I serve on the board of directors for AIGA Nebraska (American Institute of Graphic Arts) as the director of social media. I figured I could benefit greatly from taking this class, and I was right! :) I filled out my info as a Google Doc and I can't upload PDFs here, so bear with me (the text-only might not transfer over well)

AIGA Nebraska Social Media Content Strategy

06.19.2015 [ Skillshare Class ]

WHAT ARE OUR GIFTS?

What are our gifts and most prominent skills? Basically… what comes easy to us?
Think in behaviors and mindsets, not just tasks.

Engaging large audience

Use: Connecting Nebraska as a whole, creating a design community. Reaching out to people from many different circles and walks of life who are in different organizations / schools / places of work and providing something for everyone. Whether you are a student, a new grad, or a seasoned pro, we create the feeling that you belong.

Creating community / bringing people together

Use: Events, connecting people, meetups, camaraderie, connect students & pros. Give people a reason to gather together and network, meet people, and branch out. Create meaningful connections that prompt friendships, mentorships, and professional relationships.

Inform members about AIGA organization initiatives

Use: Speak on behalf of AIGA to members and represent ourselves well in the community. Create awareness, educate about initiatives & events, make announcements about our local chapter, other midwest chapters, and national

Listen to constructive feedback and improve

Use: Listen to what members want and actually deliver, see big picture and want to improve AIGA as a chapter for future generations. Don’t grow stagnant and never stop improving. (Example: Working to eliminate “clique-y” feel to AIGA Nebraska)

WHAT DO WE OFFER TO NEBRASKA?

Benefits drive behaviors, not features

Feature: What the product or service does functionally

Benefit: How product or service changes your life

BASED ON 2014 MEMBERSHIP SURVEY RESPONSES

Events

Features: Meetups, workshops, speaker events, mentorships, conferences

Benefits: Connecting designers and developers, education, entertainment, meet/see famous graphic design heroes live, social engagement, give an identity and cultivate feeling of belonging, providing opportunities to get involved, never stop learning and growing

Education

Features: Workshops, interesting articles, scholarships, MMD, mentorship

Benefits: Learn new skills and create with your hands, invest in learning/bettering self, develop knowledge of different areas, provide stimulation in a fast-paced content-consuming web environment, provide opportunities for financial assistance to reduce financial stress, provide free one-on-one interactions with pros that new ambitious grads crave (and can’t get anywhere else)

Acknowledgement

Features: Show awards, shoutouts on our page, recognition, sponsorships

Benefits: Recognition, accreditation, looks good on a resume, start gaining personal identity as a Nebraska designer, feeling proud of accomplishments, positive reinforcement that you are talented and important, notoriety

WHO LOVES US?

Who lives and breathes AIGA? Who values us, wants to share about us, hear all about it it, share it and ultimately want to stick around no matter what?

That one perfect person:

Personality traits:

Constantly wanting to learn new things, knowledge-seeking
Enjoys meeting new people, sociable
Curious, engaged, shares our content
Ambitious and talented, looking to improve themselves
Likes art, pop culture, movies, music, probably pizza
Values a plan
Wants to be in-the-know of all the haps
Either impulsive or risk averse

Things they love to do:

Learn (increase knowledge base)
Create (make cool stuff to be proud of)
Try new things (expand skill set)
Improve / succeed (career advancement, freelance, ideal self)
Sci-fi or nerd culture (escape)-- Star Wars, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones
Relax (photography, vacation, clouds)
Family (kids, relationships, getting married)
Healthy (eating clean, getting fit)

Frustrations:

Difficult to find jobs
Not enough money to do everything they want
Not advancing in career fast enough
General uncertainty
Not sure what to do career-wise
Not enough time
Paralysis for passion projects
Not sure where to find awesome / free content
Frustration with clients
Keeping up with design trends

Their mindset:

Wanting to build a network of designers with deep relationships
1. Know they’re not an island and need help
2. Seek out mentorships
3. Develop lasting friendships
Ambitious, motivated to join because of career development benefits
1. Line on resume
2. Having an “in” and knowing people in our field is directly correlated to who gets the best jobs. You need to “know” people
3. Opportunities to get involved in organizations and serve on board or volunteer at events
4. Show off skills / talent to potential employers
5. Education about career advancements
See the world as an opportunity, learning from challenge
1. “Hell yeah” mentality
2. Not become distressed from failure
3. Know they can learn anything
Utilize tools available to better oneself
1. Internet articles / books
2. Speakers
3. Videos / movies
Positivity
1. View things as challenges, not obstacles
2. Won’t quit because of one bad experience
Wanting recognition
1. Awards feed ego
2. Ego: show off skills / talent to other designers
3. Ambition: show off skills / talent to potential employers
4. Notoriety of being in this national organization
5. Want to “be someone” who matters
Will pay for things that are “worth it”
1. Want to see value and benefit of where money goes
2. Events need to be directly related to what people want
3. Free/discounted things are awesome

CONTENT STRATEGY

What is our purpose?

