Improving Free the Children’s Social Media Presence

IMPROVING FREE THE CHILDREN’S SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE

Here is the report you requested analyzing our social media presence compared to our competitor.

After research and analysis of our company’s social media presence compared to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; I have found that their foundation has an overall more successful social media presence. Their huge following and active social media presence makes them a competitor we can learn from.

The solution to our problem is simple. We must modify some of our current social media practices to gain a larger following and ultimately lead to an increase in donations. We should also investigate how to improve our social media presence by looking at our major competitors for guidance.

Changing our social media will be a big advancement for Free the Children. I believe that this is the key to increasing our donations and retrieving more consistent donors.

Thank you for the opportunity to prepare this report. I have learned plenty of new tactics and ways to approach social media from our competitors. If you have any questions about the report, please email me.

CONTENTS

PAGE

Executive Summary…………………………………………………………………………………….......4

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………...5

Sense of Personal Identity…………………………………………………………………………………………..6

Current Usage/Ease of Accessibility……………………………………………………………………………………..6

Overall Success………………………………………………………………………………………..…8

Conclusions and Recommendations……………………………………………………………………………….9

Works Cited……………………………………………………………………………………………10

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FIGURES                                                                                        PAGE

1.  Gauge of Effectiveness…………………………………………………………………………………….7

2. Comparing Social Media Presence and Donations………………………………………………………………………………………...9

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This report analyzes Free the Children’s social media presence and compares it to the social media presence of the major competitor, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Using the findings to present what to change and keep in relation to our company’s social media presence.

Sense of Personal Identity

Free the Children must maintain their “inspiring change” approach while also partnering with larger charities to reach a larger audience. Free the Children should follow The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and promote other charities’ positive work to expand their reach of potential donors.

Current Usage/Ease of Accessibility

Free the Children should make updates to their blog more frequently. Donors want to see the work that Free the Children is doing, and the best way to do that is to update their blog frequently to show the progress of villages and other projects that individuals have donated towards. In doing so, donors will feel a sense of ease knowing that their donation is being put to effective and meaningful use.

Overall Success

To obtain a social media presence that is overall as successful as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Free the Children must dedicate time and resources to improve the social media platforms. In a survey obtained from a 1720 Communications class at Dalhousie University, studies showed that students who “liked” a corporate Facebook page were twice as likely to have donated $5 or more to any charity in the past 12 months. The data presents an opportunity to reach a younger demographic. If we can retrieve more likes on our Facebook page, there is a possibility of being able to gather more donations due to exposure.

IMPROVING FREE THE CHILDREN’S SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE

INTRODUCTION

Free the Children needs to improve their social media presence if we intend to increase funding and reach a larger audience. To improve our social media presence, we must improve our sense of personal identity, current usage and ease of accessibility, and overall success of our social media platforms.

To achieve this, we compare all of these factors to our major competitor, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

We will look at how sense of of personal identity, current usage/ease of accessibility, and overall success contribute to a strong social media presence.

The purpose of this report is to analyze the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s social media and compare it to Free the Children’s social media platform. When making comparisons, we will choose methods to improve out social media presence from our competitor.

In preparing this report a survey was done in a 1720 Communications class at Dalhousie University. Some data retrieved in this survey is displayed in figure 2. A table retrieved from Rick Lasaar was also used to show some of the largest charities exposure index due to social media.

SENSE OF PERSONAL IDENTITY

Competitor’s Approach

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation uses its social media platforms to promote its philanthropic work and the work of others. Christopher Williams, the director of media and external relations for the Gates Foundation, said that social media is a powerful tool to reach audiences that care about the issues that the foundation works on and to listen to what they have to say about those issues and our work on them (Megan O’Neil, 2015). The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation focuses on both the foundation and the work that they are doing, but also help promote the work of other charities. The foundation also focuses on an approach using transparency. On the website, it states that beyond the foundation’s use of social media platforms, it also commits to an open access policy where everyone can have accessibility to its data (Information Sharing Approach, 2015).