At Bloomberg Philanthropies, we work to ensure better, longer lives for the greatest number of people. As an organization, we focus on creating lasting change in the areas of public health, environment, education, government innovation, and arts and culture.
Over the last several years, we have increasingly focused on telling the story of this important and widespread work in a way that is compelling and optimized for a digital audience. With Facebook, we have aimed to reach a broader global audience, and drive a greater awareness of and conversation around our work.
All of our work at Bloomberg Philanthropies is driven by data – from assessing opportunities, to measuring progress, to evaluating impact – and the strategy behind this effort to build an engaged audience on Facebook is no exception. Content decisions are made based on information about the audience such as interests, behaviors, and usage to ensure that what's created and posted will truly resonate. We also pay close attention to the types of posts that tend to garner higher reach and engagement on the platform (i.e., the impact of including an image or video with a post or presenting the copy in a certain structure), and look for opportunities to tailor content to these standards in every campaign.
In materials such as press releases, statements, and white papers, priority is given to stats and data points that demonstrate the impact and human element of our work. While the programmatic work can be complex and technical, digital copy and graphics are kept simple and straightforward to ensure the message is relevant to the broadest audience possible.
One way we work to foster a community and facilitate a conversation on the platform is by incorporating partner organizations into content whenever possible. The vast majority of Facebook posts in the last year include a mention of at least one other relevant organization or initiative that we work closely with or are aligned with in some way.
This data-driven focus on consistently creating quality content has allowed us to significantly grow our Facebook presence. Since the beginning of 2015, Facebook page likes have more than doubled, increasing from 125,000 to over 250,000. With a growing audience, the monthly reach of content posted to Facebook has increased 177% from 2015 to 2016.
We are also seeing more engagement with specific posts. In fact, there have been over 3 million engagements since the start of 2015. Over the past 20 months, the average number of engagements per post has increased 520%, from 1,087 in 2014 to 6,737 in 2016.
