Case Study: Strategic audit fuels social media success
Meet the Client
Since 1982, the Red Door Family Shelter has provided emergency shelter and support for women and children affected by domestic abuse, families experiencing a housing crisis, and refugee claimants with nowhere else to turn. They operate two shelters—a family shelter and a Violence Against Women (VAW) shelter in Toronto—and support over 350 families every year.
The Client’s Challenge
Like many non-profit organizations, the Red Door Family Shelter is active on a number of social media channels. And like many non-profit organizations (and small businesses, too!), the person responsible for social media management is also responsible for a number of other initiatives (in this case, it was fundraising as well).
While the Red Door felt their three channels—Facebook, Twitter and Instagram—were performing okay, they knew they could perform even better. As is not uncommon for many small businesses and non-profits alike, social media was an area they simply jumped into without a focused strategy to ensure that their efforts were achieving their goals and that they could tangibly measure their success.
Our Solution
We proposed a complete social media audit of their existing efforts followed by the creation of a focused strategy that would guide their future success. The strategy we created reviewed their metrics to date, highlighted what worked (and why) and what could work better (and why), and then laid out a clear path for success on all three channels. As habits amongst social media users differ from channel to channel, as do best practices, we laid out specific recommendations for copy length, hashtags, recommended number of posts per week, and the optimal times to post on each channel.
The strategy was designed to provide more than simply a roadmap for success, it was also designed to educate Red Door staff on how to improve their skills in social media management.
Once the strategy was complete, Red Door also requested our social media mentoring program to help guide their efforts in executing the strategy. For a set period of time, we drafted reports of their monthly metrics to track their efforts in reaching their social media goals. We then scheduled regular check-ins with the staff member responsible for social media management to review best performing posts, posts that could be improved upon, as well as to suggest changes and recommendations and to answer any questions.
Since Red Door began implanting the social media strategy in February 2021, post reach, post engagement and channel followers has increased across all three of their social media channels.
Testimonial
“Luminate Communications has been a valued partner and we are thrilled with their support as there has been a significant increase in followers, engagement and awareness of the Red Door Family Shelter through our Social Media channels. We have appreciated their quick responses and solutions for specific challenges we have faced and have benefited immensely in monthly mentoring sessions and reporting. I highly recommend Deborah and her team for their professionalism, knowledge and thorough understanding of our needs. Thank you!“
Wendy Bray
Senior Fund Development Manager
Red Door Family Shelter