Sustainability

Articles on sustainability and climate change from the perspective of a WRIT240 student

[bloggingstudentposts]

Module 5 - Final Report

Introduction This research report will analyze the social media strategy of the non-profit organization Chai Lifeline. This organization is devoted to helping families who support a child with a deadly disease. Chai Lifeline relies on volunteers to deliver their message, especially when it comes to their social media platforms.

Currently, they have a website which has links to their Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn. The audience Chai Lifeline targets families with children who suffer from a life-threatning or chronic illness from across Canada.

Thesis To exponentially improve their Chai Lifeline’s presence, they need to narrow their focus to deliver a quality strategy.  

Initial Observations

See exhibit 1 for full notes on strengths and weaknesses

Literature Review and Main Themes

Positive Themes

1.     Engagement – is viewed as one of the overarching themes that provided their social media presence legitimacy. On Chai Lifeline’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages, they post on a regular basis that provide their followers a sense of connection and expectation. Too many posts in a day and followers become annoyed, and too little loses follower’s attention.

2.     Informative Content – Chai Lifeline delivers meaningful and actionable content to its followers. The right content can translate into a donation from a first-time website visitor.[i] It can convince someone who is on the edge of volunteering to join.

3.     Visuals – What draws more clicks to any social media page is having the right images and info graphics. Graphics can summarize a paragraphs worth of content without distracting readers.[ii] This allows people to pick and choose what information they want to read. 

Improvement Themes

1.     Quality Over Quantity – Chai Lifeline is running too many social media platforms. In their situation, it is hurting them because if someone were to venture on these pages, they would see that they are not up to date, and this would reflect poorly on the organization as a whole.[iii]

2.     Color Scheme and Profile Identity - Chai Lifeline currently has a different profile picture and color scheme across all platforms. A strong aesthetic shows attention to detail which adds to the legitimacy of the organization.[iv] Coca-Cola is a solid brand to try replicate when it comes to social media consistency and branding.[v] 

3.     Organization – This theme pertains to the organization of content on Chai Lifeline’s website. See exhibit 5 for a screenshot of their landing page. Specifically, the third screenshot is two disjointed blocks of text with abrasive color in-between a picture.

Methodology

Research focused on the how people reacted to the user experience of the different platforms. 10 random individuals at Queen’s University and a group member interviewed subjects from India were chosen to review each of the platforms and were asked questions on their initial observations. Questions were based on the positive and improvement themes found in the investigation to confirm or reject our beliefs before diving further into the research and why people were having these reactions. 

Results

The results from our questionnaire have shown us that participants believe Chai Lifeline is consistent with their posting and the platforms are informative. Results indicate that the color scheme is disjointed and distracting on the website, as well as information is scattered and hard to follow. In addition, results show that participants do not believe a LinkedIn page is helping the organization in any meaningful way. 

Domestic and International Results

Question 1: 8/10 participants answered a ‘4’ which indicate that posting on platforms are very consistent.

Question 2: 8/10 participants answered ‘4’ that they found the platforms very informative.

Question 3: 7/10 participants answered a ‘2’ level. This indicates they visit a platform between 2-3 times a week.

Question 4: 7/10 participants answered they enjoyed the media aspects on the platforms. Examples given were videos and pictures.

Question 5:  7/10 participants answered they did not understand the relevance of a LinkedIn page and its connection to Chai Lifeline.

Question 6: 8/10 participants answered the colour scheme in some way distracted them from the main point of the website.

Question 7: 9/10 participants mentioned in their answer they found the platforms very – somewhat informative. 6/10 participants stated in their answer they found the website disorganized.

It was evident after collecting the answers from the questionnaire that the answers aligned with our initial research. We have highlighted the questions worth analyzing:

Question 1: 11/12 participants answered a ‘4’ which indicate that posting on platforms are very consistent.

Question 2: 12/12 participants answered ‘4’ that they found the platforms very informative.

