How to Create a Social Media Strategy to Effect Social Change

It all started with the ice bucket challenge in the summer of 2014

Millions of people around the world dumped buckets of ice-cold water on themselves to raise money for ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease

The social media campaign spread like wildfire as people challenged their friends on social media to either do the challenge or donate money to the ALS Association

The Ice Bucket Challenge helped raise over $220 million dollars globally for ALS

Why was the ALS Ice Bucket Campaign so effective?

• It played on the power of video, which is a lot more effective and experiential than text or photos.

• The campaign coincided with the new Facebook update that allowed videos to autoplay in peoples news feeds.

• It wasn't ALS who asked people to dump ice on their heads, it was their friends.

The bigger lesson learned from this campaign is that social media is about people & building relationships

It also showed the world the power that social media had to drive social change

Momentus breaks out into FIVE unique sectors in the fields of:

Faith

Health

Higher Education

Business

Communities

We use social media (LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter) in all of these sectors to:

● drive website traffic● build thought leadership for our brands● drive brand awareness● increase leads (have new leaders sign

up to join the Momentus Initiative)

So, how does one create an effective social media strategy to drive social change?

It breaks down into Five Basic Steps

step one

Define Social Media Objectives & Goals

Understanding these goals

seems like a no brainer

Butit’snot

Do you want to generate leads?

or increase your membership base?

Do you want to increase donations

or drive website traffic?

Are you looking for more name recognition and thought leadership?

Clearly define your objectives and write them down. Everything else is driven from these goals

step two

Target Your Audience

The truth about marketing is if you target everyone, you will hit no one

Create fictional representations of your ideal member/volunteer

by actually talking to donors...

volunteers and other

company employees

These are called Member Personas

Learn everything you can about your audience

(their age, personality, education level etc.)

Give him/her a name and even a picture

These personas will be used to help you create targeted content

step three

Develop a Defined Social Media Marketing Plan

“Content is Fire. Social Media is Gasoline.” -Jay Baer

Being successful on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram involves more than just posting

cool pictures or quotes

It’s critical to have a clear social media strategy in

place

Where does your audience hang out? (Pew has some good research on this)

Choose your Social Network – you don’t have to be on them all

Define your social media channels. Each channel has a specific demographic

For example: • “We will use Facebook to tell stories about our organization’s

mission to drive website traffic”

• "We will use Instagram to showcase our organization’s culture to recruit volunteers”

Create a mission statement for each social media platform

Find your voice and tone

If your brand was a person, what kind of personality would it have?

Decide your posting schedule

Decide your posting strategy • What kind of content will you post?• How often will you post?• Who will create the content?• How will you promote the content?

pixshark.com

step four

Develop a Content Creation Plan &

Editorial Calendar

It takes a lot of content to build a following and a social media community

links imagesquotes

updatesreshares

Start with 5 basic types of social updates

As you create your content plan, identify which content is going to drive where...

For example: 50% of your content will drive back to the blog 25% of your content will be curated from other source20% of your content will drive company content5% of your content will be HR and culture related

Curating content from another source to buid thought leadership & brand awareness

Driving to the Blessed Tomorrow website to generate leads

Here is a Climate for Health post driving back to our Blog

Remember, social media is a 2 way street. Make sure you “listen” as much as you“talk”

Keep this in mind as you put together your content plan Keep this in mind as you put together your content plan

How do you keep track of all of this?

Your editorial calendar lists dates & times to posts blogs, Facebook posts, Twitter messages & other content for campaigns.

Your next question might be, where are you going to find all of this content?

Define yourinfluencerlist:

Astrid Riecken/The Washington Post

Definition: blogger, competitor, or media organization creating content of interest to your target audience

Find influencers by tracking keywords in Google Alerts, authors in industry trade publications & those talking about the topic on twitter

Now get the attention of your influencers by sharing their content on your social media platforms

It’s a win-win for everybody. You get more content to feed the “social media beast” and your influencer’s content gets spread far and wide

step five

measuretestevaluate

Write down three social media goals. Try to use the SMART Approach

Don’t make the mistake of just measuring re-tweets or “likes” - Strive for more advanced metrics like leads generated & website traffic referred

Track your links using url shorteners (bit.ly, goog.gl, ow.ly) to track success & reach of campaigns

Track page visits driven by social media using Google Analytics

then adjust your social media plan accordingly

Record your successes & failures...

Remember as you create your social media strategy, always remain fluid, as your strategy will constantly evolve

Social Media has changed the world, not only in inspiring leaders around climate solutions and raising awareness & money for a horrible disease like ALS, but:

• in how we respond to natural disasters (like Haiti earthquake)

• to help organize protests (“Arab Spring” uprising)

• and even electing presidents (President Obama)

More about me (Cindy Frei):

I am a marketing professional with more than 15 years experience building customer relationships through integrated marketing strategies, which help businesses or organizations acquire new clients or deepen relationships with existing ones.

A storyteller at heart, I combine the art of creation with business acumen and new technology fluency to drive business goals.

To learn more about.me/cindyfrei