Social Media AssessmentHILLER AVIATION MUSEUMby Mariya Nikiforova

UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL MEDIA

Why Social Media Is Important To Non-profits

Social media is a low-cost, effective marketing channelthat allows you to empower your supporters to share yourorganization’s mission and achievements, by:

1. Building awareness of your mission by driving traffic to yourwebsite and social media properties

2. Growing your organization’s influence by cost-effectivelyacquiring new supporters, donors and volunteers

3. Harnessing the passion of your most active supporters byempowering them to promote your organization’s programs

How Do Non-profits Use Social Media• Non-profits post on average 1.2 Facebook and 5.3 Twitter messages

per day

• 37% of non-profits spend 6 or more hours per week on social media

• 22% of non-profits pay for social media publishing/analytics tools

• 1 in 2 non-profits do not measure their social media in any way

• 81% of non-profits are not tracking the social media of their donors or volunteers

• For every 1000 email subscribers, non-profits earn 199 Facebook fans, 110 Twitter followers and 13 mobile subscriptions

HILLER MUSEUM SOCIAL ACTIVITY

@HillerMuseumTwitter AssessmentThe @HillerMuseum twitter account has made a total of 53 tweets from September 1 to December 10:• Of the 53 tweets, 14 were retweets of

content created by other users.

• Of the 39 original tweets, 16 were tweets about food trucks. There are more postings about food trucks than any other topic or idea.

• Of the 39 original tweets, 9 were about donating to #GivingTuesday. All tweets were made on one day, December 2. The campaign had 6 contributors and raised $160 .

Tweets & Retweets

Original Tweets

@HillerMuseumTwitter Assessment - Examples• Some tweets include grammatical

errors – this is not good for the image of a core-compliant learning institution

• There is no apparent link between food trucks and the Museum’s mission or projects, but they take up over 40% of original tweets from the Museum

• There is a tweet which appears to promote drinking (and flying) – it’s unclear how this is aligned with the museum’s mission (or audience)

Hiller Aviation Museum Facebook AssessmentThe Hiller Aviation Museum Facebook account has made a total of 37 posts from September 1 to December 10:• Of the 37 posts, 9 were posts about food

trucks.

• Of the 37 original tweets, 4 were about October-fest. Neither Santa Clause nor the Pumpkin Drop (nor any other event, including #GivingTuesday) received as many posts.

• There were 10 posts about specific events: Sled Driver, Noon Years, Author’s Book Sale, Happy Birds, Santa Arrives, DaSH, Planes Fire & Rescue, Halloween Hangar, Dream Rocket, Open Cockpit Day.

• There were 3 posts with links that could be considered to have educational or scholarly content.

All Posts

All Posts

Hiller Aviation MuseumFacebook Assessment - Examples• There is no apparent link between

food trucks and the Museum’s mission or projects, but they take up over 25% of posts from the Museum.

• There are several Octoberfest posts which clearly market beer (this of course makes a lot of sense for a drinking holiday, but not for a flight education institute).

Assessment Summary• There is no formal social media strategy, which is a roadblock to

coherent and comprehensive communication with your audience. Also, it’s almost as if two different teams are posting on each network.

• There appears to be a disconnect between the institution’s mission and vision, and some of it’s social media posts.

• There is no clear strategy or understanding of how to grow and/or engage followers.

• Neither the Facebook nor the Twitter account successfully utilized #GivingTuesday opportunities (the average online gift for all participating non-profits on #GivingTuesday last year was $142.05)

RECOMMENDATIONS

Social Media Strategy Set quarterly goals for retweets/followers (Twitter) and likes (Facebook) to have concrete benchmarks.

Make a decision about what value you aim to bring to your audience with your social media.

Create an editorial calendar for planned daily posting throughout the month. The content should reflect the events, educational information, and peer/partner relationships of the museum. At least 2 people should contribute to the editorial calendar for diversity of voice.

Develop formal partnerships with similarly-focused institutions (i.e. National Air & Space Museum and The Museum of Flight in Seattle) to improve social media presence and reach a wider audience –specifically, plan to interact on Twitter (i.e. retweeting, mentions) and Facebook (mentions)

Focus more posts around educational materials/articles (which would be easy to plan in advance), and around projects for which you’re seeking donors.

Social Media planning should be especially focused in December. 30% of all giving occurs in December, with 10% occurring in the last 3 days of the year, typically between 12PM and 7PM.

Make sure that ALL content is mobile-compatible (including the Hiller website). 78% of Facebook users, and 60% of Twitter users access social media from their phones at least once a month.

Create Facebook marketing campaigns to (1) increase email subscriptions, (2) increase attendance at events, and (3) raise money for specific projects

Track and interact with the social media accounts of your volunteers/staff and donors

Twitter Tactical Guide Create a list of hashtags that visitors and staff will use and recognize; tags that are

unique to Hiller; and tags that are general to people browsing aviation terms. For example: #MyDayAtHiller, #HillerFieldTrip (children & educators), #Aviation, #AvGeek, #AviationGeek, #MilitaryAircraft (for general audiences).

For best results, aim to tweet 2-5 a day. Post on the weekends: twitter engagement rates are 17% higher on Saturday and Sunday as compared with weekdays.

If Food Truck tweets are important to you, then associate them with more Museum-driven content, so that they are more consistent with your messaging to the public.

Occasionally, incorporate tweets that ask followers to “Retweet,” which receive 12X higher retweet rates than those that do not ask. 78% of engagement with a brand happens through retweets (i.e. great for specific awareness/engagement campaigns).

Aim to post interesting/beautiful photographs and infographics that fit the specific twitter dimensions (image posts receive 2X higher engagement than text posts):

◦ Minimum to appear expanded 440 x 220 pixels.

◦ Maximum to appear expanded 1024 x 512 pixels.

◦ Appears in stream collapsed at 506 x 253 pixels.

◦ Maximum file size of 5 MB for photos, and 3 MB for animated GIFs.

Facebook Tactical Guide Prioritize posting beautiful/engaging photos over links. At the minimum a picture

has to be 500X500 in size for optimal viewing.

Experiment with posting during peak activity times for Facebook, Noon PST and Wednesdays, using the native scheduling function.

Occasionally “Pin to Top” popular updates (such as the Santa Clause or Pumpkin Drop posts) to drive more exposure from people visiting the Fan page.

Post shorter messages – posts with 80 characters or less get 66% higher engagement than posts with a higher character count

Question posts get 100% more comments than posts that do not encourage dialogue.

Turn on “Similar Page Suggestions” for you page (your page will be included in the user’s Similar Pages menu).

Think Like Your Social Media Peers1. Recruit Volunteers

2. Teach Aviation History

3. Promote Your Store

4. Engage With Other Museums

Think Like Your Social Media Peers (cont’d)5. Mention Your Supporters 7. Post Content People Want to Share

6. Talk About Your Exhibits

APPENDIX

RESOURCESSocial Media for Non-profits Blog

Twitter, Facebook, Google+ - An Exhaustive Guide to Social Profile and Posting Dimensions

The Top 4 Nonprofit Social Media Campaigns of 2013 (and what you can learn)

Where Nonprofits Spend Their Time With Social Media

The Three As of Nonprofit Social Media Engagement

Mobile Marketing Watch on Twitter Engagement

Nonprofits Online: The 2014 MR Benchmarks Study results

RESOURCESTen Holiday Gift Programs That Benefit Nonprofits

Infographic of #GivingTuesday: 2013

How to Get More Likes on Facebook

The Digital Giving Index: 2013 Year in Review

Why Smart Social Marketer Think Mobile First