The purpose of the report is to review Sponsor a Gambian Girl (SaGG) Foundation’s social media presence via a social media audit and performing competitor and market analysis to provide insights on how to maximise SaGG’s use of social media platforms to engage current followers and attract more sponsors.
Social Media Listening
- SaGG Social Media Audit
SaGG is on four social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn, with Facebook having the most followers, followed by Instagram.
According to RivalIQ’s benchmark report in 2022 for non-profit organisations, posting frequency is below industry average of 4 to 9 posts per week across platforms. The engagement rate for Facebook is on par with the industry but for Instagram, it is below the average of 1.039%. For Twitter and LinkedIn, it is much higher than the industry, probably due to the lower followers base, resulting in higher engagement rate.
The posts with the highest engagement per platform in March 2022 all feature a photo of a real person either helping or receiving help from the foundation, with high number of likes.
Branding, tone of voice and messaging across all platforms is consistent, with good use of hashtags and call-to-action links to the SaGG website for further information. Posts are mainly targeted at females, evident from the use of colours and type of content.
Manual analysis was used on the platforms as social media tool, Buzzsumo, did not pick up any conversations with regards to the brand.
- Competitor Analysis
The report will examine two competitors, Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED) and Malala Fund, which focuses on girls’ education. SaGG’s highest ranked SEO keyword is “girls education charity”, at 41st position, while Malala Fund is first position, followed by CAMFED in second, hence the competitors were selected for analysis.
Malala Fund was established 4 years before SaGG but has gained a very strong following on social media. The charity is named after the founder, who is the youngest Nobel Prize laureate, hence search keywords includes the founder’s name. Posts featuring “why” and “what”, ideally within 1,000 words does well in engagement while videos and press releases does not have as much engagement. Facebook and Instagram are their most followed accounts, and the content includes quotations, inspirational stories and reports with photos and links to their website, own publication or other news sites. The post with the highest engagement on Instagram in March 2022 is a video made on TikTok about workplace gender inequality.
For CAMFED, Twitter is their strongest social media account, though their Facebook account has more engagement. The most engaging Facebook and Instagram post in March 2022 features an inspirational story about a doctoral student and includes a photo and hashtags. Both accounts use many videos but engagement is lower than posts with photos, as confirmed by research done by RivalIQ.
- Audience Insights
Based on review of the followers for SaGG’s Instagram and Twitter accounts, there is a mix of both genders and organisations such as charities and societies with similar agenda. For Facebook, there is slightly more males following the account, while for Instagram, it is dominated by females at 73% share. Both accounts have most followers between the age of 25 to 44 years old. Generation Z currently accounts for the third largest group of followers on Instagram and according to Hootsuite’s 2022 report, they prefer to use Instagram, so this could be a growth focus.
Topics and keywords discovered using Buzzsumo and WordStream, in addition to manual review of SaGG’s followers and the foundation’s previous insights revealed potential interests of the target audience which would be useful for crafting more relevant content to promote engagement.
- Industry Social Trends
Keywords, “charity”, “sponsor a girl” and “girl education”, were used on various social listening tools to gather insights on search behaviour and what is trending in the charity industry.
The results on Answer The Public showed consumers’ current interest on charities for Ukraine, children and the disabled. People are also keen to find out how, why and where to sponsor a girl.
Buzzsumo revealed that people cared about girls’ education and the top reaction was anger due to the plight of girls not getting education from lack of resources and government bans. Both charity and sponsoring a girl topics received mainly love as the top reaction, suggesting the articles were mostly positive.
Average engagement was high for the topic of sponsoring a girl and the most engaging content types are “what” and “why” posts. This is also evident from Malala Fund’s posts with higher engagement.
Social Media Goals
Based on the research conducted, SaGG can benefit from the learnings with the following goals to enhance social media effectiveness.
Firstly, to increase brand awareness to gain more followers, SaGG can improve the content quality. They could feature more trending topics like weaving in content relating to the Ukraine situation and post more “why” and “what” content especially on highly searched charity topics, “sponsoring a girl” and “girl education”.
Secondly, improving community engagement will enhance shareability, resulting in better awareness for the brand. According to academic research by Elaine Wallace, Isabel Buil and Leslie de Chernatony in 2017, the use of emotive pictures in storytelling, could be used to positively enhance an individual’s image when sharing the charity’s posts, resulting in improving donations offline. SaGG should feature more inspirational and success stories with photos and increase the frequency of posts. They could also explore the use of short-form videos using Instagram Reels that could promote talkability.
Thirdly, SaGG can develop loyal fans by ensuring the content is relevant to them. More than 50% of SaGG’s Facebook followers are male but the content is more skewed to females. Connecting with the audience with targeted posts based on their interests can lead to better engagement results and potentially higher donations. SaGG can also grow the younger audience via Instagram, crafting tailored messaging that appeals to them, such as how to volunteer, as research from YouGov reveals that young people prefer to give time instead. However, academic research by Jon Dean in 2020 uncovered that messaging to this target group should be clear and genuine due to their scepticism of social media messages, especially when appealing for donations.