Question 3: 8/12 participants answered a ‘2’ level. This indicates they visit a platform between 2-3 times a week.

Question 4: 12/12 participants answered they enjoyed the media aspects on the platforms. Examples given were videos and pictures.

Question 5:  12/12 participants answered they did not understand the relevance of a LinkedIn page and its connection to Chai Lifeline.

Question 6: 9/12 participants answered the colour scheme in some way distracted them from the main point of the website.

Question 7: 8/12 participants mentioned in their answer they found the platforms very – somewhat informative. 11/12 participants stated in their answer they found the website disorganized.

Discussion

Since the survey confirmed our hypothesis, we wanted to understand the psychological reasons and how fixing these elements could improve their presence. To create a better social media presence we realized we have these questions left to answer for Chai Lifeline:

What purposes to LinkedIn and Pinterest serve?

What color scheme best suits their brand?

How could they layout their website more effectively?

Analysis

1. LinkedIn Purpose: A LinkedIn page helps members find your business, your brand, and job opportunities within your company. Company pages are also useful to legitimize the brand.

-       As a non-profit organization, a LinkedIn profile is not necessary. It is more of a professional networking site that people use to find jobs.

Pinterest Purpose: Pinterest is a platform that allows people to find inspiration and ideas for their interests and hobbies.

-       A Pinterest profile for a non-profit does not add that much value. It can help increase engagement but not crucial to an organization

2. Results showed that the colour scheme is disjointed and distracting. “Your     choice of website colours is the most important decision you will make in     designing and building your website, apart from your words and content of     course” [vi].There are psychological meanings of choices of colour, as well as     different cultures interpret colour in various ways. It is crucial to keep this in mind as different colours appeal to different markets.

Their current color palette

3. Results demonstrate that the information on the website is scattered and difficult to follow. It is important to remember that a website should be audience focused, concise, intuitive, interconnected and accessible.[vii] A website should be easy to understand, aesthetically pleasing and captivating. Landing pages are meant to let you hold your prospective volunteers or sponsors. They are your lead generation vehicle that acts as a digital salesman. Internet browsers land on a page from an ad, search result, social media post, or video. 

Recommendations

1.     Eliminate LinkedIn and Pinterest - This will allow their volunteers to have more time to focus on the platforms that matter such as the Website, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.[viii]

 2.     Narrow the Color Scheme - This will allow audience members to understand Chai Lifeline’s message clearly and draw a connection to the organization.[ix] It recommended to use green as it represents balance, and grey is simple.[x]

Suggested Color Scheme:

3.     Improve the Website’s Home Page - Chai Lifeline must eliminate some information on their main page, however, eventually it will reduce clutter and direct the audience to the main goal.[xi] This can be accomplished by keeping the web page concise and making sure the paragraphs are short. As well, make sure the website is audience focused and that the website is answering the audiences’ questions and needs.[xii]

 Conclusion

In conclusion, our results have highlighted and supported our initial research. We believe that Chai Lifeline has enormous potential to take their social media presence to a new level. If they implement these simple recommendations, we believe they will increase engagement and awareness.

Bibliography

[i] Kucheriavy, Andrew. "Why Content Is the Most Important Thing on Your Website." Intechnic. Accessed March 2019. https://www.intechnic.com/blog/why-content-is-the-most-important-thing-on-your-website/.

[ii] Hausman, Angela. "The Importance of Using Visual Content in Social Media Marketing." Business 2 Community. December 27, 2017. https://www.business2community.com/social-media/importance-using-visual-content-social-media-marketing-01980627.

[iii] Wolfe, Mike. "Why Quality Over Quantity Is Key in Social Media." SmartBug Media. June 16, 2017. https://www.smartbugmedia.com/blog/why-quality-over-quantity-is-key-in-social-media.

[iv] Chichioco, Aaron, Chintan Doshi, Erik Qualman… "The Role of Color Theory in Digital Marketing and Social Media." Socialnomics. November 13, 2018. https://socialnomics.net/2018/10/27/the-role-of-color-theory-in-digital-marketing-and-social-media/.

