NORTHWEST OFFICE OF

VOLUNTEER SERVICES
Social Media Plan

FEBRUARY 23, 2015

Abby Farmer, David Mogler , Marguerite Job & Kathryn Samson

Social Media Plan Mission

The purpose of this social media plan is to create new opportunities for the Northwest Office of
Volunteer Services based on increasing their presence on social media.
Purpose
The Northwest Office of Volunteer Services was created to give Northwest students the opportunity
to serve the community and the university. It offers local opportunities to serve such as BRUSH, Beautifying
Residential House Using Students, and Lobby Day, as well as national and global opportunities through
Alternative Spring Break. Volunteer Services has the goal of reaching Northwest alums and people in the
community, in order to provide scholarships for students wanting to attend Alternative Spring Break. This
goal could be achieved through the use of an effective social media plan.
Organization
Location: 2220 J.W. Jones Union, Northwest Missouri State University
Staff: Director - Amy Nally
Social Media Reach
The mission of the Northwest Office of Volunteer Services is to reach Northwest students and get
them involved in service projects. This falls in line with the offices social marketing orientation.
Volunteer Services is currently trying to reach students through the use of Facebook and their
university webpage. The Facebook page has only 59 likes and 27 visits. The page does contain some recent
posts; however, each post has no feedback from the target audience. There is a Twitter page for Northwest
Volunteer Services, @NorthwestASB. However the Twitter page only focuses on Alternative Spring Break,
during spring break, which poses a concern when it comes to competitors and raising awareness. The
competitors for Volunteer Services are campus organizations and off campus groups, as detailed in the
Competition section of the plan.
The Northwest Office of Volunteer Services does use traditional media as well as new media forms.
It has a YouTube video called Northwest ASB Emersion 2012, which they add clips to every year, from
Alternative Spring Break. The Northwest Alumni magazine has published some articles about Alternative
Spring break. The office also has an online blog; however, all of these multimedia platforms are not as well
known for Volunteer Services, when compared to competitors. Branching off and utilizing the student radio
station and promoting the blog posts, YouTube video and other articles through social media would help
increase awareness.
Competition
The Northwest Office of Volunteer Services has not only competition on campus, but competition
throughout the community. On campus it is competing with Greek organizations, societies and clubs. Off
campus it is competing with the Humane Society, Ministry Center and other service centered businesses. The
Humane Society and Ministry Center are a source of competition to the Northwest Office of Volunteer
Services because they are providing opportunities to college students, which draws them away from
Volunteer Services. One way to fix this threat is to work with the Ministry Center and Humane Society to
create volunteer activities, which promote them and Volunteer Services.
When it comes to on campus organizations the threat is that people might not look for service
opportunities outside of their organization. For example sororities and fraternities have required philanthropy

hours, which they can get through their organizations national or local philanthropy projects. A way to turn
this into an opportunity is to use their events to get other students involved with Volunteer Services
When it comes to social media and the Northwest Office of Volunteer Services, more is being said
about their competitors than about the office itself. Here is a graph displaying how Volunteer Services
compares with other campus organizations on social media.

Facebook Likes
1000
800
600
400
200
0
Northwest Office
of Volunteer
Services

Phi Mu

Phi Sigma Kappa

Sigma Society

Student Senate

Likes

This graph shows a comparison between the likes of the Northwest Office of Volunteer
Services Facebook page and organizations on campus. The likes for Volunteer Services is
significantly less than the other organizations; however, through updating content and the use of
engaging content the number of likes can increase.

Engagment On Facebook
100
80
60
40
20
0
Northwest Office
of Volunteer
Services

Phi Mu

Phi Sigma Kappa

Sigma Society

Student Senate

People Talking on Facebook

This graph shows a comparisons of engagement on Facebook between the Northwest

Office of Volunteer services and campus organizations. Engagement on Facebook means how many
people are talking about that organization. Phi Sigma Kappas engagement might be higher than the
others because their content includes information about philanthropies which people have shared,
liked and commented on. They also have information regarding other organizations philanthropies
and congratulating them on successes.

Twitter
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
NW ASB

Phi Mu
Phi Sigma Kappa Sigma Society
Followers
Favorites
Tweets

Student Senate

The chart above compares the number of Twitter followers, favorites and Tweets between
Northwest Alternative Spring Break and campus organizations Twitter accounts. Volunteer Services has
significantly fewer numbers in each category because the account is only used during Spring Break. Simply
using the Twitter account year round could lead to a boost in followers, as well as favorites depending on the
content provided.

