Campaign Plan Wellness Institute of Greater Buffalo – Social Media & Book: Buffalo Niagara: Diagnosis & Prescription for Change

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Wellness Institute Social Media Plan:

Strategy:

The current goal of the Wellness Institute of Greater Buffalo is to promote and maintain a

healthy community by informing the community of the different positive environmental, social,

human and economic aspects. Through an active social media presence, these goals can be

achieved by raising awareness, enhancing reputation and increased event participation.

Goals:

Reputation/Visibility

o To improve and enhance reputation and visibility of the Wellness Institute of

Greater Buffalo (WIGB).

Relationship

o Create a more active social media presence to help improve the connection with

the Buffalo community. (Increased audience engagement)

Task:

o Utilize social media to promote events and community involvement.

o Utilize social media to inform the Buffalo community on how to live a healthy

lifestyle.

o Utilize social media to increase awareness on local environmental issues.

o Utilize social media to

Tactics:

Facebook: (This is the social media that is the best to reach your specific audience)

Share current and relevant articles about wellness, social, economic and environmental

issues

Share articles from local sources such as: Artvoice, Buffalo Rising, Buffalo News,

WGRZ etc., any media outlet that relates to Buffalo as a whole, and encultures the WIGB

mission. (There’s so many, just follow and interact with different pages on Facebook,

Twitter, Email listings, etc.)

Create pages for every event and promote them through Facebook invitations and shares

Promote local community events such as; local running events, farmer’s markets,

Canalside activities, sports events

Follow and utilize different trends to maintain relevance

Capture and post photos from each WIGB event

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Use giveaways to gather more followers and increase engagement. Example: “Share this

post and tag 3 people for a chance to win fitness classes/water bottles, gift certificates.”

Involve local businesses and restaurants.

Prime times for posting- 8-10 a.m., 5-8 p.m. (Early in the morning before work, and

late after dinner/work)

Keep active in winter- share articles from news/pop culture website sources, promote

Canalside and Ski resorts, In-house exercise strategies, free skates, promote Buffalo

Sabres, healthy diets, “ways to beat winter blues”

Spring/Summer strategies- Take and post pictures at all events, Earth Day posts,

Community environment events, economics, tree planting, urban gardening, new

upcoming restaurants, composting, grocery shopping, start your own neighborhood

cleanup, share from non-profits, entrepreneurship, West Side Bizarre

Proofread and condense statuses, try to attach picture or graphic

Just promote what you’re already doing, you’re doing great work, brag about it in an

objective fashion

Instagram:

Capture high-quality photos at each event and promote Buffalo photos and events

Source photos by “tagging” the original account who posted them

Prime times for posting- 8-10 a.m., 5-8 p.m.

Update weekly, or more if you have important content or an event to promote

Use hashtags such as “#Buffalove”, “WellnessWednesday”, and anything relevant to the

content. Try to limit it to 5 hashtags maximum.

Use location tags when at a notable place

Use giveaways to gather more followers and increase engagement. Example: “Share this

post and tag 3 people for a chance to win fitness classes/water bottles, gift certificates.”

Involve local businesses and restaurants.

Twitter:

Continue to utilize Twitter by tweeting relevant content such as; health and wellness

articles, event information

Retweet important information from accounts such as the National Wellness Institute,

City of Buffalo, Health magazines, NY Times, National news outlets

Post photos for more engaging tweets and utilize hashtags

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Weekly Facebook Calendar:

Monday: Environment, Wellness

Tuesday: Economic

Wednesday: Environment, Social

Thursday: Wellness

Friday: Social, Wellness

Saturday: Social, Wellness

Sunday: Recap Post for Wellness Institute (Schedule in Advance)

Remember, we are living in the social media age, you’re all about spreading your mission and

making Buffalo a better community with an affinity for wellness. Use this medium and the above

tactics effectively and you will be one step closer to that dream.

*The website also NEEDS to be redone, perhaps using a template from Wordpress or Wix. The

current site is quite outdated, has broken or missing links, is too long ascetically, puts too much

emphasis on full press releases as opposed to social media efforts, and is generally just a mess of

words that could easily be compressed. There should be a separate tab for press releases, and

events, a calendar and more. A great site to compare it to is elmwoodvillage.org, the Elmwood

Village Association website which while it has its faults is a step in the right direction. The EVA

is another non-profit.

