City Year New York:
Social Media Promotion
Client: City Year New York (CYNY)
Industry: Non-Profit Organization
Roles:
Graphic Designer, Photography, Image Editing, Graphic Design, Logo Making, Typography
Content Writer, Storytelling, Content/Blurb Writing, Social Media Branding
Video Editor, Sound Engineering, Trailer/Commercial Producing
Tools: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Sketch, Instagram, Facebook, Photo Editor
Duration: July 2022-June 2023
Background
City Year New York (CYNY) is a 501c3 non-profit educational organization that provides academic and enrichment support for elementary and secondary schools across New York City. The New York Civic Engagement (NYCE) team works to develop, plan, and execute virtual and physical service events—ranging from campus beautification to virtual read-aloud – to engage our corporate and local sponsors, and connect them to the work we do with students.
Overview
The New York Civic Engagement (NYCE) Team would like to increase social media awareness of physical service projects and community programs on City Year New York Instagram account throughout the 2022-2023 service year.
The two main problems that NYCE Team wants to solve:
Decrease in audience engagement and followers on the City Year New York’s Instagram and Facebook accounts from three years of inactivity.
Less diversity in audience on the Instagram account.
As External Affairs Coordinator of the Civic Engagement Team, I promoted the City Year brand by:
Capturing and editing photos and video taken during events.
Creating weekly Instagram and Facebook posts, showcasing the impact for NYCE team’s community service at partner schools, recreational centers, and pro bono events hosted by corporate partners.
Generating digital posters that encourage AmeriCorps to join the NYCE Team.
Fabricate blurbs or briefs describing the service events in the social media posts.
Process
Phase I : Market Research
Figure 1: Current Audience of Facebook and Instagram from October 2022 to August 2022
Meta Business Suite shows the current audience of City Year New York’s Facebook and Instagram from October 2022 to August 2022 in Figure 1.
City Year New York has a significantly larger social presence on Instagram with 2,639 followers. The target audience is women between the ages of 25 and 44. The top cities are New York City, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago. Lastly, the top countries are the United States, India, Nigeria, the United Kingdom, and Brazil.
Phase II: Reviving City Year New York Instagram
As stated in Phase I, the target demographic of City Year New York (CYNY account) is young women. Using the strategies from SocialToaster, I made the weekly posts and their respective blurbs below more engaging on Instagram by:
Refining my content for the target audience. City Year New York’s main audience is millennial women of ages 25-44.
Using City Year and partner schools’ brand colors rather using stereotypical female colors. Women purchase over 50% of traditional “male” products according to Andrea Learned and Lisa Johnson’s Don't Think Pink.
Storytelling each service event in each content. 30% of women regret boring or unintelligent content. 60% of women will only share thought-provoking and intelligent content.
Highlighting the positive impacts of each service event when creating videos. According to Ernst and Young Groundbreakers report, women reinvest 90% of their income into their families and communities; men reinvest only 30-40%. On top of that, 81% of millennials, ranging from ages 27 – 42, want to support humanitarian companies.
My Instagram Posts:
Title: City Year + Bain & Company Service Day
Publish Date: April 18, 2023
Link: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CrLxsGuAD8Z/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y%3D
Blurb: On April 14, 2023, City Year New York Civic Engagement (NYCE) team partnered with Bain & Company to beautify the campus and create engaging learning environments for the South Bronx’s P.S. 154. We planted several large flowerpots and revived the pre-existing flower bed at the front of the school entrance. Next, we created an outdoor classroom space for the students to learn about the environment through gardening and eco-friendly projects, such as making bird feeders. We arranged the outside classroom’s furniture and sanded and painted orange planter boxes. Then, we primed the walls for future murals and assembled 18 bikes for a bike assembly in the cafeteria. Lastly, we reorganized the basement and food & clothing pantry and painted motivational banners and space-themed plywood cutouts. Thanks for watching! #ilovecyny #nycenycebaby
Title: City Year X Blue Meridian Service Day Event
Publish Date: March 9, 2023
Link: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CpkxWB6geJS/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y%3D
Blurb: Blue Meridian Partners completed a beautification project at South Bronx’s I.S. 584. Blue Meridian Partners is a non-profit organization that leverages philanthropy to solve problems that limit economic and social mobility in under-resourced communities. The service day event included building eight new clothing shelves, painting two murals, hanging two banners, and painting the accent walls of I.S. 584’s brand new Food and Clothing Pantry. Thank you for watching! #nycenycebaby #ilovecyny
Title: City Year’s 2023 MLK Day of Service
Publish Date: January 25, 2023
Link: https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cn2OrVtjdbn/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y%3D
Blurb: Thank you for joining us and volunteering for City Year New York’s annual MLK Day of Service at the Highbridge Green School. Thanks to your help we leveled and inventoried thousands of books, painted 11 murals, organized the schools main storage closet and so much more! Thank you! #mlkday #ilovecyny #cymlk #cymlkdayofservice #nycenycebaby
Title: City Year’s AmeriCorps Appreciation Winter Kit Service Event
Publish Date: December 16, 2022
Link: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CmPdbPhA1Ui/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y%3D
Blurb: Last weekend, the NYCE and City Year New York Development Teams hosted a service day event at CYNY offices. Board members cheerfully showed their appreciation for the selfless service of AmeriCorps Members in their schools by creating winter care kits. Let’s congratulate Cathy Paske, a member of the NYCE team, for sharing a thank you letter from her former student for the positive impact she provided last year as an AmeriCorps Member. #ilovecyny #nycenycebaby
Title: Join the City Year New York Civic Engagement Team!
Publish Date: November 30, 2022
Link: https://www.instagram.com/p/ClmHxAvPkNm/
Blurb: Interested in becoming a #RACM? Apply to join the 2023-2024 CYNY Civic Engagement team!
Title: City Year Civic Engagement X Care Force Service Event
Publish Date: October 2, 2022
Link: https://www.instagram.com/p/CjQ8EYkAMmD/
Blurb: A couple weeks ago, along with City Year Philadelphia's Civic Engagement team and Care Force, the NYCE team helped lead 100+ Aramark employees on a community service project to repair and improve Philadelphia's East Poplar Playground with the support of Federation of Neighborhood Centers (FNC) and Philadelphia Parks & Recreation. Despite the unpredictable weather conditions on the service day, we were able to finish all of the projects, which included repairing and repainting murals, playground courts, seating areas, and equipment. Take a look at the video and see our work in action!
Result
Before: Facebook Page Visits and Instagram Profile Visits from Aug 21 to Nov 9.
After: Facebook Page Visits and Instagram Profile Visits from Mar 1 to March 31.
Before: Facebook Page Reach and Instagram Reach from Aug 21 to Nov 9.
After: Facebook Page Reach and Instagram Reach from Mar 1 to March 31.
Increase in Instagram audience from February 2023 to March 2023.
Instagram Business showing the increase in Instagram accounts from February 2023 to March 2023.
We discovered the improvement for City Year New York Instagram account with Meta Business Suite and Instagram Business, respectively. According to Meta, Visit is the number of times your social media page or profile was visited, while reach is the number of unique accounts that saw any of your posts or stories at least once.
The positive results from creating weekly and monthly posts of physical service events, detected by Meta Business Suite and Instagram Business, are:
Increased Facebook Page Visits by 100% and Instagram Profile Visits by 1%.
Boosted Facebook Page Reach by 200% and Instagram Reach by 10.5%.
Expanded the age range of audience from 24-44 to 24-65+.
Skyrocketed Instagram accounts engaged by 69.2%, accounts reached by 16.0%, and total followers by 0.4%.