I was hired by Crosby Marketing in January of 2020 to work exclusively on contract as a Social Media Manager for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Two months later, COVID-19 had completely swept the globe and the world was at a standstill. So how does a national health agency educate the public about a novel coronavirus while educating them on how to protect themselves during one of the most volatile political climates in U.S. history?
Surprisingly, through social media.
Where I come in.
What did I do?
I managed the month-over-month content production for all HHS social media channels. This started with a yearly editorial calendar encompassing all observances for each month which we would then take and decide what needed to be prioritized for content production, and what we could relegate to amplification. I then created a content plan proposal, creative brief, managed the content creation lifecycle that included two copywriters (myself included) and two designers, ushered the content through two rounds of review with the client, and then oversaw it’s publication.
How did you know what to make?
An extensive amount of research went into every proposal, tweet, and comment reply. We couldn’t just tell people to walk outside more to improve their mental health, we had to attach it to an actual study that showed why that was true and important. We published roughly two pieces of organic content to each platform every day and oversaw all community management, so you can imagine the amount of reading we did to support our client.
What did success look like?
Success for us, outside of the observable changes our audience made in behaviors because of our work, came in three parts:
An 800% increase in average engagements per post year-over-year across all platforms
+1 billion impressions and engagements across paid social ads
Four awards from several notable institutions in acknowledgement of the effectiveness of our campaigns
