Creating a Marketing Plan

For this Assignment, you will review the pdfs included in the readings on how to access and setup a free social media account to market a program you would like to be an administrator of. After creating your social media account, you will complete all four parts of the Assignment described below and record your progress on the Unit 7 Assignment Template found in Doc Sharing of this course.

Part 1: Create a Social Media Site Account of your choice (Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter) and setup the Settings and Profile.

For the purpose of this Assignment, you will not create an account for a “real” organization. Instead, you will setup your account in your name and choose a profile image that reflects an early childhood care and education organization you would like to administrate.

Once you have created your account, create a profile, and complete the following steps suggested by Miles (2014):

1. Find people in your industry to follow including at least 3 professional early childhood organizations.
2. View the photos you liked.
3. Modify your sharing settings including how your account is connected to Facebook and other social media sites.
4. Manage your push notifications which are e-mails you receive from your social media site when certain actions occur, such as when your images are liked or commented on.
5. Modify your privacy settings, including the option to require your approval before someone can follow you. This will help you reach a greater audience.
6. Add a profile picture (this should be one that represents early childhood care and education in some way).
7. In Part 1 of the Assignment template, in 3 to 5 sentences share your name, which social media site you chose to create an account with, the name of the account you created, a brief description of the type of organization you are marketing, and the names of the 3 professional early childhood organizations you chose to follow.

Part 2: Creating Hashtags

Hashtags are created by simply using the # symbol before a word or phrase. Before creating 6 hashtags to initiate conversations around shared images of your organization, research the use of hashtags used by other leaders and organizations in the early childhood field. This step will help you successfully attract people who are interested in your organization rather than random people (Miles, 2014, p. 30).

Once you have researched hashtag trends in early childhood, use the best practices suggested by Miles (2014) listed below and create 6 hashtags that will attract people to follow your organization:

1. Be brief—use either one word or a short phrase.
2. Try to create a hashtag that is memorable and easily understood.
3. Check to make sure the hashtag is not open to multiple interpretations, or else it runs the risk of being used for the wrong purpose.
4. Check to make sure the hashtag is not already in use before creating it.
5. Do not create hashtags that include another company’s brand or product name (p. 29).

Add the six hashtags you created to market your organization to the Assignment Template provided in the course.

Part 3: Share an Image with a Hashtag Message

Take a picture or find an image to advertise your “organization” (or an important topic in early childhood care and education) Choose one of your created hashtags to add to your image and share it on your social media account so followers can begin following you.

Part 4: Short Essay on Marketing with Social Media

In a 350-500 word essay typed directly in the Unit 7 Assignment Template, please answer the following questions:

1. Discuss the benefits and disadvantages of marketing programs using Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
2. Explain how marketing with social media can be used to maximize public relations efforts.
3. Based on the course readings and your research of professional early childhood organizations that use social media sites to promote their cause, describe components of a well-developed marketing plan and how you would use social media to market an organization you would like to administrate:
4. Include three references using proper APA formatting.

Be sure to include at least three references and run both spell and grammar checks before saving and submitting your completed Assignment to the Drop Box.