EWB Final Paper 1

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Berdej, Bookman, Breiner & Jackson 1 Alexandra Berdej, Donald Bookman, Emily Breiner & FErin Jackson Dr. Michael Gallahger Business Capstone MG4000 14 December 2021 Engineers Without Borders This report will go into detail about our experience of working with the Lehigh Valley Professional Chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWBLYV). It will cover the goals, objectives and expectations that were established during the first meeting. This will include the requests and concerns brought to light by the chair members of Engineers Without Borders. Furthermore, the report will discuss the extensive research that went into the project and the insight that was gained from conducting it. Once the plan of action is outlined, the report will highlight the project details, which will include all of the tasks that were completed along the way. The results of the project will be talked about and reflected on. At the end of the report, there will be a section dedicated to looking back at the overall Business Capstone experience. This will be followed by a brief summary and conclusion of the report. Engineers Without Borders is a non profit organization that has a group of highly skilled volunteers that work on engineering projects throughout the world. These projects improve the lives of those living in impoverished communities in various ways. It was such a pleasure to be able to meet and work with these amazing people. The first meeting was on Monday, August 30, 2021. Our group met with Julie Zielinski, the Fundraising Chair of the Lehigh Professional Chapter. During the meeting, Julie mentioned that Engineers Without Borders usually runs an auction, which is a huge fundraising event for the organization. Originally, our Capstone project was going to be centered around promoting and helping with the auction, however there was a

Berdej, Bookman, Breiner & Jackson 2 change of plans. The pandemic forced the organization to move the auction online, which limited the amount of assistance needed. After exploring a few different options, we decided to focus on improving the organization’s social media presence. In addition to gaining followers and getting more interaction, Julie expressed that she would like their social media pages to reach a younger demographic, because most of their volunteers and donors are on the older side. Julie also wanted her chapter to stand out from the other Engineers Without Borders pages. This was quickly followed by Julie mentioning that there are very strict logo guidelines, which were implemented by the corporate branch of Engineers Without Borders USA. Julie also made it known that she was the one primarily operating the chapter’s social media accounts, so all of the improvements had to be manageable for one person. Once we knew which direction the project was heading in, we created a plan and started doing research. Hopes for Initial Research Prior to conducting research, our group already had a basic understanding about how social media and marketing works. The focus of our research was to find ways to maximize the success of EWBLV’s social media pages, so we planned to take a look at various sources. We wanted to learn about how an active social media presence can increase fundraising, nonprofits donations and volunteer turnout. Since our main goal was to increase engagement and exposure, we hoped to learn about the algorithms of different social media apps so we had an idea of what works and what does not. Also, we needed to conduct research about the most beneficial type of posting schedule, so we could make a calendar for Julie to follow. In order to be prepared to start the project, we gathered information about social media analytics. This allowed us to gain knowledge and understand the data we pulled from social media.

Berdej, Bookman, Breiner & Jackson 3 Summary of Literature Our capstone project predominantly dealt with social media and data analytics. After doing research, our review of literature had a total of nine sources, which included scholarly sources and some blogs. Three blog sources went into detail about creating an effective posting calendar, and navigating Instagrams and Facebook's algorithm for the best results. Three scholarly sources talked about the connection between a social media presence, and the turnout of fundraising, donations and volunteers. One scholarly source touched on how consumer engagement on social media sites influences the posts, and advertisements they see on those sites. Lastly, there were two sources on intelligence research, social media analytics and why they are important. What We Learned Once our research was completed we learned a great deal of information about social media and analytics. From our initial research, it was made clear that social media does have an impact on a nonprofit's donation and volunteers (Harris, Neely, Saxton 2019). We learned that social media is a major tool for fundraising and can be used to market to more potential donors (McDonnell, Bhati 2019). As well as how to successfully advertise fundraising events across multiple social media platforms (Seungahn 2013). From this, we moved on to learn how Instagram and Facebook’s algorithm works for both businesses and personal accounts, and how to gain maximum growth using it (Thomas 2021)(Cooper 2021). Julie expressed interest in a calendar of some sort to help her with posting so we found a source explaining what a posting calendar is, why to use it and how to create one (Cooper 2021). To be able to pull data and track improvement, we researched social media analytics and learned why it is important for an online presence. These sources allowed us to think more financially about our project. It made us

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Berdej, Bookman, Breiner & Jackson 4 realize the small things. Pinpointing certain data factors allowed us to rationalize ideas to improve it and knowing what the data means speeds that process tenfold. Overall, we learned that it is the most basic foundation for enabling enterprises to enhance social collaboration to maximize the customer experience. From all of the information we learned from researching, we are able to successfully utilize it in our Capstone project. How we implemented our learned knowledge Once we digested all the information from our research, we were ready to start implementing what we learned. From learning that social media is a major tool for fundraising and has an impact on volunteers, we were able to bring that awareness to Julie so she knows how important having an online presence is. Julie expressed needing tips about successfully advertising the chapters auctions, we were able to help her with this from our research. Also, after learning how to gain maximum growth using the different social media algorithms, we delegated that information to Julie, in hopes she will implement it on the social media accounts.. Before making any changes, we reviewed the current social media analytics the chapter had. From that, along with our new knowledge on the algorithms, we were able to create a posting schedule and calendar. Also, we created a framework of content for Julie to follow. The framework will help increase the chapters engagement on their social media accounts because it is structured in a way that encourages different types of responses under the posts. Prior to completing this project, Donald had experience in data analytics, but it is important to note that social media analytics is a different beast. The analytical sources gave more information for what exactly Donald could do with analytics from the social media outlets. The sources allowed him to detect demographics, click through rate intervals, likes and dislikes. In addition to many other functions, Donald was able to detect whether someone looked at a post without interacting with