Social Media Intern:

An excellent way to put these suggestions to use would be to employ a social media intern who’s

responsible for the above.

The perks of having a social media intern is that as far as expenses are concerned, there

wouldn’t be too many as the internship could be an unpaid one. Most internships are unpaid.

Another perk of this is that the intern would be trained on how to effectively use social media

and would be able to use the strategies above. The intern could be paid with college credit. The

following could be a description of the position:

The Wellness Institute of Greater Buffalo, Buffalo’s own initiative towards building a healthier

community, is looking for an intern with strong knowledge and understanding of the digital

media landscape, including various social media websites.

The Wellness Institute of Greater Buffalo is preparing a re-launch of its social media presence

and this position will play an integral role in its success. The intern hired for this position will

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need strong critical thinking skills, good judgment and it wouldn’t hurt if you are extra creative

and have a love for wellness.

Responsibilities

Manage Wellness Institute of Greater Buffalo social media accounts, including:

o Facebook

o Twitter

o Instagram

o and others (possibly YouTube)

Monitor, post and reply on social networks

Website and social media optimization preferred

Keyword analysis preferred – This will grant you excellent SEO experience

Requirements

Must have demonstrable professional or study-based knowledge of the strategic use of

such media to achieve measurable objectives

Students applying for this internship should be Strategic Communication, Marketing,

Public Relations, Communications or Business

Majors

Strategic Communication, Marketing, Business, Public Relations, Communications

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Wellness Institute Book Promotion Plan: Buffalo Niagara: Diagnosis &

Prescription for Change by Lawrence Brooks

Part I: Intro – Identifying the Problem and Setting the Scene

In our meeting with the Wellness Institute to discuss their current efforts to gather more audience

engagement, we also met with Mr. Larry Brooks, the author of Buffalo Niagara: Diagnosis &

Prescription for Change and his publisher Mr. Mark Donnelly, of Rock, Paper, Scissors

Publishing. We discussed at length the new release of the book and how we could garner

audience engagement for the book and the Wellness Institute, due to the book carrying the

message and mission of the institute. The problem facing us however, was the novelty of the

book, only being published for two weeks at the time of our meeting and how to market it. With

that in mind, our team devised several recommendations that we think will rectify those

problems effectively. (We also took into account that spreading the message of the book is more

important than book sales to you. We think these ideas will help both causes, however.)

Part II: Recommendations

1. Send review copies to all the journals and magazines that review similar books. This is

something that most publishers do for you, but there is no harm in sharing lists and helping out.

Buffalo is a decent size market so there should be multiple reviewers that you can contact. If

you have self-published you will certainly have to focus on this. Don’t forget the many online

sites that review books. These reviews are sure to get people interested. People love to read other

people’s opinions.

2. Try to get people to place reviews on Amazon and other websites. Amazon is highly

influential and the reviews matter so encourage anyone who says they enjoyed your book to

place a review. This is one of the first things a buyer will see on an online seller such as Amazon.

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This goes for the publisher’s site as well. This can also be applied as mentioned before to any

sites where reviews are placed.

3. Offer yourself for interview on radio stations (WBFO would be the best choice). Most

radio stations are looking for interesting interviews and the author of a newly published book has

a good chance of getting on air, especially since your book hits home. You need a publicity letter

which says something interesting or controversial about the book and that should be enough to

get you started. If you have the budget, you can target radio and TV programs. (See Budget)

4. Create a web page for the book. Ideally you should have a separate website with an address

that features the book title. Now you can exchange information and reviews that will drive traffic

and cause people to have a conversation. Be sure to show people how they can buy the book

there is no worse way to shoot yourself in the foot if that doesn’t happen. Encourage user

feedback, comments and reviews. People who read books are usually the type of people who talk

about them from one person to another, so every seed you plant is a bonus.

5. Allow people to read small samples of you book. There was a lot of statistics that went into

your book, so determining which samples may be difficult. However, if you can give people that

sample and get them interested they’re sure to buy it. Take a couple of your best chapters and

turn them into pdf files. Let people download them for free. Today this is the same for letting

people browse through your book at a bookstore.

6. Use material from the book in your blog. Start a blog and quote from the book. Lift sections

and acknowledge the book as the source. Build a community of interest around the topics in the

book. Being honest a big chunk of getting people to invest time into your book is you having to

educate the public. There’s a lot of great yet complicated research that you did and while people

will read and appreciate it, they might need help understanding. Blogs are in!

