CASE STUDY: Getting BBBS of Greater Sudbury on Twitter – pt 2

August 30, 2015
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A couple weeks ago I got the agency online. Sure, they were already on Facebook, with a pretty high number of followers. But now they’re on Twitter, where I’m hoping to expose the agency to opportunities of reach that Facebook simply won’t.

HOW’S IT GOING?

This one’s hard to measure. In almost two weeks of active posting, they’ve reached 90 followers (including me). Is that good?

Hard to say.

Because agencies like Big Brothers Big Sisters are operating on a completely different principle than, say, a business or a personal account, I simply don’t have any real metrics with which to compare.

Taking a look at a few other BBBS agencies, I can take stock of some numbers:

To date, BBBS Greater Sudbury: 324 tweets, 471 following and 90 followers.

My personal account’s at relative parity for all 3 (~2500 each), but, like I said, that’s apples and oranges. I’m personally posting about design, screenwriting, employment, marketing/advertising and a few random topics that strike my fancy. Following me is a fairly non-committal click of the button.

I’m suspecting that one of the things that makes attracting followers for an account like BBBS is that no matter how interesting the topics, and I believe I am posting interesting stuff, that “following” is much more of a personal commitment.  That once you involve a charity/nonprofit in the mix as the tweet originator, no matter how interesting the average Tweet is, there is going to be some sense that to follow them, you’re either going to have to be involved with the organization already, or could potentially be.

That, of course, is a pretty gross generalization.

But looking at the followers list, quite a number of them are existing BBBS agencies that the Sudbury account already followed, with the occasional one signing up out of the blue. So,  that in itself is mostly reciprocal, but also an indicator of aligned interest – in this case, they’re all satellite branches of the same organization (regardless of whether they’re Canadian or American, there is a relationship).

Anyways… numbers.

Again, BBBS of Greater Sudbury: 324 tweets, 471 following and 90 followers… around for two weeks.

Other agencies:
A: Tweets 803, Following 790, Followers 691 – around for four years
B: Tweets 10, Following 596, Followers 116 – around less than a year
C: Tweets 193, Following 642, Followers 293 – around for five years
D: Tweets 846, Following 745, Followers 594 – around for three years
E:  Tweets 596, Following 406, Followers 345 – around for four years
F: Tweets 891, Following 549, Followers 730 – around for six years
G: Tweets 315, Following 848, Followers 410 – around for five years
H: Tweets 4597, Following 1739, Followers 3033 – around for six years
I: Tweets 2031, Following 1025, Followers 1454 – around for seven years
J: Tweets 1107, Following 475, Followers 889 – around for four years
K: Tweets 653, Following 1084, Followers 540 – around for six years
L: Tweets 843, Following 1439, Followers 624 – around for five years
M: Tweets 7823, Following 1388, Followers 1374 – around for six years
N: Tweets 3526, Following 1075, Followers 2635 – around for five years
O: Tweets 388, Following 755, Followers 445 – around for four years
P: Tweets 1539, Following 89, Followers 263 – around for four years

Quite the series of ranges there. A few of  the agencies are far more prolific in their tweeting in others, and the ratios really are all over the map. (B) has accumulated a fair number of followers on a pretty small number of tweets, but was pretty aggressive in following at the same time. (M) has relative parity between following and followers, but the number of tweets they’ve made dwarfs those numbers. (N) has amassed a lot of followers without following as many, but has made a lot of tweets to get there as well.

These numbers in and of themselves don’t actually tell me a lot. And, really, two weeks to get Greater Sudbury to 90 followers isn’t long enough to really judge how this account is performing vis a vis the other BBBS agencies out there.

And really, numbers aren’t the only metrics anyways. Some people will tell you they’re actually quite worthless in and of themselves. They’re just a quantity. What’s the quality?

QUALITY

In this case the quality would be the followers who are actually engaged in the organization’s Twitter feed, offering up Favourites and Retweets on some of the articles posted. We’ve got a few.

Most notable would be Jennifer Hansford (@HansfordJen), a First Nations freelance journalist and blogger from a neighbouring township, who has been quite generous with Favouriting and Retweeting some of the materials I’ve posted, particularly the homegrown stuff like the webgraphics on mentoring. She’s got a blog, and she’s also looking for guest bloggers, so if you’re in the market, drop her a line. theexudeblog.wordpress.com

THE TWEETS

You can check out the feed if you’re interested in really seeing what I’ve been posting for the agency. https://twitter.com/BBBSSudbury

It’s largely come down to a fairly reliable (and safe) series of topics, taken from the list I created before starting the project:

