THE S.W.O.T. ANALYSIS OF 

Threats

Opportunities

Weaknesses

Strengths

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STypically a start up nonprofit will reach anywhere from 100-300likes and followers on social media platforms within the first fewmonths. The Local Love platforms have reached 488 likes onFacebook, 53 followers on Twitter, and 124 followers on Instagram.Content utilize photo content which increases post likes.

Engagement and discussion is lacking on all four platforms.Most of the current engagement is done by sharing andliking, but not discussion. When you look at the pages as anover all, there in no recognizable voice. The posts themselvesseem very desperate in encouraging engagement.

Focus on a movement that everyone is encouraged to join. TheFacebook page should be turned into a cause page, because it is afor cause rather than a business. Opportunities to share stories ofnonprofits that are partnering with Local Love to focus onhonoring these nonprofits to show the community that it isdifferent from other foundations by honoring rather than funding.

Seattle Community Foundation. They have a similar structureof working with different nonprofits to support thosecommunities through financial and local communityengagement. Other threats are the Thomas C. WalesFoundation, and Philanthropy Northwest for Seattle.

The next few pages will go deeper into the analysis of SWOT Local Love.

Research Findings

Currently Toms' Facebook page speaks in the companies brand. With a mix of fashionand globalgiving, the social media siteshave a very indie/hipster vibe with aphilanthropic twist. The first thing you seewhen you click on their page is the coverphoto that gives viewers a happy, lovingwarm feeling. This is vital to a successfulpage.

To the left are three examples of Toms' style posts. They range from support,fashion, and "fluff". The first post (support for Brussels) doesn't include theBelgium community but rather their "go-to" communities (Argentina, Africa, orHaiti) when discussing support. This is a way the company ties in theirfoundation and mission into a dark trend in media. Not only did they show theirsupport for the attacks but they showed their support through their mission. Itwas a two in one post that was well thought out but not noticeable on itscalculation.

The second strategy that Toms uses is it's fashion oriented posts. The posts aresteared towards advertising new products whilst promoting their "One for One"

mission. The current customers following Toms typically show higherengagement with posts that include new products because that is what theycame to see on their social media sites. Despite its advertisement, Tomsincorporates some form of philanthropy in its posts by explaining how theproducts were made or where the "One for One" product will be donated.

A third type of content that Toms posts is "fluff". It's the cute sharable poststhat delight the viewers to feel emotionally related to the brand in humor orinspiration. Since Toms target demographic of socially conscious fashionistas, theircontent is too, the "fluff" content is more cute or unrelated to the brand. Theexample to the left is a kid trying to ride a skateboard and falling, in Toms clothing.Key Takeaway: Try different styles of post to test which works best for Local Love.

Toms has the advantage of branding its whole company as a "One forOne". Their social media strategies started by targeting consumers'

emotions by posting about the need for shoes. Their current contentdrives awareness on the fashion aspect of products as well pitchingthe companies donation mission. Posts tend to be once a day from12:00pm-3:00pm PT.

Research FindingsLinkedIn began a program called InDay to help create a healthy individualand community. Employees take the day off each month to focus onthemselves, and take time to volunteer for any given nonprofit. Once a year,LinkedIn would bring together the entire company employees to have onesolid good LinkedIn InDay. Think of it as Earth Day but with an entirecompany dedicating their hours to community service in whatever field ofnonprofit or foundation they feel is suitable to their own personal motivationand inspiration. A speaker series that inspires workers to progress towardsgreatness within themselves and the community is also part of the InDay.

When it came to social media, LinkedIn used its main social media channels to bring awareness tothe program for only a few months. On their current platforms, they published regular blogs on thematter and encourage their partners and employees to post on their personal pages.

Within social media, companies can use different social media accounts to voice different projects,LinkedIn only uses its main social media channels to promote projects. The examples above aregiven from the Twitter page (left and right) and Blog (middle).Across these platforms, companies can use different hashtags (#'s) to help promote key messagesand help trend the topic they are trying to promote. Examples of hashtags LinkedIn used from theInDay blogs were #WednesdayWisdom to quote their guest speakers on events they would hold or#closerthanyouthink to promote engagement and inspiration to anyone who uses LinkedIn and torecruit people to join the program. With InDay only being published on the main platforms, it's able to reach a large audience and getmore view and a broader outreach. However the engagement on just InDay from the community islow because it seems irrelevant to the main focus of LinkedIns' content which is more along the linesof self growth and promoting. InDay not having its own social media sites constrains flexibility in whatthey can and cannot post. Its outreach is large and content is clean, crisp, and within the lines of LinkedIns voice, which makestheir solo main media platforms work. If LinkedIn Day grows it would be interesting to see how theyvoice those social media platforms compared to their professional company sites.

Key Takeaway: Use hashtags to help drive awareness and engagement.

Research FindingsTexas Instruments has a long history of community involvementparticularly focusing on improving education, science, technology,engineering and math (STEM) education for girls and underrepresentedminorities. Texas Instruments social media sites don't define a specificmovement. Although Texas Instruments focuses on community work theyshowcase their inventions more on Facebook and Twitter.

Texas Instruments Instagram is very successful inmixing its community service projects and newinnovation content. Like Toms and LinkedInTexas Instruments uses its main social mediaplatforms to showcase their services both to thecommunity as well as their customers.They use their social media to engage keystakeholders, including employees, potentialrecruits, customers, educators, communityleaders, investors, neighbors and electedofficials. But have recently started partneringwith organizations such as United Way to helpmake community events more successful. Theirmost effective and relatable way they posthowever is using "Day Celebrations". Forexample the two posts below #DrSeussDay(right) and #VeteransDay (left) are two ways theyincorporated national days to their social mediawhich is a cute and effective way to post and doservant leadership/service.

