Purpose
This semester I was able to help my local Chamber of Commerce with their social media as well as a social media plan for next year. The purpose of this project was to help them get more social media awareness and to plan for success next year.
The Project
At the beginning of the semester, I sat down with my mentor and asked her what kinds of things I could do for their company. One thing was helping with the social media posts and their 2023 social media plan. I would come into the Greater Mankato office once a week for five hours to create posts, help with event promotion, and work on their 2023 plan. I made sure when I created these posts that I was following their brand.
I was able to use my knowledge of adobe programs to create social media posts and my understanding to create the new plan. This plan was a lot more detailed in what to post or even what to say in the post. I made sure to create three ideas a week as my research shows that posting three days a week will increase your activity. Here are some photos of what I worked on.
I was able to use a new program called Asana to create this calendar plan. Learning new software was challenging yet rewarding! Enhancing my skills in programs such as photoshop, adobe illustrator, and Canva has made me more marketable. Here are some of the posts I created for their social media while I was there.
Challenges
One of the biggest challenges of working for a Chamber of Commerce that already had a brand is there is not too much room for creativity. I had to learn how to show my creativity through my ideas of things to post, how I designed my post and my ideas for the future. Because I was only in once a week, I felt like I couldn’t do as much as I wanted for them. Overall, it was a great experience and I was able to learn a lot about marketing.
Another challenge was learning new software. I was able to learn more about Photoshop, Mailchimp, and Asana. I’m grateful for the challenge to learn new things.
Project Process
At the beginning of the semester, I knew I wanted to have my project with the City of Mankato. Once everything was settled, I would come into the office every week for 5 hours. While I was there I would work on these posts as well as the 2023 social media plan.
Every week I would create three social media posts and plan them out using Facebook Manager. After I created these posts I would start working on the social media plan.
The social media plan was very articulate. It took a long time and required me to think outside the box to be able to come up with three ideas a week, every week, for an entire year. What I would do to help come up with ideas was, I would find fun facts on their websites, events that happen throughout the year, and even looked at old reports that showed quotes about their company. This helped me come up with ideas of what to post every week. Because the City loves to be personal with their viewers, they like to post about national holidays. I was sure to include famous national holidays as well as some silly fun national holidays within the plan.
There was an event the city was trying to promote throughout the semester called the Rural Forum, which happens once a year. I was able to learn other new software as well. I used ChimpMonkey to create emails that we sent out to people attending the event. I feel confident that if I had to use Mailchimp again, I could.
What I learned
I first learned if you want to create an opportunity for yourself, keep pushing. I can’t tell you the number of times I called about helping Greater Mankato. I kept pushing and sure enough, they created a position for me to be able to complete this project. It was so great to get real-world experience in marketing and to be able to network.
I also learned that if you want to increase your social media awareness, you must be consistent with your posts. For next year I made a plan to post three times a week. I went through every week of the year and came up with ideas of what to post about. This way they can keep up with their posts next year and all they have to do is create the post.
Since I have been helping Greater Mankato with their posts I have seen an increase in followers. Although it was not a huge increase, I believe that if they follow the plan I made for them, they will see a higher increase in followers.
Below are a few more posts I created and a seating chart.
Overview
Overall, this has been a very fulfilling experience. I have grown my marketing and I look forward to using them more in the future. I am so grateful I decided to reach out to my community so that I could help them enhance their social media. I will utilize all the things I’ve learned from them in my future career.