Make it or Break it: Social Media Marketing

As a previous social media professional, I am very excited to share my social media audit of the Children’s Hunger Alliance! Social media is essential in today’s world and having a good and strong social media presence can make or break a company or organization. The overall opinion of the Children’s Hunger Alliance’s social media presence and efforts is good, but there are a few things that the organization should fine-tune. We will discover the good and bad regarding the organization’s social media accounts in the following: 

1. Instagram:

The Children’s Hunger Alliance is very active on Instagram. The organization manages to consistently post 4-5 images a week on this social media platform. These posts vary beautifully from images of volunteers, sponsors, event updates, flyers, and infographics. These images are bright, inspirational, and provide a great look into the organization’s passion to feed children in the community. In addition, the written content attached to each of these images is hashtag heavy (which will help the organization gain more viewers) and is written in a concise, quirky, and fun way which will help the organization become top of mind in their viewer’s eyes and minds. Finally, it looks like the goal of the organization’s Instagram account is to connect with potential volunteers in a way that is friendly, familiar, and loving. This tone will certainly help the organization gain more volunteers, sponsors, and supporters.

2. Facebook:
Differing from the familiar and friendly tone from Instagram, the Children’s Hunger Alliance’s Facebook page takes a sterner tone as the posts are very informative and a straight to the point. It is almost as if two different individuals write the content for Instagram and Facebook. The Facebook posts do not include the same information and images as the posts on Instagram. The Facebook posts provide information regarding professional events and updates, such as updates regarding the Vice President of the organization and “food bank” like events at schools all around the state of Ohio. While images are included with each post, the Facebook page is much more a professional resource for upcoming and past events, recent sponsorships, and contact information on how to get involved with each event. Again, although the tone on the Facebook page is different than the tone on Instagram, the tone is good for the potential volunteer that desires quick information and not all the “frills and fluff”.  

3. Twitter:

It took extensive research to locate the organization’s Twitter account. You cannot locate the account by typing in “Children’s Hunger Alliance” or “Children’s Hunger Alliance of Ohio” in the search box on Twitter. You must go to the Children’s Hunger Alliance website, scroll to the bottom of the page, and locate the Twitter icon. This step is not good for a potential volunteer or sponsor who strongly utilizes Twitter! Once I found the Twitter page, I was let down to see that the page hasn’t been updated since July 9, 2018. Before then, the page was updated with daily tweets in the month of June. Similiar to the tone and feel of the organization’s Facebook page, the tweets are very informative and display flyers for past and upcoming events. While it’s nice to see that the organization heavily posts about their events on multiple social media outlets, I would like to see the Facebook page being updated more frequently and with a tone similar to the friendly tone seen on Instagram.
  

4. LinkedIn & Flickr: 
Finally, the organization also has a LinkedIn and Flickr account. The LinkedIn account has a new post every month regarding an event or children’s hunger issue. Other than that, the account doesn’t provide much information about how to get involved or how to become a volunteer or a sponsor. In the same way, the Flickr account doesn’t even have one picture! It looks like the account was created and never touched again.

After reviewing and analyzing all of the Children’s Hunger Alliance’s social media accounts, I noticed that not many people comment on the organization’s posts. Sadly, this doesn’t allow me to analyze their social responses. This information would be great to have to critique the organization and provide them with helpful suggestions and tips on how to correctly respond to questions or concerns on social media. 

Thus, to generate comments, concerns, and questions, I would recommend that the Children’s Hunger Alliance research other “competitors” in the Ohio area or in the nation and review how those organizations create engaging content for their audiences. Additionally, the Children’s Hunger Alliance needs to completely understand the key demographics of their target audience and ensure that they are utilizing the correct social media platform to attract the correct target audience. For example, if the Children’s Hunger Alliance wants to attract and engage their target audience on Facebook, they need to understand that Facebook is predominately utilized by the following:

1. Female users (89%)
2. 18-29 year olds (88%)
3. Urban- and rural-located users (81% each)
4. Those earning less than $30,000 (84%)
5. Users with some college experience (82%) (York, 2018).

The Children’s Hunger Alliance can research the same demographic information for Instagram, Twitter, and other social media platforms. As previously stated, I can confirm that the organization is not conducting this research by the lack of audience engagement that I see on all of their social media accounts. Again, the organization posts frequently on most of their accounts, but there is no discussion or conversation. Therefore, this research will ensure that the organization’s efforts are not overlooked or be wasted on platforms that their target audience doesn’t use. 

Similarly, to ensure that all of their social media accounts (especially Facebook and Twitter) are authentic and promote brand awareness (York, 2018). The posts must be focused on meaningful content and deliver a strong brand personality (York, 2018). Authentic and meaningful posts would be posts that talk deeply about the staggering number of hungry children in Ohio, statistics on how one donation of a meal can help a child, or how the organization has helped children with the help of volunteers and sponsors. Actions such as these will create a loyal “fan-base” and allow the content on the social media accounts to be more user-friendly (York, 2018). 

Finally, to actively engage with their audience and ensure that the same “voice” is used on multiple platforms, the organization should invest in a social media management platform such as Hootsuite or Sprinklr (York, 2018). These platforms will allow the organization to view, post, and comment on all their accounts in one place. This way, it will be easier for the organization to keep track of “who posted what where” and how often they need to generate new posts. Having this information easily accessible will help the organization be more accountable for their social media efforts and will help them ensure that all of their accounts are accurate and up to date.

 

 References

York, Alex. “7 Steps in Creating a Winning Social Media Marketing Strategy in 2018.” Sprout Social, Sprout Social, 19 Feb. 2018, sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-marketing-strategy/.