[v] Wong, Desmond. "8 Businesses That Nail Social Media Brand Consistency." HubSpot Blog. https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/34231/8-businesses-that-nail-social-media-brand-consistency.aspx.

[vi] "Website Colors." Empowered By Color. https://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/website-colors.html.

[vii] Schmitz, Jon. "How to Organize Website Content: 5 Basics You Need to Know." Cursive Content How to Organize Website Content 5 Basics You Need to Know Comments. http://cursivecontent.com/how-to-organize-website-content-5-basics-you-need-to-know/.

[viii] Sun, Leo. "The Importance of Quality Over Quantity." BusinessDictionary.com. http://www.businessdictionary.com/article/581/the-importance-of-quality-over-quantity/.

[ix] "Website Colors." Empowered By Color. Accessed April 02, 2019. https://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/website-colors.html.

[x] Pack, Poppie. "Build Your Brand: 20 Unique Color Combinations to Inspire You – Canva." Learn. February 01, 2019. https://www.canva.com/learn/brand-color-palette/.

[xi] "The Best Way To Organize Content For Your Website." Executionists. January 28, 2019. https://www.executionists.com/organize-website-content-redesign/.

[xii] Schmitz, Jon. "How to Organize Website Content: 5 Basics You Need to Know." Cursive Content How to Organize Website Content 5 Basics You Need to Know Comments. http://cursivecontent.com/how-to-organize-website-content-5-basics-you-need-to-know/.

[bloggingstudentposts]

Module 5 - Person A

Skeletal Draft

Title: Social Media Audit: Chai Life Line 

Presented by: James Edwardson, Stephanie Erdman, and Yash Khajuria

Synopsis: This report will investigate the tools Chai Life Line Uses to promote their brand and communicate to stakeholders.

Introduction Topic: Chai Lifeline is the organization we chose to analyze.

Background Information: This organization is devoted to helping families who support a child with a deadly disease. Chai Lifeline relies on volunteers to do the bulk of their work. Their goal is to “restore the light of childhood to children whose innocence ended when life-threatening or lifelong illness was diagnosed”.

Thesis & Purpose: The purpose of our report is to figure out the main goal of the organization’s social media presence, assess its current situation, and recommend how to strengthen that message.

Audience:

Observations Strengths: A main strength of Chai Life Line is that wherever they focus their efforts, they make a huge impact. They put a tremendous amount of effort into some of their social media campaigns and it has yielded positive results in the form of generous donations. We think that their social media platforms are stronger than their website. They are kept up to date with the exception on LinkedIn. We think that if anyone were to stumble on any of these pages, they would be able to understand what the organization does and feel connected in someway with their meaningful posts.

It is clear Chai Lifeline puts thorough effort and thought into their posts which follow a chronological order. What we find most appealing is their organization, everything is well thought out well and purposeful. Their posts are consistent, which is important so that followers/viewers can begin to build a brand reputation with their social media presence.

The information that is presented on the website is relevant and important. The use of subheadings and bullet points are well laid out and in order to relay information to the audience to help them focus on main points. As well, there are amazing videos and pictures on the website which really brings the Chai Life Line to life for the audience. These touching videos and pictures target the audience’s emotions, which could encourage individuals to donate.  There are also buttons on the website which link directly to each network site (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram) which makes it easy for the audience to connect to these sites. Here are several strengths we noticed while looking at their platforms.

Facebook: Very captivating cover video

Twitter: Frequent meaningful posts, keeps followers up to date 

Instagram: Clean, high quality images that are consistent

Pintrest: Organized

LinkedIn Informative articles

Website: Informative

Great use of videos and pictures, appeals to audience’s pathos

Large presence on social media platforms: consistent posting

Weaknesses: On the contrary, there are several items in which we feel could improve or be eliminated. We were surprised that they had all 5 social media platforms. It takes a full dedicated social media team to be able to execute all of them well.  For example, their Instagram page uses a different logo then their twitter page which shows inconsistency and can cause confusion for viewers. We noticed that their LinkedIn had not been updated in three months where other platforms were being updated almost every other day. This lack of effort makes sense because the other platforms cast a wider net and have more reach. LinkedIn is a little off-brand to us and having a Pintrest for a non-profit does seem a bit odd. However, they seem to make it work and have gained a following.

