INCLUSIVE AMERICA
After conducting a brand audit, I recommended several areas where I could improve the effectiveness of the organization’s communications for greater brand awareness.
The organization had strategic guiding documents and a communications plan. However, the communications team could benefit from a more clearly articulated plan of how each strategic imperative translated into aligned communications objectives. I crafted an easy-to-follow plan that set goals for each strategic imperative and developed a roadmap to guide the team on when to develop each campaign. I also developed personas and specific storylines to ensure that the campaigns could develop effective and targeted messaging.
The social media team was comprised exclusively of volunteers, almost all of whom were non-designers. While the created content adhered to the brand guidelines, more dynamic designs would elevate the content's impact. I created a campaign plan with easy-to-follow design principles. Additionally, to simplify and speed up the content production cycle, I developed an onboarding document standardizing how the team collaborates on campaigns. I also designed a social media guide landing page on the organization’s website allowing partner organizations to download digital assets for their channels. This accelerated the dissemination of campaign messages across the partner network while increasing Inclusive America's brand awareness. Finally, I developed content for several campaigns.
Within the first two weeks of aligning the communications plan and launching the campaign, social media engagement doubled. As I stepped away from the project, the team continued to maintain the campaign plan. After a few weeks, however, engagement declined and the content veered away from the communications plan.
The high turnover of volunteers, particularly the design coordinators, will continue to impact the consistency and effectiveness of the content, especially if there are no designers or communications specialists on the team. Moving forward, a budget-friendly approach would be to invest in a professional Canva account and find a designer to produce a small library of general and campaign-specific design assets that would allow non-designers to produce relevant content easily.
While this approach would help with maintaining aesthetically congruent content, a dedicated team member would still be required to measure engagement trends and adjust the campaign as necessary.
