Instagram is key
Most people would assume that Facebook is the king of the social media kingdom, especially since most brands and companies rush for it. It seems unbelievable that a company would not even have one. However, the company where I serve as an intern does not consider Facebook the best option. I spent this semester interning in the social media department for The Dare Two Foundation, it is a non-profit organization that is fighting against Type II Diabetes. The goal for Dare Two is get people informed and test early with an end goal of eliminating Type II Diabetes altogether.
This semester I was tasked with generating awareness of the foundation, this was something that seemed so easy. We wanted to focus on Facebook because, as I mentioned, it is the king of social media. We were posting regularly, four times per week. The posts were scheduled on specific days, each with a unique theme. Mondays were Meatless Mondays where we posted a healthy, diabetes-friendly, vegetarian recipe (and I can say after trying them, they were absolutely delicious). Every Wednesday we posted a work out, whether it be yoga, cardio or just an article about the amazing benefits of simple exercises like walking, it was to show how great it is to get up and get going. Thursdays were a Diabetes Diary day, we shared posts that would be found in the organization’s “diary,” if organizations were people and could write in diaries. Fridays were news related, so this meant anything that was progressing in the diabetes world. For example, a new tattoo that would read a diabetic’s glucose levels so they would not have to prick their fingers everyday (completely incredible!) However, with all this posting, we were not seeing many “likes.” What were we doing wrong?
The Facebook algorithm is to blame here. For those who do not know, Facebook has an algorithm that determines what shows in a user’s news feed. If a Facebook user is consistently liking John Smith’s posts or looking at his profile, John Smith will always be in his news feed. However, if a user is friends with someone but never interacts with that person, he/she will not be in his news feed. This was what was stopping the organization from getting people to see what we were all about. We only had 42 “likes” when the semester started and currently we are only up to 51. That is not a lot of people but at least there are some. However, these people did not see our posts because they were not searching or interacting with us. And because there is no way to make them interact or look for us, our posts went unnoticed. So we regrouped, we decided to try Instagram as a new source and see what happened.
The results? A great success! The Dare Two Foundation currently has over 250 followers on Instagram. We have interactions with people and even have a great opportunity brewing that will be revealed this summer. As shown in the photo, people are really interested in our organization and the good we are trying to do. This social media platform allows us to follow our followers back and we can share experiences and discuss diabetes on a new level. We have a contest being organized right now, to launch this Friday (details to follow) which will really allow us to see how others have been fighting and dealing with diabetes and how hard they are working to overcome it.
From this experience we have seen that not every social platform is right for every brand and organization, there are some that are superior to others. Instagram is great for our brand, have you tried it yet?
