Emphasis: Digital and Social Media
Project: Senior Solutions Social Media Development
By Meagan Rogers
Summary
Senior Solutions is an Idaho Falls-based company that strives to be the first resource for senior citizens who are navigating the trials that come with age. Senior Solutions helps make connections to assisted living, social events, and information that any older adult might need.
I have always loved using social media and online connections to support others, so I saw Senior Solutions as a perfect opportunity to support, enhance, and build something that would be meaningful for years to come.
I reached out to Chanse Powell, the owner and founder of Senior Solutions, to request to manage and build their social media presence and strategy. He agreed, and I came up with a plan.
The Plan
One week after discussing the project with Chanse Powell, I presented a plan to him. Over the course of six weeks, I would do the following:
- Visit some of the local organizations Senior Solutions collaborated with to conduct short video interviews to share on the social media of Senior Solutions.
- Post one to two of these videos weekly.
- Take photos at the company and post these twice a week with announcements and tips in the captions.
- Post the previous items listed to their Facebook, as well as new LinkedIn and Instagram accounts.
- Vary the posts to cater to the platform’s audiences: as planned for Facebook, more educational for LinkedIn, and more encouraging of family involvement for Instagram (a younger crowd).
- Track the social media progress and develop a plan for Senior Solutions to move forward with.
While Chanse liked this plan, he wanted to use it later on. He requested that I use a slightly altered plan for this project. Something I have learned over the course of this experience is that the client is king! Sometimes, they have something different in mind than you do. I was happy to learn that everything he wanted to try for the company were things I was capable of. The new plan looked like this:
- Instead of video creation, I would create infographics to educate the company’s audience on a variety of topics related to senior health and care.
- I would post these infographics every Thursday as their “Tip Thursday” post.
- I would use the platforms Facebook and LinkedIn.
- I would develop connections on both platforms by searching for and sharing posts of related companies several times a week.
- I would attend their Senior Fair event to assist and take videos for Facebook stories throughout the day.
- I would attempt to fix a “broken” Facebook ad for the event.
- I would create infographics that also advertised future, re-occurring events.
- I would track the social media progress and develop a plan for Senior Solutions to move forward with.
With a solid plan, I got to work!
The Strategy and Goals
The plan was created with a goal in mind of creating more connections for Senior Solutions. Eventually, Chanse would like to have paid collaborators on their site that the social media helps them to connect with and drive back to the blog.
Senior Solutions had a fairly small social media presence when I began, so some of the main goals were to create some consistency, connections, and reach. I decided that to measure these, I would create a consistent posting schedule (Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays), reach out to new connections weekly – inviting them to the business pages and sharing their content (one local on Monday, one regional/national on Friday), and compare the reach during these six weeks to the previous six weeks and the same six weeks of the year prior. With these plans and measurements, I would check on weeks three and six.
It can be tricky to track progress in such a short span of time on social media, but there were some great results. On the chart below, you can see the final reach comparison. Sometimes social media shows some outlier figures, but overall, the consistent posting plan created a higher minimum reach for organic content than Senior Solutions had ever had before in a two-month span. The gaps in the graph contain old posts, but those old posts received zero results in reach. So, this new minimum was a great thing to see!
The graph is also showcasing only Facebook comparisons, as all posts and interactions are new on LinkedIn.
The graph starts with an outlier post that I believe was affected by a previous paid-ad. The spike at the end likely comes from driving back to the blog posts that were published by another student for her senior project. Overall, Chanse Powell was very happy with the results, and I agree that they show promise!
