Digital Marketing Plan for The Sparks Foundation

Who is The Sparks Foundation?

The Sparks Foundation

The Sparks Foundation is a brand new education nonprofit trying to sell students hope for successful future. Hope that they can rise out of any situation, regardless of where they came from. Whether it’s from a family with a less than ideal financial situation or a family that simply does not support where they want to go. Either way, The Sparks Foundation (TSF) is for you. This brand new startup was co-founded by people who believe that every student should have a chance at greatness, and they have created multiple programs to help students reach their maximum potential.

Vision Statement

A world of enabled and connected little minds, building future.

Mission Statement

To inspire students, help them innovate and let them integrate to build the next generation humankind.

Inspire

To inspire, motivate and encourage students to learn, create and help build a better society.

Innovate

To teach new ways of thinking, to innovate and solve the problems on their own.

Integrate

To let the students integrate, and help each other, learn from each other and do well together.

Programs offered by The Sparks Foundation (TSF):

Student Scholarship Program

Student Mentorship Program

Student SOS Program

Corporate Programs

Workshops

You can also join TSF as an/a:

Expert Mentor

Events Volunteer

Management Volunteer

Internship Positions

Brand Ambassador

What is the Graduate Rotational Internship Program?

The first program that they have successfully put into play for about three months now is their Graduate Rotational Internship Program, or GRIP. This internship program is based completely online as a part-time internship for students to complete in the span of 3 months. GRIP offers internships for Website & Apps, Expert Mentors Relations, Content & Marketing, Legal & Strategy, Student Engagements and Finance & Risk. The first month works on individual tasks, such as writing articles and designing posters, the second month consists of group work. The groups for the second month of the program are based on a personality test that all interns take at the beginning of the program so that all interns are placed into groups that will complement their strengths and weaknesses. The last month focuses on expanding the interns’ knowledge of the area they are working in. This program has been successfully running for a few months now, and TSF is expanding their programs to include a wider variety of students from a variety of different backgrounds.

Why to choose the Graduate Rotational Internship Program?

Workshops/guidance for personality insights, LinkedIn profile building, interviews skills, further education, etc. Paid Job Offer after 12 months.

A unique global, multicultural & rare diverse working environment available for interns. We are located across the world and ensure successful projects.

We are students and alumni from top colleges (IIT, IIM, NUS, Stanford, etc.) and experts from industry.

How to choose the Graduate Rotational Internship Program?

An intern will start with a function he/she is most comfortable with. The function will remain unchanged for at least three months.

At the end of three months, the intern can choose to move to any other function of his/her interest.

Internship Positions:

Internships are available in:

Graduate Rotational Internship Program

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing is the component of marketing that utilizes internet and online based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services.

Does Digital Marketing Work?

Digital marketing is a great option for any business. At Disruptive, we’ve used digital marketing to help all kinds of businesses grow — from mom-and-pop shops to internationally recognized universities and beyond. That’s the beauty of advertising online. If you know who you want to target, you can use digital marketing to target anyone, anywhere.

However, that being said, certain types of businesses will benefit more from certain types of digital advertising.

Digital Marketing Strategy : Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms to connect with your audience to build your brand, increase sales, and drive website traffic. This involves publishing great content on your social media profiles, listening and engaging with your followers, analyzing your results, and running the social media advertisements.

The major social media platforms (at the moment) are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.

There are also a range of social media management tools that help businesses to get the most out of the social media platforms listed above. For example, Buffer is a platform of social media management tools, which can help you achieve success with your social media marketing. Whether you want to build a brand or grow your business, we want to help you succeed.

Social Media Marketing Strategies for the The Sparks Foundation:

Successful social media marketing is exactly what you need for your business to grow. It can be a dynamic powerhouse that solidifies branding, creates quality leads, and drives sales. Or, it can be a big time-wasting, task-oriented dud. The key is to know how to strategically create, carry out, and measure the overall plan. Businesses trying to achieve successful social media marketing must overcome several common challenges. Carving out enough time, creating high-performing content, and properly measuring the resulting metrics are all aspects. If handled incorrectly, can tank the plan and leave them with a big goose egg as the outcome. Don’t do that!

For A Successful Social Media Marketing Strategy:

1. Identify Your Goals
2. Identify Your Audience
3. Select the Best Platforms
4. Employ a Qualified Manager
5. Deliver Consistently
6. Woo Influencers
7. Grow Your Audience
8. Engage Your Audience
9. Measure Your Results
10. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

1. Identify Your Goals

It’s a smart business practice to start with goal setting before all new plans, and social media marketing’s no different.