Berdej, Bookman, Breiner & Jackson 5 it at all. So many conclusions could be drawn from this kind of data alone and it is important to completely understand the extent and capability of it. This information can drastically change the presence an organization has on the internet. Project Details and Results Due to the evolving status of coronavirus, the traditional Capstone experience did not apply to our work with the Lehigh Valley Professional Chapter of Engineers Without Borders. Unfortunately, we did not have the pleasure of assisting with a physical event, but our experience was fulfilling and allowed us to learn a lot. For this project, more research and procedural steps had to be taken to achieve the desired end goal. As mentioned earlier in the paper, we hoped to draw a significant amount of traffic to EWBLV’s upcoming virtual auction by finding a more efficient way to manage all social media accounts under one universal scheduling system. We also created mock posts and mock stories to exemplify the full extent of social media capabilities to broaden viewer range. Furthermore, we remodel the logo of EWBLYV to make them stick out from the rest of the chapters. Prior to working on the new logo, Julie sent us the logo guidelines to ensure that the chapter would not be fined for using an unapproved logo. The research we conducted allowed us to create not only a posting schedule, but an automated process to pull images from the EWBLYV photo gallery and have them prepped and fitted for any social media outlet it wants to be reproduced in. This project is a lot more technical than the others, which required us to delegate these goals we wanted to accomplish. If the group as a whole worked on one goal at a time, we would not have gotten to the finals results we have come to today. Now, when we start to speak about the procedures we took to reach our end goal, much of it required being creative, which allowed each member to express their own sense of creativity in their work.

Berdej, Bookman, Breiner & Jackson 6 In the very beginning, we as a group including Julie, thought it would be a good idea to give Lehigh Valley Professional Chapter of Engineers Without Borders a good remodelling. This included a implementing an updated logo that was not as generic and updating bios and links to make them more cultivating and fluid to access. As an accessory to this, we were able to utilize data analytics to find more on exactly what could be done better and what areas need the most work. The analytics of social media sites inform the owner about every aspect that a social page has to offer. How many interactions are there in regards to links and posts? What demographic contributes the highest interaction and ctr (click-through rate)? What kinds post are liked more than others? There are so many questions that can be answered using the analytics of a website, which is why we used it a one of our greatest tools throughout the entire project. Next in our procedural steps, we discovered that not only were the logo, bio, and links were mildly outdated, but so were the posts. This is when our project sort of veered into a direction with a new focus. We continued to work on the logo, bio, and links, but none of that matters if the people we are trying to attract were not going to be interested by the posts they see. The posts do not need to be entertaining, but they have to be able to make a person feel some type of emotion, because that is the entire purpose of corporate social media. Knowing this, we took the angle of creating inspirational posts and mixed in some entertainment. Instead of posting single photos without much context, we wanted to implement story lines to give people the full story behind the photos. This would allow EWBLYV to focus less on the photo itself and more on the experiences. For example, Julie could post a picture of a hole being dug into the ground. Without a caption, the hole means nothing and so only Julie would know the full meaning. Storylines thread a series of photos together into one big cohesive story, that takes viewers through the photos chronologically. Now, Julie can post the picture of the hole with an in depth caption and the next

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Berdej, Bookman, Breiner & Jackson 7 day she can continue the story with a picture or video of that same whole being filled. Julie can keep adding onto this storyline until there is a video depicting the big functioning well. Stories are meant to show progression and promote organization. At the same time, it keeps Julie from having to make individual posts everyday, which would decrease the amount of clutter and the amount of posts that are meaningless without context. Towards the latter part of our procedural steps, what we were trying to accomplish becomes a lot more technical. Earlier it was stated we utilized social media analytics to help us target our biggest needs. Here we use data analytics again, but in a more in an A.I sense. One of the amazing things about artificial intelligence is its automation capabilities. For organizations like Lehigh Valley Professional Chapter of Engineers Without Borders, it is very hard to control every social media platform and be consistent with posting throughout each of them. Due to the time constraint, we were not able to complete everything we had hoped to accomplish, but we did give Julie the tools. Our idea was to create a generic posting schedule including each of EWBLYV’s social media outlets and have universal posts that if uploaded on one platform, it will be uploaded on all others too. RPA, otherwise known as robotic process automation, has the power and capability to be able to identify images, select these images, and post these images according to a schedule. The post can be stories, vidoes, actual profile posting they can be whatever the author desires. It can include captions or we can even program it to generate its own unique captions per post. This RPA model would complete all of the procedural on its own, after it is trained to do so. Having a RPA model for social media postings, would solve Julie’s content issues, such as scheduling, content storage and uploading, and frequency of uploads. Unfortunately, we did not have adequate time to complete a full RPA solution for Julie, but we

