Someone Took-over Riverside’s Facebook Page

Storytelling is an art that takes equal parts skill and talent, a vision, a lot of patience, and fair amount of confidence to nail the delivery. Some of the best stories are usually told from a first-person perspective by the person who lived the experience. It also seems that some people have a natural ability to shape a story and the talent to perfectly land the delivery.

Recently, we asked a few of Riverside’s Direct Service Professionals - our frontline direct care staff - to share what a “day in the life of a DSP” is like through social media posts. More specifically, we invited individual members of our direct care team to take-over Riverside’s branded social media accounts (Facebook and Instagram) during Direct Support Professionals Appreciation Week (September 9-13). We only gave them one clear directive – “Tell your story.”

During a Strategic Planning Focus Group with our staff, we discovered our frontline staff members had strong feelings about how stories about their work should be told. They also had great ideas for generating that content. So, how do we harness their energy and creativity? Obviously, we gave them full control of our social platforms. Thus, a Social Media Takeover!

Riverside’s Social Media Takeover by the Numbers

With this being the first time we have attempted a tactic quite like this, we had no real expectations for how it would be carried out. If the effort was to be successful, we weren’t even sure how to measure that success or its impact. What we did know, was that we had an incredibly passionate, creative, and dedicated team of DSPs who had a story tell so we gave them the opportunity to tell it. 

Over the course of five days during DSP Appreciation Week, 9 DSP staff members from various departments participated in the project. Each day, one individual was assigned to take over the Riverside account for either Facebook or Instagram. During that time, participating staff members were given direct access to post content to the Riverside-branded account directly from their cell phone. Riverside Communications staff provided minimal technical and content-editing support on the back end. 

In total, 17 posts were generated during the five-day takeover, far exceeding Riverside’s usual volume of content in a 5-day period. That content garnered a total of 2,123 interactions and organically reached over 12,200 individuals. In the case of Riverside’s Instagram account specifically, the reach for that week was over 17,000% higher than previously achieved with promotions of the Riverside Auction. We also gained 51 new followers across both platforms which is more than Riverside accounts typically gain in a full calendar year. As more and more followers shared individual posts and reels, the reach of our DSP-generated content grew even further.

Each morning, DSPs were encouraged to kick off their takeover with an introductory post about themselves and the Riverside department where they work. Selfies were strongly encouraged! We never anticipated the wonderfully authentic and deeply personal stories that staff members would share. The sense of comradery expressed through encouraging comments from their co-workers on individual posts was a welcomed and totally unanticipated result.

Well beyond the metrics of online engagement, there was another key measure of success we discovered during this project. The Social Media Take-over seemed to bring members of our staff together from across all departments. They supported each other during this effort in ways that we could not have planned. DSP Appreciation Week has always been a special week at Riverside. This year, it was a little extra special because of these talented storytellers who took-over our social media accounts.