The website at first glance does have a harsh colour scheme. Their logo is green, yet their website contains many bright orange and red colours which is a slightly off-brand. The colour scheme is disjointed. Orange, green, pink, black and white are used on the website which lacks flow and rhythm. It may distract the reader. The home page is packed with information and isn’t organized in the easiest way to follow. This may make it challenging and confusing for readers to take in so much information and process what is important and what is not. There are also some issues with alignment of paragraphs. In summary, we believe they should focus their efforts on leaning out the website and organizing it in a more impactful way. They have amazing organizational skills and a lot of potential to make an outstanding website. However, having so many social media platforms is a weakness for them because it is difficult to keep everything fresh, current, and up to date.

In conclusion, the organization has LinkedIn and Pinterest pages, however, they are not up to date and do not align well with their organizations purpose. It may be beneficial for them to consider eliminating these pages to focus on the other 3 social media platforms (Instagram, twitter, and Facebook) to have them operating at the highest level possible.

Here are a few weaknesses we gathered by looking at their platforms:

Facebook: No weakness, very strong

Twitter: Limited wording in posts – mostly photos

Instagram: There is an influx of hashtags which makes captions awkward to read

Pinterest: Not up to date

LinkedIn: Again, not up to date and only has 22 followers

Website: Unorganized and design needs work in terms of making effective use of negative space

Different logos on social media platforms

Pages are cluttered and word heavy

Colour scheme is disjointed: orange, green, black and white

LinkedIn and Pinterest do not align with their organization  

 Literature Review and Main Points Positive Themes

1.      Engagement – from the identified strengths, consistency is viewed as one of the overarching themes that provided their social media presence legitimacy. On their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages, Chai Lifeline posts on a regular basis that provides their followers a sense of connection and expectation. There is a “sweet spot” of the number of posts, too many and followers become annoyed, and too little loses followers attention. According to RevLocal, organizations with over 10,000 followers benefitted from posting every day. Organizations with under 10,000 followers did not benefit from posting every day. However, brands that only posted a handful of times saw their engagement double – it’s about quality not quantity. 

https://www.revlocal.com/blog/social-media-marketing/how-often-should-your-business-post-on-social-media

2.      Informative Content – On every platform, Chai Lifeline delivers meaningful and actionable content to its followers. The right content can translate into a donation from a first-time website visitor. https://www.intechnic.com/blog/why-content-is-the-most-important-thing-on-your-website/

3.      Visuals – What draws more clicks to any social media page is having the right images and infographics. Graphics can summarize a paragraphs worth of content without boring readers. This allows people to pick and choose what information they want to read. Here is an example of how Chai Lifeline incorporates visuals into their posts. 

https://www.business2community.com/social-media/importance-using-visual-content-social-media-marketing-01980627

 Improvement Areas Themes

1.      Quality over Quantity – This theme will speak to how organizations tend to have certain social media platforms just for the sake of having them. In regards to Chai Lifeline, we see this happening with their LinkedIn and Pinterest pages. In their scenario, it is actually hurting them because if someone were to venture on these pages, they would see that they are not up to date, and this reflects poorly on the credibility of the organization on a whole. https://www.smartbugmedia.com/blog/why-quality-over-quantity-is-key-in-social-media

2.      Color Scheme and Profile Identity- This theme will speak to how having consistency in regards to your brand is important. Chai Lifeline currently has different profile pictures and color schemes across all platforms. The reason this is important is because you need your followers to gain association with the colors and fonts that are associated with your brand. Having a strong aesthetic shows that you care about details which adds to the legitimacy of the organization. https://socialnomics.net/2018/10/27/the-role-of-color-theory-in-digital-marketing-and-social-media/