After all, you can be the best bicycle salesperson in the state, but still, fail if you are supposed to be selling ice cream.

Use the SMART goal-setting strategy to create the foundation for successful social media marketing.

SMART Goals

• Specific. Vague goals like “get more business” don’t help companies pinpoint their objectives and create measures of success. Goals must nail down exactly what is expected of the initiative.
• Measurable. Being able to definitively answer “yes, we hit the goal” or “we missed the goal by 20%” is a good goal standard.
• Attainable. Out-of-reach goals are demoralizing and frustrating. Having to stretch to hit a goal is productive, but don’t go overboard with expectations.
• Relevant. A social media marketing goal needs to tie into marketing’s overall goal. Is it to build an audience? Increase website traffic? Strengthen branding? Make sure the goal relates to the bigger picture.
• Timely. Dates and times keep companies accountable for their goals. Stay on track by breaking up a large project like this into mini-goals that each has its own deadline.

Once companies set their social media goals, which is basically the “why”, they need to decide on the “who”.

2. Identify Your Audience

Your message won’t be effective unless it’s specifically designed for who you are trying to target.

Developing a relevant buyer persona is essential for successful social media marketing.

Three pieces of information offer insight into pinpointing your audience.

• Review happy clients. Clients that have been pleased by a company’s product or service are prime starting points when building a buyer persona. Study their industries, demographics, and their goals closely to understand who you should be targeting.
• Nail down pain points. What question does your product answer? How does it make your buyer’s job easier? Only by thoroughly understanding this can an organization show its value.
• Survey customer support. Talk to the people who are on the front lines. What are the questions they hear most often? Knowing this shows you the direction to take in the content that will most likely engage and interest your targets.

Now let’s answer “where”.

3. Select the Best Platforms

It’s usually a mistake to try to cultivate followers on half a dozen or more social media channels.

The person managing the social media efforts gets overwhelmed, off track, and the results end up being puny.

Facebook is the social media giant, of course. LinkedIn is also great for businesses to have a presence.

But neither may be the one companies should focus on.

• Who needs the product or service? What you offer is the key to choosing the best social media platforms for your brand. Selling directly to consumers? Facebook is your best bet. Targeting a younger audience? Snapchat or Instagram might perform the best. Marketing to other companies? LinkedIn could be your golden ticket.
• Where are the competitors? Put your investigative hat on and figure out which channels your competitors are using. Study their presence, and look at their followers. It’s not required that you be on every channel they are on. But, seeing a competitor with tons of followers and engagement should prompt you to move that particular social media channel to the top of the list.

Successful social media marketing takes chunks of time to manage.

It’s far better to choose one or two channels and really invest in them than five or six channels and spread the message too thin.

4. Employ a Qualified Manager

It takes unique qualities to be a savvy social media expert.

One of the mistakes companies frequently make is to choose the person who has the lightest schedule or the cheapest per hour rate with no regard for whether or not they are “built” for the job.

• Strategic thinking. There’s almost always a strategic thinker behind successful social media marketing. Companies should look at the candidate for the job closely and discuss the short and long-range goals. The person needs to understand how to lay outposts, choose content, and engage with followers in a way that builds toward success.
• Organizational skills. Running a social media campaign demands someone that can lay out the strategy in a step-by-step approach. They need to have a handle on their time and control of their calendars. Simply posting “when they think about it” won’t do much to move the needle.
• Branding expertise. They may not be the “face” of the company, but they are definitely the “voice”. It’s imperative for the social media manager to understand the company brand at a granular level. Possess strong grammar and spelling skills, and exhibit professionalism in all situations.

5. Deliver Consistently

An outstanding social media initiative is one that is nurtured constantly.

Throwing up a blog here and a picture there won’t build a prosperous marketing strategy.

• Write content. Always keep the targeted buyer in mind when sharing content. Blogs, new white papers, and webinar invitations are smart choices.
• Curate content. Posting relevant industry information and articles written by others are additional ways to fill the social media calendar. Avoid always posting something sales-y. This turns audiences off.
• Listen. Tools that let companies listen to what competitors and the target audience are interested in and talking about guides them toward what they should be sharing.

6. Woo Influencers

Did you know that almost 50% of buyers seek influencer reviews when looking out for a product or service to buy?

