CASE STUDY

How we increased niche – followers for a volunteer organization by over 1370% in less than 6 months organically.

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

HHN is a non-profit organization committed to helping the heroes among us cope with and recover from emotional trauma. The organization is dedicated to connecting veterans, LEO’s, first responders, and families with local communities and helping them heal by giving them hope and purpose. The organization also provides podcast and radio programming services that address matters relevant to these groups.

To best suit our campaign’s purpose, Viral Content Lab chose Facebook as a primary social media platform. We made this choice because it provides the best access to our targeted audience and will help us find our demographic. Facebook is also a good fit for this campaign because it allows us to post long podcast videos as opposed to Instagram, which only permits videos two minutes in length or shorter.

CHALLENGES

Before setting our goals, our agency came up against some challenges. For example, the platform had poor engagement rates before starting a social media marketing campaign. The content being posted was unremarkable and did not stand out in the feed.

We also found that the pages were poorly optimized, with no content strategy in place. Emoji, link shorteners, and hashtags were often not used correctly. We also found it challenging to discover the target audience and engage them with relevant content.

GOALS

1. Our primary goal focused on our client’s mission to be an excellent resource for veterans struggling with PTSD.

2. Grow page followers (micro-targeted) and improve page engagement rate by posting high-quality content.

3. To make our client’s programs more well-known nationally.

Total Followers Gained

1000

Podcast Minutes Viewed

4,300

Average Content Reach

500

Peak Content reach (6 m.o)

8,683

The RESULTS

Viral Content Lab experienced some inspiring results.

1. In less than six months, we had increased the niche-specific page followers from 73 to 1073 (plot #1).

2. We also experienced an improvement in monthly daily page reach (average) of approximately 500 and peak content reach of 8,683 (plot# 2). Our team achieved this by posting user-generated content on selected days, which resulted in an exceptionally high reach due to organic shares and likes.

3. We improved our average daily engagement rate to ~90 (plot #3). Due to Covid-19 impacted campaigns, we saw a lower engagement rate mid-June to mid-July.

4. Our client was impressed with how we increased podcast listens by 412% (plot #5) with 4.2K minutes listened (plot #5) with an estimated reach of 1.1k. Our agency got these results achieved organically – without running any paid ads or boosts.

How we did it: Strategies Implemented

Viral Content Lab employed several calculated techniques to achieve these results We carried out strategic content marketing by creating visually appealing graphics and well written social media posts.

Our team dedicated their efforts to optimizing content based on audience engagement. We created and posted engaging content that is very niche-specific. Most of the content we posted was patriotic, thought-provoking, energetic, and centered on mental health and well-being.

We posted content at specific times for optimal results. By developing a better understanding of the target audience’s demographics, we were able to create content to meet their needs and encourage more engagement. For instance, we discovered that women between the age group of 55-64 (plot#) were the driving force behind our page engagement rate. Our team fine-tuned our content creation and marketing strategy by keeping this segment in mind.

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Strategic Content Marketing

We carried out a well-thought content marketing strategy. We focused on posting content that resonates most strongly with the audience of interest.

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Diversified Content Calendar

We also tested out different content types during the first month of the campaign and increased the frequency of specific content pieces with the highest engagement rate.

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A/B Split Testing Artwork

We also split-tested different social media designs to learn more about what graphics were performing best among page followers. We determined that the graphics with high contrast colors performed the best.

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Understanding Follower Demographics

To achieve successful results from any content marketing campaign, it’s very crucial to understand the audience demographics. After studying the client’s Facebook page analytics, we focused on creating content that best meets the taste of core audience group.