Berdej, Bookman, Breiner & Jackson 8 saved everything, so hopefully the next Capstone group that works with EWBLYV can pick up where we left off. During the past fifteen weeks, we completed a lot, such as designing the logo, creating mock posts, implementing a posting schedule and so much more. When we take a step back to evaluate our results as a group, we believe we excelled in delivering exactly what Julie wanted, but time constricted us from fully implementing the changes we came up with. Although we are not able to see what the final RPA solution will be capable of at the end, we were able to see improvements in viewer interaction and new followers in the little time we had working with Julie. As EWBLVSs’ auction is closely approaching and posting frequency is increasing, Julie implements our points and advice into the posts. Thanks to data analytics we are able to track the changes and compare them over time. In doing so, we saw a great difference in the levels of interactions they were gaining compared to previous auctions, which was one of our goals for this project. In the beginning of the project, we recognized that we would not be able to see the end results of the transformation, because it is a work in progress. From here on out, Julie will implement the ideas and tools that we gave her, which will continue the transformation of the social media outlets for Lehigh Valley Professional Chapter of Engineers Without Borders. As a group, we believe that we reached our goal. Julie listened and trusted our judgment, then utilized our suggestions to improve their interactions. There was an increase in followers and interactions, without even implementing the RPA solution, so once that happens, we believe Julie will be impressed and happy with the results. The Capstone Experience When working with EWBLYV there were many goals that we wanted to initially accomplish. As a team, we wanted to increase the amount of followers that EWBLYV has on their

Berdej, Bookman, Breiner & Jackson 9 social media pages and the amount of people going to their website. Similarly, we hoped to see an increase in fundraising and volunteer turnout. We also wanted the follower base to reach a lower age demographic. While working with Julie and her team, we researched ways that would grow their social media presence and reach our goals. Throughout the semester we learned what it means to work with a non profit organization like EWBLYV. It was a rewarding experience to be able to help them with the different aspects of social media. It gave us the opportunity to gain real world experience, while still in the classroom. Working with EWBLYV allowed us to learn more about social media, the analytics behind it and how that all works with nonprofits. We were also able to learn that implementing changes and trying to grow social media pages takes time. The change is not something that can happen overnight, which means that we will not see the end results of what we did with EWBLYV. Hopefully next semester's group will pick up where we left off and learn from what we started. Conclusion In conclusion, to help EWBLYV with their social media we started with researching what needed to be done and effective ways to do it. We then worked with Julie and tried to find ways to implement our research. From there created mock posts and logos, new bios, link trees, a calendar to help Julie with posting, ran the data analytics and so much more to help grow EWBLV’s social media. All of this was done through the use of our research and prior knowledge. In the end we were able to give Julie the tools that will set her up for success and help her in keeping different social media pages active and growing. We would like to thank Julie and her team for allowing us to work with them this semester and giving us the opportunity to help them improve their social media.

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Berdej, Bookman, Breiner & Jackson 10 Works Cited Feigenbaum, Carol. “What Is Social Media Analytics & Why Is It Important?” NetBase Quid, 10 Nov. 2021, https://netbasequid.com/blog/what-is-social-media-analytics-why-is-it- important/. Abhishek, Bhati, and Diarmuid McDonnell. “Success in an Online Giving Day: The Role of Social Media in Fundraising - Abhishek Bhati, Diarmuid McDonnell, 2020.” SAGE Journals, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0899764019868849. Harris, Erica, et al. “Social Media, Signaling, and Donations: Testing the Financial Returns on Nonprofits' Social Media Investment.” SSRN, 24 Apr. 2019, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3360173. Cooper, Paige. “How the Facebook Algorithm Works in 2021 and How to Make it Work for you.” Hootsuite, 23 Feb. 2021, https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-algorithm/#4_Facebook_algorithm_ranking signals_t o_consider. Cooper, Paige, and Shannon Tien. “How to Create a Social Media Calendar: Tips and Templates.” Hootsuite, 1 June 2021, https://blog.hootsuite.com/how-to-create-a-social- media-content-calendar/#Social_media_calendar_examples. Seungahn, Nah, and Gregory D. Saxton. “Modeling the Adoption and Use of Social Media by Nonprofit Organizations - Seungahn Nah, Gregory D. Saxton, 2013.” SAGE Journals, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1461444812452411. “Social Media Analytics and Intelligence.” IEEE Xplore, ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5678581. Thomas, Monique. “This Is How the Instagram Algorithm Works in 2022.” Later,

Berdej, Bookman, Breiner & Jackson 11 https://later.com/blog/how-instagram-algorithm-works. authors, All, et al. “Engagement with Social Media and Social Media Advertising: The Differentiating Role of Platform Type.” Taylor & Francis, www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00913367.2017.1405754.

EWB Final Paper 1

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