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7. Give away copies to the right people. Use the book as your calling card. Give copies to

potential and existing clients. Encourage them to read it and pass it on. Don’t be afraid to go after

the big shots in Buffalo, Mayor Byron Brown or even Mark Poloncarz. The issues in the book

are effecting them too, and their various initiatives.

8. Offer books as prizes. Local radio shows, magazines or societies will often be interested in

running competitions and will give you valuable publicity if you give them a few books to give

away as prizes. This is crucial especially now a day because people need incentives to actually

do anything.

9. Have a reading, followed by a book signing. Or vice versa. Organize a reading at a local

venue, such as in Rockwell Hall on the SUNY Buffalo State campus. You can do this at multiple

venues for little to no cost, and follow each reading with a Q & A session. People will feel

connected to you, Mr. Brooks, as the author. Make sure to do this when there isn’t something

high volume going on in town, like the Allentown Art Festival.

10. Take part in local events that could be used to promote the book. An ingenious example

we thought of is taking part in the Small Press Book Fair, or similar events in Buffalo. The book

fair for example, is an event in which many local and non-local authors and publishers come

together to display and sell their work. This is important especially in the summer when there are

multiple events weekly that could be used as a means to promote the book and get people in the

know about it and its message. Even if it’s as little as pitching a tent for the book, selling at these

events or simply spreading the message.

11. Utilize the Wellness Institute to its greatest extent. This means handing out samples,

snippets, etc. at Wellness Institute events such as the Wellness Walks. It also couldn’t hurt to

have these pieces handy at the Wellness Institute office, or even copies of the book. This also

means using the Wellness Institute’s social media accounts as a means of promotion.

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12. Don’t ever forget about the power of social media… In addition to the website for the

book, something that other authors have shown grand results with is using social media to

connect with their intended audiences. You can put up snippets and passages of the books, take

polls, answer fans and their questions, compliments, and concerns directly and show up on

people’s timelines, newsfeeds, etc. that you wouldn’t have been able to reach otherwise. You

need a social media presence. This is directed not only at promoting the book through the

Wellness Institute’s social media, but through Mr. Brook’s personal accounts (if you wish), and

the accounts that would ideally be created for the book. When an author interacts with their

audiences, it makes a love for their writing grow deeper. As far as the Wellness Institute goes,

the book could be used on social and wellness posts on the Facebook page for example. At the

very least Facebook and Twitter need to be utilized in order to spread the word, which leads to

our final recommendation.

13. …Or word of mouth. People love to talk, they love to talk about problems in their

community, and in their personal lives. People like to talk about statistics and they like to sound

smart and worldly. Presenting something for them to talk about is exactly would could push the

audience engagement with this book over. Most of the above recommendations will lead to a

diffusion of words which would lead to more book sales. Simply mentioning the book or having

a small group of people visiting local events with flyers/passages relaying the message of the

book would be so beneficial. Get people talking and keep them talking.

Part III: Budget

As you can see, this plan is pretty inexpensive for all intents and purposes. A lot of it is

coordinating with local and online outlets in order to raise exposure to the book. When we met in

person we did discuss making our plan for you more affordable, yet effective. Depending on how

much you are willing to spend, you could always pay to have a radio spot put out regarding the

book, or perhaps an ad in a local print outlet, such as Artvoice or The Public. These are

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expensive, but may be worth the time, effort, and money. With all of that being said, the above

recommendations should be more than enough to at least get a small following started with the

book.

The immediate focus should be on utilizing the budget that you see fit, of course. It is all up to

the discretion of you all as our clients. In our professional opinion however, we do think that

utilizing local paid media could be a great tactic. It’s a way in which many local writers get word

out about their works.

Part IV: Recap

Following these tactics, strategies and recommendations are exactly what the Wellness Institute

of Greater Buffalo and what Mr. Brooks need to increase audience engagement. This is an

entirely feasible feat. The effort simply needs to be put forth to reach that feat. It will take a little

bit of work, and maybe an intern or two, but it is plausible that audience engagement be tripled

for the book and at least doubled for the Wellness Institute. Of course, each can help the other as

well.

We would love to meet again in person, when you have finished going through this plan to

discuss further actions you could take or any additional questions as well as scheduling a six-

month check-up meeting six months from now to see if our recommendations have helped, and

how we can improve our work.