Audit
1. General Description
1.1Nature
l Type of organization: Non-profit, non-government Yoga-related organization
l Ownership：Private (Hersha Chellaram as Co-founder & Executive Director; Shaman Chellaram as Co-founder & Trustee)
l Size: 6 teachers, 5 staffs and 3 volunteers
l Activity: Regular classes, workshops, outreach programs, community events.
l Action and Service area:
Ø Community classes for children with special needs on Monday;
Ø Community classes for normal people on Monday;
Ø Yoga classes for children in Ronald McDonald House Charities Trust;
Ø After-school program with The Hub Hong Kong in Sham Shui Po;
Ø Yoga and meditation program for adults with special needs at SAHK's residential care home in Ho Man Tin;
Ø Yoga programs in women's prisons (including Lo We Correctional Institution and Tai Lam Women's Prison).
l Stakeholders:
Ø Internal: Founders, students, sponsors, teachers, staffs and volunteers;
Ø External: Cooperated schools, NGOs, Hospitals, News agency
l Key partners: Victor Lam (Blossoming CPA Ltd); Kim Anderson (Special Needs Network Hong Kong); Steven Wang (Aumnie)
l Special characteristics: Passionate and socially responsible
1.2 Mission
“Yoga is for everyone”. Make yoga, arts and meditation accessible to Hong Kong people, especially those in underserved communities with special needs.
1.3 Vision
YAMA Foundation believes that yoga is an accessible practice that can be suited to any age or ability, background or body type, in order to help them develop a good body, peaceful mind and colorful life.
Motto：“Easeful body, Peaceful mind, Colorful life”
1.4 Growth opportunities
Because of YAMA's favorable donation situation, firm background and good service quality, YAMA is potential to increase its popularity, expand its service area and provide specialized yoga classes for more people.
2 Information of communication
2.1 Key Audience
Final audience of YAMA could be divided into 4 main categories: normal people, people with special needs (disability, poverty, prison and ethnic minority).
Key Audience are as follow:
l Normal people: normal school, social workers, fitness (yoga) clubs, bloggers in fitness field and yoga communities (including teachers, practitioners, wellness industry businesses and so on).
l People with special needs:
Ø People with disabilities: family members, sheltered workshops, hospitals (e.g. Ronald McDonald House), NGOs (e.g. Hong Chi Association), special schools;
Ø People living in poverty: social workers, NGOs (e.g. Hong Kong Council of Social Service), labor unions;
Ø People in prison: NGOs (e.g. The Prisons’ Friends’ Association);
Ø People in ethnic minority: NGOs (e.g. Unison).
2.2 Resources and Channels
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, magazines, news agencies, TV shows produced by RTHK
2.3 Communication Challenges
YAMA may not fully utilize social media platforms in the following aspects, which could challenge its communication goals.
Ø Language barriers: The language used in social media is mainly English, it may cause inconvenience for some local audience to fully understand the content.
Ø Less update frequency: Yama did not update their Instagram from Dec 2016 to Oct 2018.
Ø Less publicity campaign: Yama pays more attention to Monday regular classes on social media. It could be more fruitful if YAMA also posts information of other events.
Ø Few attention and interaction: Up till 5 December 2018, YAMA owns 439 Facebook followers, 3 Twitter followers, 119 Instagram followers and 181 YouTube followers, which may influence its effectiveness of communication.
Ø Inadequate communication resources: The main materials YAMA uses have no name or logo, which is not good for recognition, and it could be better to improve its current resources’ quality and adopt more creative form.
2.4 Communication Goals
l Short-term goal: Promote Monday classes for normal people.
l Long-term goal: Increase YAMA’s brand awareness in Hong Kong and make its motto disseminated widely.
2.5 Strategies
Now, YAMA promotes its Monday classes for the people with special needs and normal people through Facebook in form of videos and pictures. Moreover, it also delivers messages through Twitter, Instagram and YouTube Channels.
2.6 Problems encountered
l Effectiveness in Social media: Similar to the communication challenge above, YAMA owns many social media accounts, which is sufficient for it to spread information. However, still, there are rooms for YAMA to upgrade its content quality and to attract more followers.
l Profession: It may be difficult to reach its communication goals only with YAMA’s staffs’ efforts. Instead, it could be better if YAMA has professional staffs who are good at editing photos and videos
2.7 SWOT Analysis
Strengths:
Ø Diverse communication channels
Ø Sufficient funds
Ø Firm background with 9-year experience
Ø Good service quality and professional teachers
Ø Regular participants
Weaknesses:
Ø In need of more volunteers and PR staff.
Ø Inefficient social platform utilization
Ø Inefficient event exposure.
Ø Less interaction and participation in online activities.
Opportunities:
Ø Yoga is a low-cost, therapeutic interventions that can help bring about physical and mental wellbeing.
Ø Yoga is currently a prevalent activity among HK population.
Ø Local communities of yoga teachers and practitioners also increase.
