought out clearly. In order for a visitor to know the number of people that the organization has helped, he or she will be forced to read in between large content. Fixing the above-mentioned shortcomings of the website user experience is likely to lead to conversion and easier navigation of the website.

Goals/Objectives

• SMART business goal number 1
  • S: specific- increase brand awareness in the Facebook account by 6000 friends and followers within three months
  • M: Measurable-
    • increase number of followers to by 2000 per month.
    • Target at least 200 comments, likes and click on the daily post
    • Have at least an average of 1000 post reach per post.
  • A: Achievable- This goal is achievable because there is a high probability of getting more than 200 clicks on social media platform posts when the right content is posted.
  • R: Realistic- Using Facebook ads to reach 1000 people per daily post is likely to lead to 20% of engagement. This is according to the google analytics report.
  • T: Time- the set goal will be achieved within three months.
• SMART business goal number 2
  • S: specific- increase BACI organization brand awareness in the Instagram account by 6000 followers within three months
  • M: Measurable-
    • increase number of followers to by 2000 per month.
    • Target at least 200 comments, likes and click on the daily post
    • Have at least an average of 1000 people post reach per post.
  • Achievable: This goal is achievable because there is a high probability of getting more than 200 clicks on social media platforms posts when the right content is posted.
  • Realistic: Using paid Instagram ads to reach 1000 people per daily post is likely to lead to 20% of engagement. This is according to the google analytics report.
  • T: Time- the set goal will be achieved within three months.
• SMART business goal number 3
  • S: specific- increase BACI organization brand awareness in the Twitter account by 6000 followers within three months
  • M: Measurable-
    • increase the number of followers by 2000 per month.
    • Target at least 200 comment, likes, retweets and click on the daily post
    • Have at least an average of 1000 people post reach per post.
  • Achievable: This goal is achievable because there is a high probability of getting more than 200 engagement on twitter posts when the right content is posted.
  • Realistic: Using paid twitter ads to reach 1000 people per daily post is likely to lead to 20% of engagement. This is according to the google analytics report.
  • T: Time- the set goal will be achieved within 3 months.

Scope of Work/Tactics

The following strategies are recommended in assisting BACI organization in achieving its digital marketing objective.

Recommended strategies for increasing engagement in Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

Liking Company Pages and Join Forums with Similar Goals

It is recommended for a company to surrounds itself with its companies with similar goals in the web platform. For example, BACI should have the gal of liking pages, joining forums where the conversation being taken have the same objectives that the organization is meeting. This will increase the probability of the organization getting mutual friends, or audiences with the same interests.  For example, retweeting topics that upholds the company objectives will help the BACI share an audience of the other organization with the same objectives. According to the Goggle analytics report, the creation of communities with a shared interest in the social media platform has a higher probability of increasing brand recognition and followers.

Revamping the content

Increasing engagement requires vigorous revamping of the content being delivered. It is important to identify the different themes that are trending or that go well with the organization’s objectives. It is recommended for BACI organization to hire a permanent social media marketing person that will help the organization to achieve these objectives. The person in charge will be given the objectives as KPIs.  For the Instagram stories, BACI can create behind the scene content and user-centred generated content. This has been proven to lead to high engagement. The below content table can be applied throughout the week in order to increase engagement.

Day of the week	Recommended Content
Monday	Question and answer content
Tuesdays	Reposting interesting/educating customers/followers post/comments
Wednesday	Write a blog about the company or topic related to the goals of the organization
Thursday	Create funny memes or visual posts that relate with the objectives of BACI organization
Friday	Use trending hashtags that are relevant to the organization’s objective
Saturday	Creation of survey polls
Sunday	Run content and giveaways

Table2: Recommendable content schedule to drive social media engagement

NB: the majority of the users are normally available during the weekends. Therefore, it is important to post interesting and engaging content that can make users glued to the organization social media platform page.

Revamping the website of BACI organization

Some of the recommended ways that BACI organization can improve website engagement include:

• Simplification of navigation. It is important to use a few words as possible and pass the same information. BACI website is very crowded. Hence, making the website less crowded by ensuring that they communicate impact in a few words can help. It is important to use numbers as a method of communicating impact as figures are easily understood than many words.
• Have a clear call to action: BACI should add a call to action on their website. This should include a button for donating to the organization.
• Beautification of the website: All human beings are attracted to look-able things. BACI website has boring colors, and it does not make a new visitor eager to learn more. It is important for BACI to use nice theme colors that can make the website attractive. This increases the chances of engagements.
• Add photos and testimonials. Users are attracted by the testimonial of the people who have been impacted. BACI can include photos or videos of the individual who have been impacted by the organization.
• Create search engine optimization: BACI can also create a search engine optimization which can direct people when they are researching organization with a similar objective to BACI. This will increase the number of visitors getting into their website.