Draw people to AIGA events
Build an engaged community and develop friendships / professional relationships
Educate designers/developers
Be a resource by curating meaningful content
Find new members / renew existing members
Get people jobs

What are our goals?
Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, timebound

Grow Facebook following by 10 people per month by posting relevant content getting viewed by a wider reach
Grow Twitter following by 20 people per month by thanking and retweeting new followers and new members
Grow Instagram following by 20 people per month by following and liking fellow designers’ pages and searching hashtags

FREQUENCY, TIMING & ANALYTICS:

Best times for our Facebook audience:

Sundays: 11:00am and 9:00-10:00pm

Mondays: 8:00-10:00am (steep drop at 2:00pm)

Tuesdays: Least people online, highest at 9:00am

Wednesdays: Highest at 9:00pm, second-highest 10:00am

Thursdays: Highest 9:00-10:00pm, second-highest 3:00pm

Fridays: Most people online across board, super-high at noon and 9:00pm

Saturdays: Higher around 9:00am and 5:00pm

What people click on / engage with (based on analytics):

Photo galleries (200-300+ clicks)
Listicles (famous designer quotes, etc)
Board position posts
Flash sale
Freelancing articles (423 views, 51 clicks)
Articles/videos about movies and behind-the-scenes work
Tutorials (558 viewed, 54 clicks)
Contests

What people don’t click on:

2015 Letterpress Workshop (37 viewed, 0 clicks)
MailChimp posts
Text posts with no image (board position post with no image: 37 viewed, 4 clicks. board position post with image: 857 viewed, 103 clicks)
NERDbraska reminders (69 viewed, 3 clicks)
Ceramics reminders (147 viewed, 5 clicks)

What posts have made people unfollow us:

Making Material Design: Behind-the-scenes look at building Google’s visual framework (-1 follower)
The Career Compass: 10 Essential Ideas for Navigating the New Career Landscape
(-1 follower)
How to Tap into the Power of “Invisible Design” (-1 follower)

SOCIAL CHANNELS

Facebook:

Purpose: Inform community about events and new info, engage, post about free stuff

Frequency: 1-2 times per day, spaced apart

Goal: Keep audience engaged

Ask for support from local businesses
Treat like an extension of our website

Twitter:

Purpose: Promote events, curate content, thanks for follows & memberships retweet

Frequency: 2-4 times per day

Goal: Inform, fun tweets to engage audience, articles, best place to ask questions

Text-only tweets only have shelf-life of 1-2 hours, share IMAGES and be visual
Share others’ content
Thank and compliment often
1:5 ratio-- 1 about you, 5 about others’ content
Try a Twitter chat (follow whole stream) for events
Follow Fridays?

Instagram:

Purpose: SHOW ourselves, personal, NOT a business page, keep dynamic and visual, have board members post

Frequency: 3-4 times per week

Goal: Show what AIGA is about and what we care about

Use comments & hashtags
Do contests
Challenges
Follow Fridays

POST CONTENT

Percentages for approximate post content proportions.

AIGA Nebraska Social Media Strategy - image 1 - student project

AIGA Nebraska Social Media Strategy - image 2 - student project

AIGA Nebraska Social Media Strategy - image 3 - student project

Event information/promotion (30% of total)

Our events (80%)
Community events (15%)
Other AIGA events, KC, Iowa, etc. (5%)

Curated content (50% of total):

Inspirational (20%)
Funny/pop culture (15%)
Designer/print (15%)
Developer/web (10%)
Freelance (10%)
Illustration (5%)
Professional development (5%)
In-House (5%)
Social media (5%)
Calligraphy (5%)
Photography (5%)

Questions/contests (5% of total)

Freebees/member benefits (5% of total)

Recognizing Nebraska designers/member spotlight (5% of total)

Newsletter/blog posts (2% of total)

Announcements (2% of total)

Job postings (2% of total)

AIGA Nebraska Social Media Strategy - image 4 - student project

Type | # times per week to post

Events | 3

Curated content | 5

Questions/contests | every other week

Freebies/member benefits | every other week

Newsletter/blog posts | every other week

Recognizing NE designers | every 3 weeks

Announcements | every 3 weeks

Job postings | every 3 weeks

OUR CONTENT STRATEGY VISION BOARD

Final Goals & Objectives

Using Google Calendar and Buffer to schedule posts/tweets on a schedule that lines up with our audiences’ highest traffic times.

AIGA Nebraska Social Media Strategy - image 5 - student project

Dani Donovan

Designer / Illustrator

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