Research Report Analysis of the Canadian Red Cross’ Online Presence
Introduction
The purpose of this report is to examine whether the Canadian Red Cross is using their social media platforms efficiently to benefit their organisation, and offer where improvements can be made to reach a wider audience. The Canadian Red Cross is a humanitarian charity organisation that is funded privately and through the government. Although they have a huge presence offline through charitable acts, their online presence is very small. This report examines the amount of online presence that the Canadian Red Cross has by looking at their audience, search page ranking, and design to determine what can be improved upon.
Literature Review
The Red Cross’ biggest strength is the amount of information they provide to the public. At any given point over their different social media platforms they can give you a lot of resources that can be helpful in the case of any natural disaster. However, they do not reach a lot of people through an online medium, and seems to rely on in person campaigns, and government support/funding to reach their audience rather than having an online presence. Their major weakness is their online social media presence. They have a Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook page, but all could use a revamping. They need new, and interesting information, and they need to create a different way to get their information across. They could possibly try doing contests, or quizzes to increase everyone’s interest in all the information. They need to try and get more of the younger generation involved with the Red Cross, and they would benefit from giving their website a section on the homepage that quickly describes who the Red Cross is and what they do, then provide all the history on another page.
Methodology
Check the Canadian Red Cross website for their content; design, purpose, and audience.
Find any social media that is listed there and analyse the design, purpose, and audience.
Analysing design: Accessibility? Easy to understand? Pleasing to the eye?
Analysing purpose: Is information clear? Easy to understand? Do people know what the organisation is about?
Analysing audience: How much traffic is on each platform? Where are they on Google search results? Who are they appealing to? Do they have collaborators?
Compile information and determine how to improve their online presence.
Results
● Purpose
○ States purpose clearly in Twitter and Facebook.
○ Well known to the general public, so it’s not a big deal that they don’t state it up front in their website… instead they have information on the most recent problems and crisis which people can help with.
■ Website also states their mission, how they help the public, jobs they provide, how to contact them about it; very thorough.
○ “The Canadian Red Cross mission is to improve the lives of vulnerable people by mobilizing the power of humanity in Canada and around the world.”
○ They have a category at the top of their website that states all the various ways they help, and provide an in-depth list on current laws and emergency services.
● Audience
○ Website is targeted for those who want to help with humanitarian work, volunteer, job opportunities, and donations and is easily found when searching “red cross”.
■ However, typing in “Canadian humanitarian organizations” or “Canadian relief organizations” does not bring up any information about red cross in the first three results (the Golden Triangle) of Google.
■ Searching “humanitarian aid Canada” brings Red Cross Canada up on a list of humanitarian organizations (coming in second in the list).
○ Has several social media accounts for users of different social media; Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and Instagram.
■ Some of their stories and what they do for their work is highlighted in short posts with tons of photos (great visuals).
■ They always have recent posts on all of their social media platforms (within 24h) and updates their website to show it.
○ Right now their audience would be more of the older generation, towards the 30-60 year old category.
● Design
○ Desktop site has information available to the audience, and is easy to find because everything is accessible at the top.
○ Neat, not cluttered, everything is colour coded, and great usage of common symbols for navigators to get through easily (great design for scanning).
○ You know EXACTLY that this is the Canadian Red Cross website because of their usage of logos, colour coordination, and photos.
○ Accessible by mobile phone and is just as easy to navigate compared to their desktop site.
■ Users can easily scroll down and click on the menu to find out more about them.
■ Different social media platforms are easily found on the website at the top, or at the bottom for the mobile site.
■ It’s good that they have multiple platforms so people who prefer certain social media can read about them in their preferred design.
○ They give you the option to subscribe to a weekly email newsletter they have, which will help keep people more in touch with cause.
○ They advertise their latest tweets near the bottom of the page, and help give people a taste of their other forms of social media.
○ They give you a chance to donate any amount you’d like near the top of the website.
Discussion
● Purpose
○ Well stated, and easy to find.
■ Since they are a well-known organization, people tend to know what the Red Cross is about.
■ Looking at the website at first people can also easily formulate what they are generally, but will have to click around into “About Us” to find out what their actual mission is… perhaps state it in one short sentence or tag line that is memorable and one of the first things people see?
■ Create a shorter, more concise mission statement.
■ Give a small explanation on the first page, of who the Red Cross is to better explain to new parties of interest.
● Audience
○ Could use better SEO so that they turn up in the first few results or first page of Google.
■ Use more keywords containing ‘humanitarian, ‘ ’relief,’ and provide more backlinks to other news sources such as CBC, the Globe and Mail, etc.
■ Could potentially reach more people if they posted more with celebrities and well known social media influencers (Humans of New York and other individuals).
○ Good social media platforms, but there aren’t a lot of followers (10k on Instagram, 150k on Twitter, and 130k on FB).
■ Their posts have very little likes, comments, and shares (300 likes, 1 or 2 comments, and hardly any shares).
■ They don’t use hashtags or many @s at all, making it even harder for people to find them if there was no prior knowledge on the organization.
■ By mentioning other organizations and people who help them out (or collaborate), they can have a better social media presence.
■ They could make their social media platforms more interesting by following a similar strategy to “Humans of NY” Instagram account. They could share in depth stories from cases they help. It would drum up more interest in the sites.
○ They could do more contests, or quizzes to get the younger generation involved in who they are.
● Design
● It would be to their advantage if they linked their other forms of social media to their main website page. By allowing their visitors to click on their latest tweet or Instagram post, and directing it straight to their other websites people are more likely to look at multiple forms of social media.
Conclusion
While the Canadian Red Cross has a strong presence in humanitarian work, their online and social media presence is very weak. They do not reach a lot of people through social media, and seems to rely on in person methods to reach their audience instead. However, in a rapidly developing world of technology, it can be crucial to have an online presence in order to stay relevant The Canadian Red Cross could benefit from having a stronger social media presenceby establishing online campaigns, reaching out to reputable people, and improving their SEO.
References
https://www.instagram.com/redcrosscanada/
https://twitter.com/redcrosscanada
https://www.facebook.com/canadianredcross
https://www.instagram.com/humansofny/
https://www.redcross.ca/
https://www.youtube.com/user/canadianredcross