Some of the activities with their corresponding objectives for improving social medial platforms engagement are described in the table below.

Strategy/Activity	Target Completion	Deliverable(s)
·                     Designation of a job position for social media management	·                     1st. May. 2020	·                     Create a job description for the social media manager and the corresponding recruitment process.
	·                     1st.May.2020	·                     Hire a social media manager person who will exclusively take the responsibility of increasing social media engagement.
·                     Position the BACI organization as a company in the Facebook platform. The current account is an individual account	·                     20th. May. 2020	·                     Create and company Facebook page
·                     Increasing brand recognition by creating an Instagram page	·                     20th. May. 2020	·                     Create an Instagram page and position as a brand.
·                     Increase brand awareness on the Facebook/tweeter and Instagram account by 6000 friends and followers within three months	·                     Daily	·                     a post shared content on the three pages on a daily basis according to the content schedule recommended in table 2.
	·                     Daily	·                     Use paid ads on the three platforms to reach at least 1000 issues per post per day.
	·                     Monthly	·                     Like, follow and retweet social media pages and forums that share the same interest as the company.
	·                     30th.July .2020	·                     Like at least 1000 social media pages and forums with a shared interest.
·                     Revamping the website	·                     20th. May.2020	·                     Higher a temporary UX passion who can do the recommended revamping of the website

Table3: Strategies /Activities

Budget/Tools Required

Strategy/Activity	Budget
·                     Designation of a job position for social media management	·                     Recruitment cost                     $100 ·                     Salary/month                          $400
·                     Position the BACI organization as a company in the Facebook platform. The current account is an individual account	–
·                     Increasing brand recognition by creating an Instagram page	–
·                     Increase the brand awareness on the Facebook/tweeter and Instagram account by 6000 friends and followers within three months through medial social ads	·                     Social media ads                 $6000
·                     Revamping the website	·                     Higher a UX person       $5000 ·                     Use of search engine      $1500 optimization
Total	Total projected budget                     $13,000

 

Evaluation

Below are the monitoring and evaluation plan for each of the above activities

Goal/s	Indicator	target	Timing	Person responsible
Designation of a job position for social media management	The hiring of a social media manager	One person	1st. May. 2020	HR
Position the BACI organization as a company in the Facebook platform. The current account is an individual account	Brand position	Improve brand recognition	20th. May. 2020	Social media brand manager
Increasing brand recognition by creating an Instagram page	Brand position	Creation of Instagram	20th. May. 2020	Social media brand manager
increase brand awareness in the Facebook/tweeter and Instagram account by 6000 friends and followers within three months	Brand recognition	2000 engagement and followers in the respective social media platforms	Monthly	Social media brand manager
·                     Revamping the website	Brand recognition	Create an optimization engine	20th. May. 2020	·         Social media brand manager
		Improve website UX	20th. May. 2020	·         Social media brand manager

Table4: Monitoring and evaluation table

Evaluation

The project will apply the outcome-based evaluation method. This will involve determining the key outcomes that have been achieved from the resources and effort applied.  Some of the recommended way to that the program will be evaluated include:

• The program deliverable will be divided into daily, weekly and monthly deliverable. Diving the deliverables into daily achievement is important in breakdown a huge task into small achievable that can seem easy to achieve. For instance, the 2000 number of followers to be achieved within a period of one month should be divided into daily achievable. This will include inquiring the social media manager to acquires at least 300 followers per day. This will require a lot of hard work and probably posting more than one post in a day.
• Hold the meeting to check on progress. There will be weekly meetings with the social media manager to determine progress, check on failures and come up with a way forward. The strategic goal out in place are not static and can be revised upwards depending on the performance. This is also an important avenue to determine what is not working an uphold what is working
• Application of analytics tools to track performance: Different analytical tools such as google analytics have been recommended to assist the digital marketers in determining the web performance of an action or enforcement. For instance, one is able to tell the number of clicks from a given post. Hence, it is recommended for BACI organization to apply google analytics in checking the performance of the activities. This is very helpful in determining the time that users engage and respective that content that leads to high engagement in order to replace or improve the specific content that drives high engagement in both platforms. Google analytics assist in data visualization. Therefore, the application of Google analytics tool can lead to the determination of best strategies to put in place that can lead to an increase in the key outcome stated in this proposal.