My personal branding statement:

I motivate people to help others through marketing for nonprofits.

My personal social media strategy on Twitter is to follow nonprofit marketing people/organizations and engage with them. I’ll share any good articles I find on Twitter through LinkedIn with more personal insight than Twitter allows. I am working to increase the size of my LinkedIn network, and I’ve joined many nonprofit marketing groups. Apparently LinkedIn limits the number of groups you can join! I have enjoyed viewing my LinkedIn feed, which I’ve never really done before.

On my LinkedIn account, I added a professional headline and summary. Before I didn’t have either of those. I also created a custom URL and more info public, like my summary and skills.

On my Twitter account, I added a headline and deleted some very old tweets. Why in the world did I ever tweet about Zac Efron?! LOL

My Facebook is private, and I intend to keep it that way. I did add a brief intro the public can view. I also added “featured photos,” but I didn’t realize those would be public, and I didn’t like that so I removed them. My LinkedIn and Twitter have the same professional head-shot, but I used a more casual one for Facebook.

Goal: Increase awareness of Foundation related activity by increasing Facebook followers by 20%.

Goal: Increase event attendance with owned social strategies on all social platforms. This will be tracked by a “Where did you hear about this event?” question at ticket purchase. Metrics will vary depending on the event.

Goal: Increase donor loyalty by engaging with top 10 socially active donors.

Audit: I was surprised that to find out that I didn’t know one of our followers on Facebook, and I think that’s a good thing! We have a Board of about 130 people that I know well, and I expected them to be represented, but I didn’t see one of our members. They are generally an older group. In researching competitors, I noticed that several of them included alumni in their page name, and I think that’s a good strategy. Social media will be a great way to keep the next generation of JCCC Foundation engaged. I will have the general JCCC accounts post about following the Foundation at graduation time.

Content Strategy: The content strategy for the JCCC Foundation will change based on engagement. I don’t currently have enough posts to determine what gets responses. My initial plan is to post to Facebook and Twitter every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. If I have a great photo, I will share it on Instagram. Once I get members in the LinkedIn group, I’d like to post there at least once a week. I will promote the current event we have going on by pinning a post about it and making the banner image one for the event. I will share Foundation specific news, like large gifts, program support, etc. I will also share general JCCC news if it relates to Foundation activity, including The Performing Arts Series and Nerman Museum news. I would also like to eventually share student scholarship stories. I’ll always tag or mention anyone relevant to the post.

I will have to check analytics frequently to see what people respond to best, and then adjust this strategy.

Using HootSuite’s Social Grader, the JCCC Foundation twitter account got a B+. I’m pretty happy about that, and the profile info got an A+! We have decent engagement, but it’s mostly from the same few people. So the number of people that engage is something I need to improve, and I think mentioning other users in tweets will help with that. We also have low retweets, and I’d like to improve that. I can ask for retweets, keep the messages interesting and have great images. I was surprised the Social Grader said the account wasn’t responsive to followers. I would never do that! But apparently I did. :/ I will make it a priority to be more engaged with followers.

This week I set up new accounts for the JCCC Foundation on YouTube, Instagram and LinkedIn and updated the Facebook and Twitter pages. One thing I learned from the HootSuite videos is how important engaging visual content is across all platforms. I have some hunting to do for some good photos! The videos also gave a good tip for crafting the about section of each platform, and that is to use key terms people would search for. I did that across the platforms for the JCCC Foundation.

I’m excited to learn more about the LinkedIn group I created. I don’t know if it was my computer or their server, but the “invite people to your group” function wasn’t working when I tried it. I think LinkedIn will be a great place to connect with JCCC alumni and let them know how they can support current JCCC students. It made me aware that I haven’t made many connections on LinkedIn in a while. Time to do that!

I love Instagram because I’m a visual person. I use my personal account frequently, but I need to think about how to use it for the JCCC Foundation. This is definitely one I need to find good starter photos for. I’m glad the engagement strategy video suggested having a good pack of images to make your page look better.

I feel like the JCCC Foundation will get the most action on Facebook and Twitter, but I love the engagement strategy of having links to all your platforms everywhere you can. I really think that will drive people from Facebook or Twitter to LinkedIn, YouTube or Instagram. I love Instagram, as I mentioned, so I always click on the Insta link when I see it on a page.

One of the most surprising things I leaned from watching the HootSuite Academy videos is that YouTube is the second largest search engine and third largest website. I had no idea! I’ve learned that in marketing people really respond to videos and prefer to watch videos to reading. I still need to learn more about Tumblr. I know it’s really popular with young people, and this video helped to explain it. It almost seems like an updated version of the original MySpace because it has the blog aspect. (Yes, I’m old.)

I chose the JCCC Foundation as my client. The Foundation is the fundraising arm of JCCC and they strive to provide access to the college for all students through scholarships; advance excellence through the development of community leadership, business partnerships and financial support; and promote cultural activities to enrich the college and the community. They currently have a Facebook and Twitter account, but they are not very active. I think these two platforms will be key, but they also need a presence on LinkedIn and maybe Instagram eventually.

I think Facebook will be viewed by general JCCC supporters/donors/alumni, and the Foundation Board. This population is middle aged and older. Twitter will be a great way to reach out to event sponsors and other businesses. Twitter is better for a conversation and generally “sharing the love” with another company, and most companies are on Twitter to connect with their audience.