  • Ways To Entertain Kids
  • Exercise Tips For Single Moms
  • Motivate Kids to Exercise
  • Kids and Science
  • Kids and Art
  • Kids and Music
  • Kids and Sports
  • Kids and Homework
  • Being a Good Mentor
  • Big Brother Big Sister Time Commitment
  • Big Brother Big Sister Free Activities
  • Does my child need a mentor?
  • Kids and Nutrition
  • Kids and Pets
  • Social media dangers
  • Childhood diabetes
  • Allergies
  • Lactose intolerance
  • Gluten intolerance

It’s a good list, and it offers up a lot of potential tweets. But, like I said, it’s safe. I’ve left the full list with the Executive Director, and in the following weeks she’ll come up with a policy on the more potentially controversial tweet subjects. It’s most likely that when she takes over the account in a couple weeks (I’m only doing this for four weeks or so, enough time to get the account rolling and set the tone) that the heavier subjects will come into play:

  • Getting Teens To Talk
  • Child Acting Out at School
  • Child Behavioral Issues
  • Dealing With Child Shoplifting
  • Effective Discipline Children
  • Teens and Bullying
  • “The Talk” – sex-Ed Discussions With Your Teen
  • Kids and the Internet
  • Teens and addiction
  • Teens and smoking
  • Teens and drinking
  • Teens and drugs
  • Puberty and what to expect
  • Kids and mental illness
  • Social media and addiction
  • Social media dangers
  • Understanding your LGBTQ teen
  • Teens and anorexia
  • Teens and bulimia
  • Childhood diabetes
  • Kids/teens and obesity
  • Teens and peer pressure
  • Kids/teens and sexual abuse
  • Teens and body-shaming
  • Teens and sex-shaming
  • Signs of abuse
  • Challenges of single-parent homes
  • Effects of parental absenteeism
  • Teens and self-esteem
  • Kids and the loss of a loved one
  • Kids and the loss of a pet
  • Teens and suicide
  • Suicide warning signs
  • Warning signs youths are at-risk

I can understand why she wants to hold off on those (and why she’d prefer to post them herself, rather than trust me, an outsider (trusted outsider, yes, but still not an official member of the organization)). I think that the real key to turning the BBBS-GreaterSudbury feed into a must-read will be that heavier batch of topics.

The youth of today are at risk. Very great risk. And it’s not even the demographic that BBBS services (largely single parent homes)… but all youths are growing up in a society that is fraught with peril. The sexual information and misinformation out there is rampant. With the advent of the internet, kids today are at risk of making contact with strangers in ways that my generation never had to worry about. Drugs are increasingly easy to come by, with apparently stronger and stronger potencies available – while at the same time with increasing risk of being laced with stuff that is more and more harmful.

So, yeah, it’s a really dangerous world out there, and while I don’t want to turn the feed into doom and gloom, at the same time, I want it to reflect that world and the risks associated with it.

Chantal Gladu, Executive Director, recently posted a pretty heavy series of videos to her Facebook feed, with some graphic Australian videos warning of the dangers of meth use. With her permission, I adapted that post to the Twitter feed:

That’s the reality of the world the kids are walking into. That’s the kind of stuff I want to get into the feed. Not all of it… hot damn, not all of it. That’d be too much. But enough to add some weight. Some heft.

Being in marketing is a double-edged sword. No motivation is ever pure. If it were, I’d want to be posting that stuff just on its own merits – to help protect the kids. And that’s a part of it, but another part is that I know that the feed will be stronger for it, with a greater chance of establishing itself as an authoritative resource on kids and youth. And that means that it has a better chance of being successful in and of itself, and that means that I will have been more successful in putting it together.

So, yeah, double-edged sword. I want this thing to work – it’s why I took it on.

THE CUSTOM TWEETS

I’ve created a number of custom webgraphics based on marketing materials that BBBS has used in the past, utilizing photos supplied by the National office:

 

 


 

 

 

 


 

 
Sometimes I’ve been able to dip into the Facebook feed and craft “thank you” messages for the organizations and companies that have been supporting the agency:


 

Or, again, materials specific to the agency that they’ve been posting in the Facebook feed, adapted to Twitter:

 

 

  Occasional posts have been a little self-serving, I will admit:

 


 


 

 
  Some have been just about thanking sponsors:


 


 
I’d been waiting for the Kinsmen, a major BBBS sponsor in Sudbury, to finally upload their Showcase Sweepstakes photo. Every year they build a house and sell tickets for it. Moneys raised go to local charities. I’ve worked the house a few times myself, guiding strangers through and giving them a tour. (tickets are still on sale, if you’re interested)

IT’S ONGOING

We’re two weeks in. Still got a ways to go, and Twitter’s a marathon, not a sprint anyways. The agency at some point will be taking over the feed and I’ll back off, letting the account thrive or wither on their efforts and interest.

For now though, I’m workin’ it, and I’ve got some plans that I’ve yet to put into action. I’ll touch upon them next time, once I’ve had a chance to implement them and see how they’re working.

If you’ve gotten this far, thanks for reading. Have a great week.

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