Key Takeaway: Engage partners in social media posts by tagging them in the posts.

Research FindingsIBM launched a campaign called "Celebration of Services" which asked theglobal population to go out and volunteer at whatever field of nonprofit theyplease. IBM had a great website, however they did not invest in their socialmedia which did not give the campaign an effective reach. With four postsand 108 likes the page had little to no impact.

Their outreach strategy from new media was done through website story sharing. By targeting thereaders emotions they were able to get more volunteers to partake in their events and volunteer ontheir own.

Their Facebook page gave little to no information on what the voice, company, and missionstatement was. There was no capturing cover or profile photo, let alone a profile picture that fit withinthe parameters.

However, what they lacked in social media, theyup for on their website. Their website stated theirmission for global effort on world change,followed by statistics on global impact, andended the page with links to "Join The GlobalCelebration of Service".

Other tabs included "Stories of Service" withseveral different inspiring tales of past projects,available resources for volunteers and differentareas that they can help to volunteer, and lasttheir "Grant Winners" tab which gave threedifferent grant options: Cenntennial, Catalyst,and Community Grants.

Key Takeaway: Effective voice in social media posts are vital to the platforms andbrand of Local Love.

Research FindingsIt's difficult to find companies that didn't do well when testing the waters ofphilanthropy. Large companies have a team of experts to make sure thattheir image as well as mission stays positive. Every step is calculated andchecked over. The next two examples are great social media strategies withsmall mistakes that Local Love can avoid. Google.org first focuses on its local communities by supporting nonprofits"in their efforts to tackle society’s greatest challenges and make ourcommunities stronger."

A good example of a hashtag/awareness campaigncould be to do an awareness week. To the right is anexample of googles #SocialGoodWeek kickoff tweet.This is something that Local Love can possibly dolater down the road if interested.

Key Takeaway: Limit retweeting

Google.org has 38.9K followers and decent engagement.Their Twitter page has all the necessary components of astrong for cause page. Content topics include: donatingitems that branch from tech to money, sharing the storiesof the individual communities they help, and retweetingthe "@" posts to share engagement and the passionatesupport that they receive from their followers andpartners.

In general, followers are looking for originalcontent.Retweeting a few posts (max 5 in a row) is a greatstrategy because it encourages other followers toengage if they see that other people are starting adiscussion, but when there are more retweets thanoriginal tweets, it's a bit of a slacking effort on@google.orgs half. There's a chance of losing followersfrom all the retweeting because followers are there topartake in the organizations content, not third partytweets.

Research FindingsHome Depot launched a project called "Team Depot" which is a volunteerorganization to help support local communities achieve in renovating thehomes of U.S. military veterans and their families. This of course is just one project of the Home Depot Foundation, which hasseveral partnerships with nonprofit organizations, donating millions of hours,tools and supplies each year to community service projects across theUnited States.

Left bottom is an example of a post that Local Lovecould consider posting. It shows a volunteer but themanual labor behind it shows the emotional andphysical struggle behind volunteering which appealsto societies who care for volunteering.

Key Takeaway: A successful page can have a defined,rich, voice and message but stay clear of systematiccommunication.

Team Depot has established a foundation andconsistently communicated their mission in its posts.Since Team Depot has been so narrow on their content,their posts have been repetitive in the message they aretrying to get across.

Typical posts include worker selfies, volunteering, andteam photos. They have a single mission to help buildcommunities and homes, but could utilize storytelling intheir posts of U.S. veterans and how Team Depot cameacross the story. Project status vs impact story content.

Not only is the Instagram repetitive in its content, but thesame content is posted on all platforms. There is nodifference between the Facebook, Twitter, or Instagramdue to the fact that everything is the same.

This platform cross can make followers only want tofollow your organization on one social media site.

Try different styles of post to test which works best for Local Love

Use hashtags to help drive awareness and engagement.

Engage partners in social media posts by tagging them in the posts.

Effective voice in social media posts are vital to the platforms and brand of Local Love.

Limit retweeting

A successful page can have a defined, rich, voice and message but stay clear of systematic

communication.

What can Local Love learnfrom these companies?

Compelling content is key to recruiting volunteers through social media.

Sharing content that encourages them to act.

Use photos and videos to engage your audience.

Inspirational content. Get your audience thinking about what they can do to help.

Asking a question to spark a discussion.

Humor or sadness triggering content (depends on subject)

Sharing in-depth stories of the nonprofits

How to increase volunteer through social media

Local Threats?Thomas C. Wales Foundations mission is to inspire civic engagementwithin the Seattle community. They are a threat because of thesimilarity of civic engagement that Local Love is encouraging withinthe Seattle community.

What makes Local Love differ from T.C.W.F.?

Local Love is not only in Seattle, but at a national level. The kickoffevent took place in Tempe, AZ, the second in Everett, and theupcoming one in Detroit. Local Love is national in its reach whereasthe Thomas C. Wales Foundation is only Seattle based.

Local Love is also an Amazon project which benefits in any assistanceif need be.

Philanthropy NorthWest is a network built up in Alaska, Idaho,Montana, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming. They promote, facilitateand drive collaborative action by community engagement.Like the Thomas C. Wales Foundation, Philanthropy NorthWestrecruits from the local community. They are a threat not only becauseof their similar mission, but also because they are regional in theirefforts of community service.

However, Local Love is more broad on its reach as well as has astronger brand compared to the two foundations. Local Love as aname itself has more meaning behind it than the examples provided,which gives it an upper hand.