Here is a prime example: Coco-Cola uses the same profile picture for each of the three social media platforms. It uses a similar color palette and structures their posts to align with each platform. Lots of red and whites to keep it simple yet on brand. They stick to a similar collage pattern using different images on their cover pages. They use different pictures so the format is consistent but not dull. https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/34231/8-businesses-that-nail-social-media-brand-consistency.aspx

Facebook

Twitter

Google +

3.      Organization – This theme pertains to their website. The organization of a website is arguably more important that the content. If a user cannot follow along easily then they won’t work hard to figure out what the content is trying to tell them. It needs to be laid out in a logical order. https://diymarketers.com/the-importance-of-good-website-design-why-it-matters-and-how-to-pull-it-off/

Methodology User Experience: To do our research we wanted to see how people reacted the user experience of the different platforms. We chose 3 people do review each of the platforms; i.e. Website, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn and asked them questions on their initial opinions. We asked basic questions that go along with the themes we found as strengths and also themes we thought were weaknesses to confirm our beliefs before diving further into the research and why people were having these reactions. Here are the questions we asked:

Positive Themes

Consistency – Rank the consistency of posting on each platform (Very consistent – 5 to Not consistent 0)?

Content – Rank how much you learned about the organization on each website (Very informative – 5 to Not informative 0)

Visuals – What did you like about the visual aspects of each platform?

Improvement Themes

Quality Over Quantity – Of the 6 platforms, which would you eliminate and why?

Color Scheme – Comment on the color scheme for each platform

Organization – Comment on the organization of each platform

The participants anonymously answered the questionnaire and we compared the results to our hypothesis.

Once the preliminary information was gathered, it was evident that there was reasoning behind.

Outside Research:

Results What we found:

Discussion Relevance of our results, how it fits with other research online

Conclusion Summary of results

Recommendations 1. Eliminate LinkedIn and Pintrest to focus on the Website, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram - This will allow their volunteers to have more time to focus on the platforms that matter. The most important platform to fix is the website. The organization and user experience need to be improved. It needs to be easier to follow and more aesthetically pleasing.

2.

3.

References

All references used in the report

Appendices

Any additional material

[bloggingstudentposts]

Module 4 Twitter Essay

Twitter: @JamesEdwardson6

1. Have you ever wondered how #Google sorts through "About 283,000,000 results in (0.62 seconds)"? Are you trying to increase your website's traffic? Search Engine Optimization is one of the most effective tools to gain website traffic, and I am going to explain how it works. #SEO

2. There are over 130,000,000 registered websites to filter through and we rely on #SEO to help us find what we’re looking for. Over 90% of people on the internet use search engines, and 83% of those people use @Google. The remaining 17% use @Yahoo @Bing @DuckDuckGo @AOL.

3. When a search occurs on Google, a results page is generated that summarizes the relevant pages it found, on the top and to the right there is normally advertising slots, and in the section below the ads is where the most relevant results appear.

4. @Google uses an algorithm that selectively sorts websites after scanning the web for keywords and provides them to you in order of relevance. *Important* Over 94% of users revise their search if they do not find it on the first page of results. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqg3F-8jBec

5. How do I ensure my website appears on the first page? Google ranks websites through a back-linking system, this means it looks for websites that refer to your website. Even if you don't like essays think of it like a citation search for the digital age.

6. @Google’s model has become the standard.  Search engines analyze keywords and connect the relevance and quality of the back links to other websites. In brief, keywords let Google SEE your website, and back links let Google TRUST your website. #trustthesearch #googleit!

7. Search engines find pages using an on-site component where you make sure your website contain relevant keywords. The off-site component is where you work to create powerful back links to your website that originate from other sources using articles, social media, blogs etc.