Time Log
| Day | Time | Notes |
| 4/26 | 45 minutes | Met with Chanse Powell to discuss Senior Solutions social media, and did some research on Facebook ads |
| 4/28 | 1 hour, 30 minutes | Worked on more research on Facebook ads to help Senior Solutions fix a current, and possibly future, problem. Spoke with and emailed professors, and attempted a few things to no avail. We are hoping that we can try a few preventative steps on the next ad to avoid the same problem of the ad not running. |
| 4/29 | 6 hours, 30 minutes | Assisted Senior Solutions with their fair. Chatted with people about what the fair was for 3 hours at the park across the street, then, for 3.5 hours walked around the fair and interviewed booths on Facebook stories to invite more people out. |
| 5/1 | 3 hours | Conducted research on other similar businesses |
| 5/3 | 1 hour | Prepped a strategy proposal for Senior Solutions |
| 5/4 | 1 hour | Met with Chanse Powell to discuss a strategy and plan, then wrote down some ideas and a schedule |
| 5/6 | 2 hours | Started my hourly recording sheet, finished the company set up for LinkedIn, and saved some Facebook posts to share on the proper days |
| 5/8 | 30 mins | Shared local Facebook and LinkedIn Posts |
| 5/9 | 1 hour | Worked on Infographics |
| 5/10 | 1 hour | Worked on Infographics |
| 5/11 | 1 hour | Created infographics and posted |
| 5/12 | 1 hour | Shared national posts |
| 5/13 | 2.5 hours | Created infographics |
| 5/15 | 1 hour | Shared local and created infographics |
| 5/16 | 1 hour | Created Infographics |
| 5/17 | 1 hour | Created Infographics |
| 5/18 | 1 hour | Posted and created infographics |
| 5/19 | 1 hour | Shared national |
| 5/22 | 1 hour | Shared local, updated time log, and reviewed analytics |
| 5/23 | 1 hour | Worked on infographics |
| 5/24 | 1 hour | Worked on Infographics |
| 5/25 | 30 mins | Worked on infographics and posted new infographic |
| 5/26 | 30 mins | Shared national |
| 5/30 | 1 hour | Shared local and set up google spreadsheet timeline and plan to share with Senior Solutions |
| 5/31 | 1 hour | Infographics and charted time |
| 6/1 | 1 hour | Posted and infographics |
| 6/2 | 45 mins | Posted and studied analytics to update plan |
| 6/5 | 1 hour | Shared local and infographics |
| 6/6 | 1 hour | Infographics |
| 6/7 | 1 hour | Infographics |
| 6/8 | 45 mins | Posted and Infographics |
| 6/9 | 30 mins | Shared regional/national and blog |
| 6/12 | 30 mins | Shared local and blog |
| 6/13 | 45 mins | Infographics |
| 6/14 | 15 mins | Shared blog |
| 6/15 | 30 mins | Posted and fixed glitching past-post |
| 6/17 | 15 mins | Shared national |
| 6/19 | 7 hours | Display preparation, prepped to create video intro and outro requested by Senior Solutions (Chanse later requested that we discuss contracted work for this and more after the project was over) |
| 6/22 | 6 hours | Setup and showcase |
| 6/24 | 5 hours | Blog post work and completion |
| Total | 60 hours |
The Content
The Outcomes
While the analytical results are great to see, there are also some general outcomes:
- Senior Solutions now has a developed and consistent LinkedIn.
- I have provided 20 infographics that are ready to be used in the future for the company. Chanse will place them on the blog in addition to the social media platforms.
- Facebook reach and engagement has slowly and consistently risen, as have followers on both of the utilized platforms.
- I have provided Senior Solutions with a content calendar for their “Tip Thursdays” for the duration of the year. This calendar includes captions with key words, strategized hashtags, links to the individual content to include in each post, dates tailored to events that the company hosts, and a results section (pictured below).
- They have re-usable videos for content from their biggest annual event.
- We learned together more about how to properly run Facebook and social media advertisements for the best results.
- The blog received visits from the social media platforms, opening up future advertisement collaborations for the company.
- The infographics I designed contributed to the overall brand consistency and design (a newer development for the company that Chanse Powell is excited about).
- The company has a more understandable purpose for social media followers, as a major goal of Senior Solutions is to be the first-stop place for education on senior connections and health.
- And I have been requested to discuss a contract with Senior Solutions once my senior project and final semester are complete. I am so excited about this one! They have been a joy to work with. If I continue to work for Senior Solutions, I plan to track similar progress over a much longer period of time.
Below is the content calendar I provided Senior Solutions for the year.
Overall
Working with Senior Solutions has been an incredible learning experience and opportunity. I hope to continue the relationship in the future. I have learned that what the client wants is vital, social media can be hard to track, but looking at the little details and making future hypotheses helps, and connections are everything!