Threats:
Ø People may misunderstand yoga as a difficult sport. In their opinion, only flexible people can do yoga.
Ø People under pressure spend little time on physical exercise.
3 Benchmark Section
Having an overview on the social media practices conducted by NGO for vulnerable communities, they often adapt moving and shocking pictures accompanied with short but powerful slogans to call for the public’s awareness, sympathy and assistance. Taking those events below as example.
Ø Italy’s National Association of People with Down Syndrome – CoorDown – released a powerful video answering questions of an expectant mother of a child with down syndrome. CoorDown’s “Dear Future Mom” video depicts 15 different children with Down Syndrome, each answering the expectant mother’s question. Based on inclusion, the campaign challenges people to “Be Supportive. Not Sorry” and “Don’t Exclude. Include,” among other advertising slogans. (Link: http://blog.visme.co/nonprofit-marketing/ )
Ø Worldwide Breast Cancer. Labelled #KnowYourLemons, this campaign was designed to promote awareness of the various signs of breast cancer on Facebook. Using lemons bearing various breast cancer symptoms, the advert reminded women that lumps are not the only symptom. By using an everyday object to depict 12 different signs, the image cleverly gets around censoring rules and aims to help women overcome fears about checking their breasts, through friendly humor. (Link: https://worldwidebreastcancer.org/)
Pointedly, NGOs tend to conduct social media practices on multi platforms to influence more users and call for more awareness. However, a common challenge is that the awareness raised by the campaigns would continue to fade after a certain period.
Social Media Plan for YAMA Foundation
2.1 Introduction
Currently, the main goal of the social media plan for YAMA is to increase its brand awareness online while the secondary goal is to promote Monday classes and to change public’s perception of yoga. To realize these goal, two strategies can be conducted— providing proof and example of the power of yoga to call on people’s interests and creating innovative social media content that targeted audience would like to share.
To be specific, four actions are planned. First, Growth Diary is planned to show YAMA’s power and benefits of yoga. Second, Q&A is to share useful information about yoga to show YAMA’s profession and also to change public’s perception. Third, Accessible Yoga Relay is to call on people to share and transmit the belief that “Yoga is for everyone”. Last but not least, Ins Live can help show and promote YAMA’s Monday class. With these four actions, YAMA is likely to change people’s perception about yoga and to make more people know YAMA and its activities.
2.2 Goals
l Main Goal: To increase YAMA's brand awareness online
Making efforts to spread information of YAMA’s events and turning its resources into higher engagement degree, eventually increasing YAMA’s brand awareness online.
l Secondary Goals:
Ø To promote Monday classes
Transmitting information of Monday classes to both normal people and people with special needs.
Ø To change public’s perception of yoga
When people think of the term “yoga”, they usually link it to fit and flexible body, but actually, yoga can be accessed by everyone as what YAMA emphasized.
2.3 Strategy
l Providing proof and examples of the power of yoga
Target audience:
family members, sheltered workshops, hospitals, NGOs, social workers, labor unions, special schools
Content:
Ø Internal: pictures, videos, reports in showing the work of YAMA to different groups of people;
Ø External: data and reliable information about how yoga can help people regardless of their physical condition.
Expectation:
improving YAMA’s brand awareness and changing the general perception of yoga as inaccessible.
l Creating innovative social media content that targeted audience would like to share
Target audience:
everyone, such as family members, sheltered workshops, hospitals, NGOs, special schools, social workers, labor unions, normal school, social worker, fitness/yoga club, bloggers in fitness field, yoga communities.
Content:
Carry out some easy and interactive activities that are suitable for different targeted audience on social media. More specifically, see “action plan” below.
Expectations:
Meeting individual needs of different target groups, especially promoting Monday classes, improving YAMA’s brand awareness
Action Plan
1 Growth Diary
l Target audience
family members of special people, special schools, social workers, and NGOs for vulnerable communities
l Goals
Ø To present the change of those participants
Ø To show the power of Yoga
Ø To change public’s perception of yoga
Ø To increase YAMA's brand awareness online
l Strategy
Providing proof and examples to show the power of Yoga by posting growth diaries of 3 participants once a week respectively.
l Participants
People in vulnerable community and their family members
l Channels Facebook, Instagram
l Period
Every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday per week.
l Execution
Ø What most important is that YAMA have to get the consent of participants before posting their stories on Facebook and Instagram.
Ø Pictures will be the main source of the content. If there are videos, it will work better.
Ø Attach YAMA’s name and logo on each posted photo.
Ø The main content could be happy faces, poses that was done in class.
Ø The text should be short but moving. Try to emphasize the changes of participants after having more yoga classes.
Ø It is also suggested to be a short video within 1min. In the video, the host can ask some simple questions (e.g. How you feel in yoga class, or do you like yoga), and participants can express their feelings or opinions of the class in one to two sentences in the videos.
l Feasibility
YAMA has ever posted some participants’ photo on its website, which proves that some participants are willing to support YAMA on its promotion.