Goals & Strategies

Based on the information from our research, our goal for the Northwest Office of Volunteer
Services is to increase the engagement of students by improving the value exchange. Value exchange is what
people get out of the content by viewing it. These three goals should increase the general awareness of the
office and Alternative Spring Break amongst Northwest students. Through these three goals, Volunteer
Services overall goal of Alternative Spring Break scholarships could be accomplished in the future.
Goal: To get people talking about Northwest Volunteer Services.
Strategies
1. Get people talking about how they serve
a. Tactic: Each Saturday use the hashtag NW_ServiceSaturday on Twitter. Use it in a tweet
asking Bearcats to show how they serve. Insert in the tweet a picture from Alternative Spring
Break. The starting tweet could say This is how we serve on Alternative Spring Break. How
do you, or it could look like this tweet below.

2. Show examples of how to get involved

a. Tactic: Create a Pinterest board with sections about possible service projects, how to get
involved after college, inspiration and about how giving back affects others. Also a board
should be created about alternative ways to spend Spring Break and how to serve during all
school breaks.

Goal: Bring awareness to Alternative Spring Break

Strategies
1. Bring attention to the stories of students who were involved with Alternative Spring Break.
a. Tactic: Have students who have gone on Alternative Spring Break write a blog post about
how it affected them and then post a link to it on Facebook. You could even use the journal
entries that are already online to do this.

How Alternative Spring Break Affected Me

Bethany A. spent Spring Break 2013 feeding the homeless, in New York
City. Here is her story (insert link to short article by Bethany).
2. Post articles relating to serving the community and tie them back to Alternative Spring Break. For
example, Volunteer Services could post an article on Facebook about the couple who spent their
honeymoon going to each state and then did a community service project in each state.

3. Get more information about Alternative Spring Break out there.

a. Tactic: Take multimedia videos and articles, then embed them in tweets and Facebook
posts to increase the information about Alternative Spring Break, on social media. Also tag
the source of the media in the Tweets. For example tag the Northwest Alumni magazine in
it, if the article was originally published for it.

Goal: Partner with other organizations to expand Volunteer Services reach.

Purpose: This will lead to increased awareness of Volunteer Services and engagement.
Strategies
1. Partner with organizations in the community to create joint events, eliminating the threat of
competition and creating content to post about online.
a. Tactic: Partner with the Humane Society, Red Cross, or Ministry Center to have an event
which you could promote online beforehand and then post articles related to the event
online. For example, if Volunteer Services partnered with the Humane Society on an event,
they could tweet an article about how working with pets for community service reduces
stress.

2. Tweet and create Facebook posts about other campus organizations events.
a. Tactic: Find out when another organization is doing something on campus and help
promote it.

Measurement of Results
After implementing the strategies above with the mission of increasing the awareness and
engagement, it is important to measure the results. There are several different sites available to keep track of
social media data.
1. Hootsuite Pro: Is a website that allows small businesses or organizations to implement
campaigns over multiple platforms, engage audiences and measure the organizations social media
performance. It does cost money; however, a demo could be downloaded, to see if the format
would benefit Volunteer Services or not. Some of the services the site offers are free.
2. SproutSocial: Allows organizations to track the clicks, retweets, shares and favorites on social
media posts. Uses graphs and data to show a representation of audience engagement and social
media trends. It will chart data from each of the organizations social media platforms.
SproutSocial does have a free 30-day trial period.
3. Buffer: Allows organizations to create tweets or posts ahead of time and then schedule the
release of them. Buffer also has social media data tracker and analyzing options. Singing up for
the account is free and plans are discounted at 50 percent for non-profits.
4. Google Analytics: Is a free option that allows organizations to track social media data
including visitors, duration of visits, engagement, conversations and the social value of the
accounts.
5. Twitter Anayltics: Allows Twitter accounts to monitor the number of Tweets, mentions,
profile visits and followers for free. It has graphs showing how each data group has changed
over a 28 day period. It also has the summary for each previous month which includes what was
the profiles top tweet. This is a free service.

