To reach as many people out there as possible. It is key that we strategically communicate upcoming events, plans, and the release of press releases. Given that our project has so far largely been about the province of British Columbia, there are many other people out there who may be unfamiliar with the existence of this archive. While we do have a website, a digital archive, and were featured in a movie. The impact that a social media campaign would have is immeasurable. Many people on Facebook upload pictures of their parents or other family members who have been helping develop Canada for decades. Some younger people are looking to get in touch with their ancestry. The Archive must be a connecting point for these people.
AUDIENCE
The Audience for this initiative will largely split into two groups. The Older generation (50+ years old) and the Younger generation. Both of these groups will have different interests in the archives. The older group will be hoping to preserve their collections or possibly look back on some of their history. The younger generation will be looking to get in touch with their roots or learn more about what happened on Canadian land when we were majorly developing this area.
RESEARCH
According to Statista, Roughly 38% of Facebook users are over the age of 50 in 2023. However, most of the website’s traffic and use tends to come from those who are around the Millennial Generation (30~44). This indicates that any research conducted on this website should be a good indication of how people interact with existing forms of digital archives and how many people actively engage in trying to archive their existing physical media. Other than this, it would also be an area where we could look at the effectiveness of ads to get people interested in the project in its current form. This could be done through analyzing engagement with posts made by the organization and business accounts to see the traction from users we could compare those numbers to the existing media platforms we have.
We would also test this but for a younger audience on TikTok and Instagram. We must figure out what kind of content these users are most responsive to. It is also much easier to get access to a larger pool of people as these apps tend to have more virality. TikTok also displays popular hashtags allowing us to monitor what kinds of topics people are most interested in right now.
SPOKESPEOPLE
It is safe to assume that we are going to need two spokespeople for this project. One person who understands history (this could be an archiver, a historian, or an immigration specialist) and one person who knows how to communicate on Social Media. For every posts that promotes the archive, we will have someone familiar with communicating and managing Social Media create the post and make sure that the information is vetted by someone who understands history. For posts that are related to any form of the archive, we will have someone who understands history develop the caption first, which will then be adjusted by the Social Media Specialist for publication.
CONTENT
The content needs to be adjusted based on its platform. It would have a more formal tone when being published on Facebook but a more laid back tone when being made for TikTok or Instagram. For Facebook it would be mostly an analyses of any image that is uploaded by the archive. The TikTok posts would be akin to a story time where we discuss some light history behind the images that are being shown. It could also be a post where we highlight “fun facts” about the images as well.
CALENDAR
The Facebook posts would be uploaded twice a week, on Tuesday and Saturday. This allows everyone to enjoy the content. It also gives us time to receive any sort of feedback and make adjustments for the next post accordingly. The TikTok will also be uploaded twice a week on Monday and Friday. Both are to be posted at around 3p.m. Pacific time as this would mean people on the East Coast will be the most active and followed by those in the West, thus increasing engagement. All of the content can be produced before hand as it would be ideal to have a bank of content in case we run out.
CONCLUSION
This project will motivate people to reach out and expand the archives with more sources of information available. It would also further the objective of the archive itself by helping people reconnect with their past and learn about history that hasn’t been taught to them in schools.