Financy is an advocate for economic gender equality. It produces the Financy Women’s Index (FWI) and provides smart tech solutions to organisations to improve performance on diversity, equity and inclusion. It was founded by Bianca Hartge-Hazelman in 2016 and has since grown with an advisory committee and several corporate sponsors. PritchittBland Communications initially partnered with Financy in 2019 to provide pro-bono support distributing media information during the publication of each quarterly FWI report.

In October 2022, we met with Bianca to discuss further pro-bono support. Her main pain point was managing the four Financy social media pages – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. With a number of other initiatives taking off in addition to the Financy Women’s Index, she had limited time to create content and manage these pages effectively. Bianca also found it difficult to separate her own individual brand from the Financy brand. She was aware that it would become more difficult to separate the two brands at a later stage and wanted to set the path for Financy to grow its own presence and brand voice.

Our solution was to take over the management of Financy’sfour social media pages, which included planning, content creation, publishingof posts and measuring performance.

 Before diving into publishing posts on each channel, wefirst conducted a social media audit of each page as well as a competitoranalysis to understand the current situation and pinpoint any areas forimprovement.

Once the audit was completed, we developed a tailoredstrategy based on the audit results as well as a social media calendar.

All of the social media strategies implemented were organicstrategies, meaning the strategy didn’t implement any paid activities.

Some of the changes that were made included:

Twitter

Tweets had been constructed in such a way that they soundedlike they were coming from an individual as opposed to a brand or company. Wetook over the content creation and publishing of social media posts, and changedthe tone and style of tweets to fit that of a company’s Twitter account asopposed to an individual’s. In addition we changed the profile image fromBianca’s photo to the Financy logo to start the separation of the two brands.

Instagram

‍Many posts had been published without tagging the people or companies featured in the post. For example, video snippets from the EqualizHer podcast featured guests with Instagram accounts that had followers in the hundreds of thousands. By not tagging those accounts, Financy was not expanding its potential reach on the platform.

One of the strategic changes implemented was therefore to start tagging accounts, where appropriate. By doing so, we increased the reach of posts to a greater audience, and therefore the brand itself. Tagging was also used to increase engagement of Financy’s posts, as it would increase the likelihood of evoking a reaction from those individuals or companies tagged.

Facebook

Even though Facebook had the most followers, these followers were the least engaged compared to the other channels. Our audit showed that the content with the most engagement was thought-leadership content, blog content and events. In our social media calendar, we therefore regularly include these types of posts in the schedule and have eliminated other types of posts that were underperforming.

LinkedIn

‍LinkedIn had the least number of followers, and was not as actively managed as the other channels. This channel was identified as the one needing the most improvement.

To boost the number of followers, we implemented a social media ambassador program at Financy, recruiting employees to share and interact with posts to this group. Each time a new post was published they would receive a notification in LinkedIn. By having employees interact with these posts, their network became exposed to the Financy brand.

Another change made to LinkedIn was tagging. Like Instagram, posts about other individuals or companies were published without tagging. By implementing this change, those tagged were notified, increasing the likelihood that those individuals, their networks and employers, would interact with Financy’s posts.

Across the board, there has been improvement across all four platforms since the implementation of the new strategy. In addition, the separation of Bianca’s brand from the Financy brand was successful and has allowed Bianca to concentrate on her own social media presence and devote her energy is growing the other areas of the Financy business.

In our analysis, the first factor monitored was the number of followers. LinkedIn achieved the most growth with a 32 per cent increase in the number of followers, then Instagram at 6 per cent. LinkedIn also had the fastest rate of follower growth compared with the previous period, at 81 per cent, followed by Facebook at 14.3 per cent. Twitter and Instagram maintained the same growth rate.

Reach and impressions were the second factor monitored. On Facebook reach increased by 13 per cent, on Instagram by 106.9 per cent, Twitter by 176 per cent and on LinkedIn by 192 per cent. Instagram also achieved a record number for one post’s reach at 2,411.

Twitter’s engagement over the period increased by 310 per cent, and retweets by 207 per cent. The click-through rate also saw improvement, reaching 700 per cent. LinkedIn also showed great progress. Reactions to posts increased by 507 per cent, comments by 250 per cent and reposts by 1,550 per cent. Instagram achieved a steady monthly increase of engagement at 8 per cent. Facebook also saw an uptake of profile visits of 31.8 per cent, and an improvement in the number of reactions to posts at 144 per cent.