What to Measure
The three goals of this social media plan for the Northwest Office of Volunteer Services are to get
people talking about Volunteer Services, increase the information out there about ASB and partner with other
organizations to increase Volunteer Services reach. Below are details of how each goal can be measured for
the effectiveness of implementation.
Goal: To get people talking about Northwest Volunteer Services.
1. Count the number of retweets, followers and favorites for content on Twitter
2. Count the number of shares and likes on Facebook
3. Count the number of Pinterest repins and followers
4. Keep a chart documenting the number of conversations on each social media platform
5. Keep a chart of how many people are talking about volunteer services
Goal: Bring awareness to Alternative Spring Break
1. Keep track of how many people got to the Alternative Spring Break journal after clicking
on links from social media sites
2. Keep track of how many people click on the links for content in the social media posts

3. Keep track of how many people show up to events or show interest in Alternative Spring
Break
Goal: Partner with other organizations to expand Volunteer Services reach.
1. Keep track of how many people come to events held by Volunteer Services and a partner
organization

Measureable Elements Timeline

When it comes to measuring the effectiveness of the Northwest Office of Volunteer Services social
media plan, it is important to keep a timeline for each goal and the progress desired for it. Here is a proposed
timeline for measuring the progress of each goal related to the measurable elements listed above.

Get people talking about Northwest Volunteer Services

Measurable Element
Pinterest repins
Conversations on social media platforms
People talking about Volunteer Services
Retweets on Twitter

Timeline Goal
Reach 100 repins in 2 months
Increase by 25% in 3 months
Increase by 10 % in 2 months
Increase by 15% in 3 months

Here is a pictorial example displaying how to find the number of people talking about Northwest Volunteer
Services.

Get people talking about Volunteer Services

Element

Jan.

Repins
Conversations
People talking about
Retweets

Feb.

March

2
0
0
0

5
5
2
6

April
8
12
8
15

May

June

12
14
12
9

10
12
7
6

Total
9
8
4
5

Average
46 7.66666667
51
8.5
33
5.5
84 6.83333333

Above is a sample Excel spreadsheet for displaying the data for the measurable elements about getting people
talking. The spreadsheet could span a years worth of time and displays the total and average. Adding in a
column to sort out the peak months for each element could be helpful as well.

Bring awareness to Alternative Spring Break

Measurable Element
Click on links to ASB journal
Click on links to other content
Facebook page likes and shares
People interested in ASB
Followers and Favorites on Twitter
Pinterest followers

Timeline Goal
Increase by 25% in 2 months
Increase by 25% in 2 months
Increase by 20% in 3 months
Increase by 15% in 4 months
Increase by 15% in 3 months
Reach 100 followers in 2 months

Bring awareness to Alternative Spring Break

Element

Jan.

Click rate ASB Journal

Click rate other content
Facebook likes
Facebook shares
Interested in ASB
Twitter Followers
Twitter Favorites
Pinterest Followeres

Feb.
1
1
50
15
20
40
20
0

March
10
5
60
20
24
45
26
0

April

May

12
8
75
26
32
52
29
0

15
10
80
37
34
58
56
10

June
20
13
120
32
35
65
42
20

Total
13
15
100
28
49
78
50
25

Average
71
52
485
158
194
338
223
55

Partner with other organizations to expand Volunteer Services reach

Measurable Element
People showing up to events

Timeline Goal
Increase by 30% in 2 months

Partner with other organizations to expand Volunteer Service's reach

Element
Event Participants

Jan.

Feb.
0

March
0

April
0

May
14

June
10

Total
0

Average
24

11.8333333
8.66666667
80.8333333
26.3333333
32.3333333
56.3333333
37.1666667
9.16666667

Social Media Calendar

When it comes to increasing social media engagement and the value exchange, it might help to have a
calendar set up of possible tweets, posts and pins to release. Here is a tentative calendar for September and
October. The calendar does contain information based off of philanthropic campus events from the fall 2014
tri-mester.

September
M

S
1

Article about ways to

serve while in college

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

ASB journal
blog post

Humane
Society
Training Event

Blood Drive

NW_Serves tweet

Tweet
about Up
Till Dawn

October
M

S
1

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

Lip Sync
Contest Post

ASB journal
post

Update on Up Till
Dawn Fundraising

Service
Saturday

These events are just a few possibilities for increasing engagement through an exchange of
information. For example, posting or pinning an article about how to get involved in service projects during
college would allow current and new Northwest students to learn and get connected with the Office of
Volunteer Services. Also tweeting about other organizations events presents information to those who are
not already involved with those organizations, such as Greek life, and presents them with an opportunity to
not only serve but feel like they are a part of the community.