FACEBOOK

PROJECT PLAN 1

Communication

With the goal of increasing awareness among female students of what the program entails

(Informational) as well as the goal to increase the number of female applicants for the 2017

spring semester (Motivational) I had to pay very close attention to the messages I was

constructing and sending through the Facebook channel. I not only needed female students to

remember the key messages but I needed them to act on the messages as well, as shown through

applying to the program. I first looked to fulfill the needs of the active audience. These are the

people who were interested in studying abroad in general or with the AZ in Italy program and the

parents of those students interested in studying with the program. I used the uses and

gratifications theory to help construct posts that alerted this audience about application dates,

informed them about resources for finical aid and used interactive posts to show them all of the

places we traveled to. Then I looked at the needs of the passive audience as well as changing the

negative attitude directed towards applying to the program. When I wrote posts geared to this

audience I was clear and direct with my writing which helps with remembering the message and

reducing noise. I constructed posts that reiterated how simple applying to the program was as

well as produced a lot of entertaining videos that would catch the eye of members of both

audiences (i.e. Buffalo Boomerang and Bear Down Video).

Since my motivational objective was to increase the number of female student applicants

by 5% by the October 25th deadline, the frequency of my published content was moving at a fast

pace up until that date. The required amount for the Facebook admin was to post three thoughtful

messages a week but because repetition induces learning and retention, I thought it would be in

the best interest of the program to double the content requirement. As in the scheme of things

with the amount of content that is produced on Facebook in one day, three posts in one week
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would be barely enough to catch someones attention. I wanted to keep a running order for my

Facebook posts, so in a normal week I would usually have one field trip album, one Whats on

the Agenda, one student spotlight and one post highlighting a cultural activity. Although right

around the week of the spring application deadline (Oct. 17-24th) I centered the majority of the

posts around information encouraging the application process (i.e. restating the steps of the

application process, listing contact information of where to go to for questions and posts

engaging alumni to share helpful advice for student applicants.) My thought process was if

students were interested in applying or unsure about going abroad, by doubling the content in the

beginning month and even more so the week before the deadline, the key messages would have

been heavily emphasized and students most likely would have come to accept the benefits of

participating in AZ in Italy program, hopefully enough to persuade them into applying.

Since my informational objective was to spread awareness of what the program entails,

there was so real need to continue to publish messages at that speed after the deadline had

already come. I still continued to post beyond the requirement but the time distance separating

the posts were farther apart.

In terms of timing I posted most of my messages in the later evening, as to coordinate

with the Arizona time schedule. My reasoning behind this is because most of the Arizona in Italy

Facebook followers are alumni from the United States. So I thought that people would have a

better chance of seeing the message if I posted it at a time that was more accommodating to their

normal schedule. My fear was that if I posted a message in the morning going by Italian time, the

target audience would be sleeping and when they woke up all new content would already have

pushed back my post, making it less likely to be seen. I found that posts were highly received

when they were posted around 11 a.m. MST time on weekdays and after 6 p.m. MST on
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Weekends which makes sense because people are often taking their breaks to eat and checking

their social media accounts around then. See email for Social Media Calendar.

For this campaign the budget is completely based off the time and energy spent working

on the project plan and being that I was the only student working on the Facebook page, there

was no cost for other staff, printing, gaining images and or advertising posts. All of the images I

used were either taken from current students, after being given permission or from Google free

images. All of the comments, likes and shares were gained from authentic page followers or by

people who happened to come across the page. In the beginning months of the campaign I spent

on average eight hours a week or 80% of my time coming up with new material. As it took time

to come up with creative new ideas, get in contact with the people that I wanted to film, filming

the video, taking the pictures, uploading them onto my computer, editing everything together and

then writing the captions.

Then besides the time that was spent producing the content, time was also spent conducting

research for both my pre and post campaign measures. While the quantitative measures didnt

take as much time because students completed the surveys and feedback forms at their own pace,

it still took time to create both research tools. Conducting the qualitative research took a

significantly longer amount of time because both the focus group and interview lasted for around

a half in hour each and then I had to go back and analyze the data that I had received.

Then I need to account for the time it has taken to evaluate my communication efforts by

writing this Social Media Campaign Proposal. My strategy has been to spread the writing out

over the course of the week and I have spent around two hours on it every week for the past three

weeks. I still need more time to finishing conducting my post-campaign measures as well as
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writing the evaluation and conclusion on my campaign. I will account that as 10% of my time, as

I am unsure of any obstacles or any other variables I will encounter as I conclude the campaign.