Assessment of The Canadian Red Cross Social Media: Person B
Audience: We should be keeping two groups of audience in mind. One group is the Canadian Red Cross itself, and the other group are those the organization Is trying to attract. This would include the Canadian society as a whole as the organization tries to protect vulnerable people against disasters, as well as those who would like to actively contribute through donations, volunteering and education.
Three suggestions for improvement:
Add subheadings in the methodology section
Add information about the organization in the introduction, ie the organization's mission and vision statements.
Strength: There are social sharing buttons on news items posted on their website blog.
The report summarizes the social media usage of the Canadian Red Cross, a not-for-profit organization that helps in national and international emergencies and disasters (Canadian Red Cross, 2019). This report utilizes background information on social media marketing strategies and comparison to similar non-for-profits, such as the American Red Cross, in order to assess their social media methods, perceived media strategies, and uses. A thorough analysis of the Canadian Red Cross official website and social media platforms suggests that the not-for-profit successfully provides accessibility through donation options and information on volunteer opportunities but may benefit from increasing engagement of users on platforms such as Instagram. Through increased engagement with social media platforms, the hope is that more users will be prompted to use the donation and volunteer options that are easily promoted and accessible.
As part of the largest humanitarian network in the world, the Canadian Red Crossâ mission is to improve the lives of vulnerable people in Canada. Operating under the principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity and universality, the Canadian Red Cross helps in emergencies and disasters in Canada, provides community health services, and violence, bullying and abuse prevention, supports migrant and refugee services, Restoring Family Links, and International Humanitarian Law.
The advent of technology has allowed organizations, like the Canadian Red Cross, the ability to spread up to date information to the public through social media. Particularly, social media is no longer just a tool or amusement, itâs a life-saving device in disaster response and recovery in which the Canadian Red Cross has tried to take advantage of. The purpose of the following report is to analyze the social media usage of the Canadian Red Cross to determine the effectiveness of their social media strategies and make recommendations to improve their presence online.
Social Media Strategies for Non-profits (Johnston, 2017)
Engagement is a priority in ensuring proper social media usage
Respond to questions, comments, and posts tagging the organization
Create content that targets the audience
The âgeneral publicâ is not a good audience to have
Organization should share a variety of posts across platforms
This is content that users are prompted to share to their own social media
Make this content easy to access and share
Figure 1. Breakdown of how to properly allocate time on social media for non-profits
Social Media for Nonprofits: How to Make an Impact with Little Budget (Dopson, 2018)
Post interactive content to encourage engagement
Host a Q&A session through Instagram Stories
Ask your audience to share their story through a normal status update
Include hashtags to increase your reachÂ
Create your own hashtag and build a strong following by getting involved
Or jump onto a popular hashtag and make it your own
Use visuals to drive website traffic (Figure 2)
Figure 2. A bar graph representing the effect of a visual aid. Facebook posts with an image see 2.3 times more engagement.
Make it easy for followers to donate
When youâre looking for people to make a donation after finding you through social media, itâs likely theyâll need to click-through to your website.
Frequently posts on Twitter and Facebook, with less frequent posting on Instagram
Consistent use of logos and page name
Links all social media sites (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) on the bottom of the website
Determining Social Media Presence
 Our research methodology began by visiting https://www.redcross.ca/ to determine the organizationâs objectives, mission and vision statements as well as determine the social media outlets used by the Canadian Red Cross.
 Analysis of Social Media Outlets
The organization's presence on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram were then analyzed individually by visiting each outlet separately. To determine what other people were saying about the Canadian Red Cross Twitter searches, social mention, and google news was used.
 Comparing the Canadian Red Cross with Competitors
Using a google search, competitors of the organization were identified. The competitorâs presence on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram was then analyzed individually by visiting each outlet separately.
Provides links to Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram on the top of the homepage
More strategic placement in comparison to the American Red Cross
Tweets show up directly on the website
There are social sharing buttons on news items posted on their website (Figure 3).
 Figure 3. A news story posted on the Canadian Red Cross website blog. The share button to Facebook is highlighted.
Saves stories under relevant titles using the âHighlightâ feature
A few comments are posted on the photos
Uses hashtags to expand their reach
Responds to comments and concerns left on posts in a timely manner (Figure 4)
The option to âdonateâ is at the top of the Facebook page, alongside an option to create a Facebook fundraiser to prompt oneâs friends to donate
 âAboutâ section contains the purpose of the Canadian Red Cross, as well as the hours during which they respond to inquiries
Link to website under the âaboutâ section
The frequency in which similar posts occur is sometimes too often. Specifically, on February 5, Facebook posted about flooding prevention and safety tips, all of which were posted around the same time.
Figure 4. The Canadian Red Cross response to a user complaint left on a Facebook post.
Organization tweets and retweets frequently on a day-to-day basis
Account has a large number of followers
Most tweets do not have a large number of retweets or favourites
 Link to website in the bio
 Through analyzing the online presence of the Canadian Red Cross, we were able to determine what is working, what is failing, and what can be improved across their social media channels. The results show that the Canadian Red Cross takes advantage of the âshareâ button on their website and social media platforms. When an individual shares one of the posts, the organization and content is getting introduced to an entirely new group of people. Additionally, when a reader shares your post on social media, they are creating a link to your blog post and to your website. As your number of social shares continues to grow, so does your number of naturally occurring backlinks. The Canadian Red Cross successfully use a variety of content (videos, photos, polls etc) posted across their social media platforms which provides the opportunity to see a flood of volunteer registration form submissions or clicks to the donation page.
The results also show a lack of engagement. Although there are some responses to Facebook comments (Figure 4), there is a general lack of engagement with tweets and Instagram posts. As well, the organization does not post âsample contentâ that is promoted to be shared by users. Stories about flooding were posted from The Canadian Red Cross Facebook in a short time frame and since the content of the posts was very similar, it may have been better suited throughout the day. Patel (2016) writes that the consequence of posting on Facebook more than twice a day will result in 50% fewer clicks per post.
The evaluation of social media is crucial to the Canadian Red Cross. The findings of this report show that the Canadian Red Cross has successfully used features such as donation buttons and easily accessible information on volunteering in an attempt to increase involvement with their organization. However, it is noted that the Canadian Red Cross Instagram is less active than their other social media sites and many of the Instagram and Twitter posts lack engagement (comments, reposts, favourites/likes) from users. A limitation of this report was the absence of communication with the Canadian Red Cross social media marketing team.
The Canadian Red Cross would benefit from including more infographics and videos on their Instagram page.
 The Instagram and Facebook accounts could be linked in order to increase the crossover of information on separate platforms.
The Canadian Red Cross would benefit from Hootsuite, a social media site that helps keep track of content that is necessary to the public (Hootsuite Media Inc, 2019).
Dopson, E. (2018). Social media for nonprofits: how to make an impact with little budget.Retrieved from https://www.sendible.com/insights/social-media-for-nonprofits.
Canadian Red Cross. (2019). About Us. Retrieved from https://www.redcross.ca/about-us
 Hootsuite Media Inc. (2019) Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard. Retrieved From https://hootsuite.com/
Johnston, A. (2017). A Strategic Guide to Social Media for Nonprofits. Retrieved from https://sproutsocial.com/insights/nonprofit-social-media-guide/
Patel, N. (2016). How frequently you should post on social media according to the pros. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilpatel/2016/09/12/how-frequently-you-should-post-on-social-media-according-to-the-pros/#2c386a2f240f
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