2. Q&A-Tips
l Target Audience
Family members of special people, people interested in accessible yoga, social workers
l Goals
Ø To enrich latest and relevant content in social media
Ø To transmit useful information and skills about accessible yoga to everyone in need
Ø To show YAMA’s passion and expertise in yoga
Ø To transmit YAMA’s belief that yoga is accessible for everyone
l Strategy
Providing proof and examples to show the power of Yoga by Q&A texts and pictures.
l Channel Facebook
l Period
Every evening on Monday, Wednesday and Friday
l Participants
Anyone who have questions about accessible yoga
l Execution
Ø YAMA could appeal its followers to leave their questions about yoga/NGO in the comments section.
Ø As an interactive process, YAMA can utilize their expertise and post questions with answers in Facebook.
Ø YAMA can also share useful knowledges (e.g. tips on yoga at home) that they want to deliver to everyone, for example, “Five advantages of yoga exercise”, “Three tips teach you how to do yoga effectively”.
Ø Attach tYAMA’s name and logo on each posted photo.
l Feasibility
Ø As credited accessible yoga teacher, Hersha’s answers to related questions can be accurate and reliable.
Ø It is simple and time-saving to use the form of Q&A.
3.Accessible Yoga Relay
l Target audience
Family members, special schools, social workers, and NGOs for vulnerable communities
l Goals
Ø To increase interactions between audience and YAMA Foundation
Ø To encourage people with special needs or in challenging physical conditions
Ø To introduce YAMA’s belief “Yoga is accessible for everyone” and spread the special "YAMA style"
Ø To increase YAMA's brand awareness online
l Strategy
Creating interactive social media content that target audience would like to share
l Channel Instagram
l Period 15 days
l Hashtags (Theme) #Accessible Yoga Relay#, #YAMA Style#
l Execution
Ø At the beginning, YAMA posts a picture of their participant making a yoga posture, and @other organizations and their friends (e.g. their regular class participants) to relay, especially people with special needs or in challenging physical conditions. In the whole process of this action, YAMA can use two hashtags, which is also the theme of this activity.
Ø #YAMA Style# can be interpreted as accessible yoga for everyone
Ø Participants are invited to post pictures also with the hashtags “#Accessible Yoga Relay#, #YAMA Style#”
Ø Before this action, a simple and clear text should be posted as explanation. The following text is for reference: “Yoga is for everyone! follow me and show your YAMA Style!”. In Cantonese, “人人都可以做瑜珈。跟住我一齊做屬於YAMA Style嘅瑜珈啦:) ”
Ø The invited organizations or individuals could make another easy yoga posture and relay it to others with hashtags.
l Feasibility
Ø This action applies the relationship between acquaintances on the social media. People are more willing to respond if they are invited directly by their close friends.
Ø Crowd psychology also motivates the public to engage.
4. Instagram Live
l Target Audience
Everyone interested in yoga
l Goals
Ø To promote Monday Class
Ø To enable better interactions between the followers
Ø To deliver the main idea of YAMA - “Yoga is for everyone” to the public
l Strategy
Show YAMA’s Monday classes and its efforts to audience so that they can have better understanding of classes and YAMA.
l Date Every Monday Class
l Channel Instagram
l Execution
Ø YAMA could get the consent of participants before Ins Live.
Ø YAMA can follow some of their fans' accounts to figure out personal information (like nationality, living area, gender) and internet use preferences of its fans.
Ø YAMA can arrange the timetables and contents of the live broadcast in 15 to 30 mins.
Ø The main contents should be about Monday Class’s condition. The general process can be as follow:
At five minutes before the class, a host introduce classes in that day briefly and interact with audience until the class begins. After the class beginning, the host should be quiet and show the class from different directions. Pay attention to details and try to use close-up shot to show them. At the same time, the host still have to interact with audience with texts. 15 to 30 minutes later, the host can leave the classroom and make an ending.
Ø When introducing and ending, the host can try to live in English and Cantonese at the same time. Use specific language to answer audience’s questing according to what language audience use.
Ø Since YAMA has classes for different groups of people, the live can show different classes every week.
Ø Ins live also can be conduct in other events if possible.
l Feasibility
Ø Compared with vlogs and professional documentaries, live broadcasting is easier to operate, because it does not require complicated skills and professional equipment.
Ø Instead of receiving information passively, Instagram users tend to interact with others.
Ø This kind of live broadcasting can better convey the idea of YAMA which sounds more impressive and grounded for audiences.
Appendix
Roadmap & Calendar
Content Samples
1. Growth Diary
2. Q&A-Tips
3. Accessible Yoga Relay
4. Ins Live
References
Thorsten Hennig-Thurau & Charles F. Hofacker c& Björn Bloching. (2013). Marketing the Pinball Way: Understanding How Social Media Change the Generation of Value for Consumers and Companies. Jounral of Interactive Marketing, 237-241.
Our Vision (2018). Retrieved 3 December, 2018, from yamahk.org: https://www.yamahk.org/our-vision/
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