Objectives

Morgan Memorial Goodwill Industries (MMGI), the Massachusetts chapter of Goodwill, is a non-profit organization that offers career services to individuals with barriers to employment. MMGI worked with PRLab to increase social media engagement to help drive store traffic during the fall and holiday 2016 seasons. As background, Goodwill competes with not only other thrift stores, but larger retailers that sell pre-packaged Halloween and holiday season accessories and decorations. Due to the audience demographics near the stores, the PRLab team and MMGI decided to focus on social media engagement as the primary communication focus.

Objectives: PRLab aimed to increase Goodwill's user engagement on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram by 50 percent. This was essential to establish a stronger connection to the audience to help spur in-store visits. PRLab also aimed to increase Goodwill's social media followers by five percent.

Strategy and Execution

After an audit of MMGI's social media channels, PRLab noted it had a good frequency and volume, but no engagement. Therefore, the team did some broader research and realized the popularity of do-it-yourself (DIY) projects and visual content on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter drive higher levels of engagement. As a result, the PRLab team developed videos, infographics, and boomerang gifs around "DIY at Goodwill" to increase online engagement and sharing. Program development steps included:

• Visiting a local Goodwill location to photograph team members in different costumes. The team shared these costume ideas on Goodwill's social accounts using the #DIYatGoodwill and encouraged followers to share their own ideas with the hashtag.
• Developing a boomerang and infographic costume guide to foster shares and to reach new audiences.
• Monitoring Halloween interactions closely to analyze what content helped drive engagement. The team found that boomerangs received the most interactions, increasing engagement on Facebook by 11% in October.
• Focusing on video creation for the remaining holidays based on the success of our boomerangs and popularity of videos on Facebook.
• Developing eight DIY videos, featuring gift ideas and holiday decorations. This included brainstorming DIY projects, creating storyboards for each video, shooting and editing. All items in the videos came from a Goodwill location (excluding candy, paint, brushes and glue). We released the videos on all three social platforms proceeding each holiday, giving ample time for viewers to recreate the items before the holiday. The videos included:
  • hostess basket for Thanksgiving
  • hostess basket for Christmas
  • countdown to Christmas calendar
  • winter candle holders
  • movie lover basket
  • mason jar Christmas tree
  • "Ugly" Hanukkah sweater, and
  • New Year's Eve date night basket.
• Creating an infographic gift guide for him, her, and kids with items available at Goodwill.
• Using the hashtag #DIYatGoodwill to promote the videos and infographic.

Results

PRLab was successful in meeting the objectives and rebranding Goodwill as a DIY destination. The series of eight #DIYatGoodwill video tutorials for holiday gifts posted on social media received, on average, the following engagement:

• Reached approximately 7,000 people on Facebook.
• 748 impressions, 37 engagements and 10.9% engagement on Twitter.
• 188 views and 40 likes on Instagram.

Overall, the campaign impacted Goodwill's social media platforms in the following ways:

• Facebook
  • 20.5% increase in followers.
  • 11% and 95% engagement increase in October and November, respectively.
• Twitter
  • 152% increase in followers.
  • 177.8% increase in mentions during November.
• Instagram
  • 189.7% increase in followers.
  • Maintained engagement and average number of likes per post.

To increase sales and contribute to Goodwill's mission, PRLab raised awareness of Goodwill as a simple and inexpensive alternative to hectic holiday shopping at department stores. The social content allowed people to see how easy it was to put together a costume or a gift, and gave them an incentive to try it themselves. This encouraged followers to increase online interactions with Goodwill's social media and helped rebrand Goodwill as a DIY destination, not just a thrift store. By increasing the presence, engagement and follower base on social media, the team was able to reach a larger audience and raise awareness of Goodwill's mission.https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/diyatgoodwill?source=feed_text

Media