That’s how big the influencers’ recommendations are. Why? Well, probably because they trust these influencers.

These people have already established their credibility thus their recommendations matter to most users.

So find out who the experts are about the product or service you sell. The ones with a large following on social media are influencers.

• Network. Reach out to and build relationships with these dynamos to reach more targets and further expand the branding message.
• Extend an offer. Be prepared to answer the “what’s in it for me” question. Maybe they could join you at a trade show, or promote themselves on one of your webinars. It’s important to show how you bring value to them as you foster these relationships.
• Monitor. Watch what the influencer posts about your brand, and make certain it’s cohesive to your image.

If, for example, they tried your product and didn’t like it, it’s best to know this upfront. Always communicate with influencers and pay attention to what they say, so there aren’t any nasty surprises.

Additional tip: For Instagram, if you want to increase your reach when collaborating with influencers, use Instagram Stories.

This has been voted as the 2nd most popular format when it comes to influencer Instagram marketing.

It actually reaches 500 million users every day and is proven to be 15 times faster compared to other kinds of feed.

7. Grow Your Audience

The more eyes that see your message, the more results you enjoy.

The social media manager needs to work on increasing followers across all the social media channels deemed relevant for the product or service.

• Current customers. Make sure current happy customers follow your social media. Product or Service updates, new content, and industry information are all valuable to customers. Do it well, and the message could prompt them to buy again.
• Content fans. People who run across and digest your content are primed to follow you. It’s vital to encourage them to subscribe to your blog and make it easy for them to follow you for future updates. A contest is a great way to increase followers.
• Paid ads. Organic is awesome, but some companies also opt for paid advertising to grow their volume of followers. Ads are great ways to reach your buyers that would otherwise never come into contact with your message.

8. Engage Your Audience

For social media marketing to be successful, companies need to find ways to increase engagement in the followers they have and the ones they want.

• Respond. Social media management is not a one-way street. Respond personally to new followers, answer questions and address issues fast, and comment and like other posts.
• Tag. If there are followers you know are interested in a particular piece of information, tag them when you post about it. Showing personal touches like this helps drive the quality of your social media efforts.
• Link. Depending on your goals, include links in your posts. Otherwise, followers don’t know what you want them to do next. Link to blogs, your website, or other call-to-action (CTA). Encouraging consumers to take action is key in developing successful social media marketing.
• Use hashtags. Help the audience cut through the enormous amount of noise with valuable hashtags. Decide in advance on a list of social media hashtags that the business will use. These are neon signs of the internet that help your message be more discoverable.

9. Measure Your Results

Close the loop by holding the results up to the goals you set and see how they compare.

Otherwise, you won’t have any idea which strategies are paying off and which ones crashed.

• Followers. Total up the number of new followers each social media platform received, and compare this number to the goal. Interesting social media platforms always consistently add new followers.
• Likes/shares/comments. Measure the amount of engagement the audience has with the posts. It’s positive if you are receiving retweets, shares, comments, and likes. Note which type of content gets the biggest responses.
• Clicks. This is where the metrics start to show how social media efforts did, or didn’t, start moving the sales needle. Were there many clicks to your blog post or website? Did followers take that next step? The success of social media marketing depends on the ability to draw more visitors into the sales funnel.
• Downloads. If your audience responded to your posts by going to landing pages and downloading high-value content like eBooks and white papers chalk this up as a success!
• Leads. It all comes down to this. Ultimately, successful social media marketing increases the number of qualified leads for the company. This is the metric that tells you the most about your efforts. Be patient. It takes time to nurture strangers into leads, even with fantastic content and consistent posting. But they will trickle in eventually if it’s done right.

10. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Metrics show you where you have been, and they also map out where you need to go.

Companies need to take the metrics they gather and use them to massage their message. Does one type of content create more engagement?

Is there a pattern of posts gaining more attention on certain days, or particular times of day?

Does the content do better across one platform over another? Use this data to edit and hone the strategy.

You will see even greater results from social media marketing efforts.

Summary

Successful social media marketing poses a variety of challenges to businesses, and it’s easy to take the wrong turn and end up with less-than-thrilling results.

It’s also common to start out excited, and get burned out, and lose commitment in the middle of your efforts.

Stay with it!

If The Sparks Foundation follows the above-mentioned methods to drive engagement and social media strategies then we can definitely see great results. Stay focused on these 10 tips and your company will be stunned at the number of followers you will garner.

The website traffic you will boost, and the new leads you will enjoy.

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