8. Website optimization is paramount. 63% of people searching only click on the first three website. This concept is known as the golden triangle. If your website is optimized properly, then you will attract ideal visitors. #facts #SEO #optimizetolegitimize

9. Ideal visitors are people who found your website because of optimization – they were looking for your website. They are most likely going to become reoccurring visitors, customers, subscribers etc. Reoccurring visitors translates into profitability, legitimacy and popularity.

10. Lastly, #SEO can either be make or break for online businesses. #SEO is very important because it helps to move your website up the ranks, and website ranking is important for making searching more efficient. #SEO is the most effective way to increase traffic on your sit

[bloggingstudentposts]

Module 4 Activity - APP Review

Review: OLG Proline App Overall Score: 3/5 Stars

[bloggingstudentposts]

THE CHOCOLATE REVOLUTION

Welcome to the new world of chocolate!

XOXO is extremely excited to announce our new sinfully decadent chocolate, Death. Our chocolate competes with the best that you can find on the market! As if you didn’t need another reason to indulge, Death by XOXO reigns from the hills of Peru and it only contains premium ingredients! Our flavors will bring your taste buds to life and won’t put a dent in your wallet. 

OUR SUSTAINABLE JOURNEY

XOXO’s mission is to improve the world by reinventing everyone’s favorite food – chocolate! Our chocolate is fairly traded with farmers from the Peruvian Valley.

Where else can you buy something so sweet, that tastes so right? We believe that Farmers should be treated equally. We do not source our product from large industrial factories. We are leading the chocolate revolution and you can help them with your purchasing power.

THE SECRET RECIPE

·      Death chocolate is available in three mouth-watering flavors.

·      Our ingredients are from ethically sourced farmers and processors.

·      We guarantee our ingredients are never genetically modified nor artificial.

·      We are proud that we are 100% free from gluten, corn, and soy. 

JOIN THE MOVEMENT

We are inviting you to join the revolution. With your support you are making the world a better place and you can enjoy your favorite treat knowing that you supported local farmers. Our promise to you is that Death by XOXO will always use sustainably sourced and traded ingredients that make every bite taste so good!

[bloggingstudentposts]

A Millennial’s Guide to Navigating Climate Change

Let’s face it - we all know climate change is real, even Donald Trump acknowledged its looming presence in a recent interview with CBC.

Climate change is at the forefront of discussion across board rooms, coffee shops and your dining room table. We are approaching a zone of no-return, essentially what this means is that we will eventually get to a point where the damages caused by human activity is too great to be reversed. Sounds scary, right? Each day are losing species that we will never be able to get back. Have you noticed an odd number of forest fires and hurricanes? Not only are they increasing in frequency but also magnitude. 

Evidence

Carbon Dioxide Levels

Warming Oceans

Shrinking Ice Sheets

Rise in Sea Levels

Extreme Weather

Ocean Acidification

My name is James Edwardson, a 3rd year commerce student at Queen’s University and I became invested in this topic after participating in a Sustainability class at school last semester. In this class, I was able to fully understand the consequences of our actions as humans. The most critical piece of information that I can pass onto you is that the earth has been around for billions of years, humans have been around for about 200,000 years. Climate change isn’t about saving the planet, its about saving humanity. The earth has been here long before us and will be here long after us. Humans are the single most intrusive species to this planet and our demands are currently exceeding the capacity of the Earth. The only chance we have to our race is through awareness and the time to act is now.

Social media is essential in spreading the message about climate change. We have made some progress in our journey to slowing climate change, but we are painfully slow. I cannot stress this enough, the single fastest way to change people’s habits is through awareness.

We need more education at a young age of what is going to happen if we do not change our consumption habits. The message needs to be expressed through key influencers, celebrities, role and models sharing the message that we need to reduce our consumption. One example is Leonardo DiCaprio, he recently used his platform at the Oscars to enlighten everyone watching. I believe that this kind of change will never come from government or authority, it will come from the power of social media and the younger generations that make a drastic change in the way our world functions.