- Introduction
The blog post will be covering social media listening insights for the charity organization named SaGG Foundation. It will include a social media audit of the brand, as well as insights about the competitors’ social media presence. The research will be conducted through the collection of qualitative data to involve problems, methods and theories and align them into a dynamic process (Graetz, 1995). However, same importance will be given to quantitative data, quantifying and measuring the data will be necessary indeed (Greener, 2017). It will be provided insights on consumers and donors’ habits for analysing the behaviour, but also industry social trends will be considered for a clearer understanding of the macro environment. Eventually, the report will show statements about the charity’s social media goals and as outcomes some recommendations will be provided.
- Social media listening
Over the last two decades, social media platforms became popular all over the world. An estimation reveals social media platforms reach 2.3 billion active users worldwide, moreover the numbers are in growth of 1 million daily (HMA, 2022). Marketers have identified social media’s power of influence on decision making, in particular the potentiality of users’ comments and likes on social media posts or blog’s articles, as well as the reviews (Social Media Marketing For Dummies, 2022); and they eventually started to monitor these performances. Brand’s social media presence can be measured throughout different analytical tools and metrics, but the listening is essential to understand what consumers do say about the brand, and consequently the actions they take. Secondly, brands are responsible for their consumers, they should aim to establish respectful and intimate relationships. Lastly, they must listen to each other and the brands should find solutions to best meet the consumers’ needs, often succeeding to anticipate them (Listen First!: Turning Social Media Conversations into Business Advantage, 2022). SaGG Foundations’s social media presence relies on different platforms, which include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. The brand’s Facebook webpage can boast 3060 followers. The majority of the audience concerns the male gender, claiming 52.3% of the total, aged between 25-34. Women of the same age are slightly fewer with a ratio of 47.7%. The two main cities, where the audience is concentrated, are Banjul and Serekunda, in The Gambia. However, a consistent percentage of 13.5% of users has settled in the United Kingdom. Overall, the brand’s traffic reach on Facebook is considerable, 4795 reach compared to the 915 Instagram reach, in 2022. In addition, consumers’ reviews on Facebook have shown very positive and supportive feedback to the charity’s cause. Besides, the brand’s answers to the comments show the brand the closeness and interest into the good relationship with consumers, increasing consequently the engagement. The content on Facebook includes posts with videos and images, which have the purpose to inform consumers about civil rights and ethical issues, among them there are topics like gender-based violence against women, international days concerning women, women’s education and gender equality. The main purpose of the posts is to inform consumers about the precariousness of girls in the world, but mostly in The Gambia, to convince them to take action; but also to attract more champions, the key fundraisers, who help the foundation to reach potential consumers in different cities and countries all over the world. Most of the champions are also fundraisers of various events and activities and they’ve been presented on a page reserved for them only, to enhance the credibility of the charity. Having a look on some of the fundraisers’ Facebook page, we can state they are activists devoted to social issues and believe in their causes. One of the most interesting competitors is Aid for Rural Education Access Initiative- AREAi, which is a non-profit organization for children education. As the name of the foundation suggests, the charity is committed into providing access to education for poor and vulnerable children through technological and innovative tools. On Facebook’s page, the charity displays photos of volunteering activities on the field, the imagery given is highly engaging and shows the closeness of the charity’s commitment to the cause. Moreover, the foundation has introduced an innovative learning tool called Digital Learning Manual, a low-cost but interactive resource accessible for low-income families too. In addition, by doing keywords research on Google Trends, it has been revealed the word “charity” faced a continuous trend in popularity over the past 12 months in the United Kingdom, whereas “Ukraine charity” had a significant breakout in search trends due to the outbreak of the war, which is clear sign consumers started to become more sensitive and aware about social crisis and issues now as never before, and also due Covid-19 breakout.
- Social media goals and recommendations
The main objective of the charity’s social media plan is to reach a wider audience, in order to involve and convert into donors as many users as possible. To pursuit this goal, educational events can be launched for engaging the consumers and spread word-of-mouth. Not only events can be proposed, but also contests or challenges, which could be sport or entertaining activities. An example could be a marathon challenge, like how Mona Foundation did, with its creative project for motivating curious consumers to join the challenge and create solid relationships, which might not impact directly on the charity’s cause but it could help increasing word-of-mouth. Another original project has been identified on UNICEF’s Instagram account, the charity decided to create a brief “guide” including tips and ways to overcome a social crisis, like the impact of Covid-19 on mental health, which is an original and innovative way to deliver services to consumers and make them aware of the brand’s values. In addition, the charity should have a presence on YouTube channel as well, the second most visited website in the world indeed, according to Hootsuite. A survey, among people between 16 to 34 years old in 2020 in the United Kingdom, shows YouTube ranked in second for video viewing time and the daily average video time was 4 hours and 54 minutes (Statista, 2021). This social media has becoming impactful due to the increase of video content indeed, as consumers show preferences on watching videos rather than reading texts. Lastly, as outcome of the qualitative data research through the template below, it has been highlighted the similarity of content format published on each of the charity’s social media platform, which can have a negative impact on the consumers’ perception, increasing more easily the possibility of bounce rate.
- Conclusion
Having track on a brand’s social media platforms is essential for optimizing the audience’s reach. The main objective of social media audit concerns indeed about the understanding not only of consumers and their communities, but also about the social to help the brand on choosing the target audience. Moreover, the competitors’ performance is important to have outcome overviews on the brand’s lacks and future improvements; lastly, a social media audit provides the qualitative data needed to enhance the social media strategy.
REFERENCES
Graetz, B. (1995). Book reviews : ANALYZING QUALITATIVE DATA Alan Bryman and Robert G. Burgess (eds) London, Routledge (distributed by The Law Book Company Limited), 1994, xiii, 232 pp., $29.95 (paperback). The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, 31 (3), 104-105. Available from 10.1177/144078339503100309.
Greener, S. (2017). Book Review: Analysing quantitative survey data for business and management students. Management Learning, 49 (3), 374-376. Available from 10.1177/1350507617731026.
HMA (2022). Ema.europa.eu. Available from https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/documents/report/social-media-m-health-data-subgroup-report_en.pdf [Accessed 31 March 2022].
Social Media Marketing For Dummies, 4th Edition (2022). O’Reilly Online Learning. Available from https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/social-media-marketing/9781119617006/c01.xhtml#h2-2 [Accessed 31 March 2022].
Listen First!: Turning Social Media Conversations into Business Advantage (2022). O’Reilly Online Learning. Available from https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/listen-first-turning/9780470935514/part01.html#p01anchor-1 [Accessed 31 March 2022].
Statista, (2021). Distribution of daily video viewing among 16-34 year-olds in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2020, by video type. Available from https://www-statista-com.uow.idm.oclc.org/statistics/486155/daily-video-viewing-among-young-people-by-type-uk/ [Accessed 31 March 2022].