Besides the blogs that we have been posting to Independent Seminar, The Girl Narrative recently launched our own blog page that includes written articles/blogs, our podcast titles UnCut: The Girl Narrative Podcast, and videos! All of these blogs will be posted on Sundays and we will be posting the first episode of UnCut this Sunday 4/28/2019! Today, I will be looking at the Who, What, When, Where, and Why of our media/blog pages! Continue reading
We have recently published an article about Katerina Šulková, a young scientist from the Czech Republic who has worked across Europe in laboratories. Today, I will be talking about having a translator as apart of my process, and how I have had to translate things on my own, tying into the larger idea of me taking on multiple roles. Continue reading
Last year during our first semester, I wrote a blog titled I’m becoming a professional stalker… where I talk about how I have turned into a stalker trying to accomplish two goals: find extraordinary candidates to interview for The Girl Narrative and find their contact information (creepy I know). Now, in our third semester, I am going back to that as I find new girls to interview while transcribing previous interviews (you’ll see a blog about that later). Continue reading
This past semester, we focused on our legal foundation, grant writing, and our new and old partners. Now, here, we will go into our newest goals, projects, and ideals for the upcoming half-year and how we plan to accomplish these goals. Continue reading
Today, The Girl Narrative released our November addition: our article with the extraordinary young activist Leah Juliett. The following blog will talk a little bit about who Leah Juliett is and why I decided to interview them.
Leah Juliett (they/them ) is a non-binary 21-year-old student, actor, and activist from Connecticut, and is the founder of the March Against Revenge Porn Movement and the National LGBTQ+ Townhall.
The March Against Revenge Porn is a “cyber-civil organization” started by a young, queer survivor for other survivors of varying identities. Their intention behind the organization is to “combat revenge porn through federal lobbying, cyber-sex-education, and a series of nationwide protests.” Continue reading
Whether it be through other organizations or through news outlets themselves, being featured through the news and through various platforms is a major accomplishment for The Girl Narrative. I was recently interviewed for a podcast called Nonprofit Jenni, who has thousands of listeners across America. Today, I’ll be talking about what it means to be in the news and why these features are so big for us. Continue reading
Establishing another organization as your partner is not just a title or something you get to mention on your website. Having relationships with other nonprofit organizations or other business professionals who are in the same field as you and/or specialize in something you need to be done is crucial to the survival of your company. So…how do you get a partner and maintain your relationship? Continue reading
Through our posts, likes, and comments, our social media presence and maintaining it, is one of the most important parts of our business. Today, I am going to be talking about what we do on our social media pages, why it is important to do what we do, and how it has positively affected our business.
Using Tailwind, a post-scheduler app, The Girl Narrative schedules posts using our data on the most popular times our audience will be online, when we will get the most traffic, etc. The content that we post typically falls into one of three categories: Inspiring young women, programs or other media that talks about/educates women and/or girls or inspirational quotes. We have found that the mix and balance of these three types of posts most engage our three main audiences (young girls, programs that support/educate young girls, and the parents/mothers of young girls).
Through our likes and comment on other brands and accounts, The Girl Narrative chooses to actively engage with other accounts through projects, likes, comments, and shares. This active engagement of other accounts has come back and promotes active engagement in our accounts. We have found that the more actively engaged we are, the more engagement we get in return, and thus the more traffic we get to our site in return.
Why We Use Social Media:The reason that we have a social media page, particularly Instagram, is to connect with our three main audiences and create more traffic and excitement about our brand/nonprofit. As I stated before, our three main audiences include young girls, nonprofits/companies that support and/or educate young girls and women, and the parents (specifically the female guardians) of young women. We have found that Instagram is a good primary hub to connect to our first two audiences, as Instagram is a social media platform most used by young people and other organizations connecting to young people, and that Facebook is better for connecting to our third audience, the parents of young girls. Social media is, today, the prominent way of connecting and advertising, so it is only fitting that The Girl Narrative does the same in its outreach.
Since the launch of our 2018 Social Media Plan, The Girl Narrative has received an upturn of over 205% more traffic towards our site. If you are interested in seeing our 2018 Social Media Plan, please email, DM, or contact us through our social media pages or through our website, we’d be happy to share it with you! According to LYFE Marketing in an article titled The Importance of Social Media in Business, 71% of consumers are more likely to recommend a brand to others if they have a positive experience with it on social media. Because of the way that we continuously lift up, support, and otherwise give light to other lesser-known organizations, that we have received not only positivity and appreciation but heavy traffic towards our social media page and website as well.
Whether it is through our liking, sharing, commenting, or posting, the active engagement of The Girl Narrative’s page has caused us to experience more traffic and customer engagement than ever, and we hope to continue this trend and only grow our engagement, and, in turn, our audience.
Article Citation
Smith, Keran. “The Importance of Social Media in Business for Entrepreneurial Success.”
Digital Marketing Blog, LYFE Marketing, 12 Sept. 2018, www.lyfemarketing.com/blog/importance-social-media-business/.
Photo Citations
“The Girl Narrative (@Thegirlnarrative) • Instagram Photos and Videos.” The Girl Narrative
Instagram, http://www.instagram.com/thegirlnarrative/.
I changed the name of my nonprofit from Project G.I.R.L to The Girl Narrative this previous summer 2018, and I don’t think I could have made a better decision for my business.
For the first 4 months of being Project G.I.R.L, things were going as any new business was going; we were beginning to build our foundation, our audience, and our marketing plan for the future. Later on, there were several issues that presented themselves that caused me to seriously reconsider our name.
1. Project G.I.R.L is great…but it’s generic
a. When I really got to thinking about it, When you hear the name Project G.I.R.L, you have no idea what we do, who we are, or what our goals are. It is beautiful and fantastic but is overall too generic. When you are building the foundation of your business there are two incredibly important things you need to have: consistency and clarity.
2. There were other organizations that had similar names
a. I remember when I was interviewing Gauri Kapoor, CEO and founder of the after-school program The Girl and I (read our article about her daughter in the program here!), she got confused because she tried to look us up, but found another nonprofit organization. This was also not a one-time-incident. We were constantly confused with other organizations that sounded similar or had similar elements to Project G.I.R.L
3. Our message wasn’t clear
a. This is the biggest reason that we changed our name. Project G.I.R.L tells you nothing about what we want to achieve or why we are important. You would be able to guess that we had something to do with young female empowerment, but other than that, you would have no idea what we do.
The Girl Narrative is unique, our own, and clearly states what we do. We TELL the Girl Narrative. We tell the stories of strong young women to inspire girls to be limitless. Now, with our new name, our partners like March Against Revenge Porn, Nonprofit Jenni, Live Girl (and more!), our audience, and our future customers (HINT! HINT!) will be able to find us, know us, and connect with us better. It doesn’t make it effortless, running a business is never effortless, but it does make things a little easier.
Citations:
Kapoor, Gauri. “Home.” The Girl And I, http://www.thegirlandi.com/.
Schoenborn, Sabrina “Mahika Chopra.” The Girl Narrative,
https://thegirlnarrative.com/mahika-chopra/
Juliett, Leah. “#MARCH AGAINST REVENGE PORN.” March Against Revenge Porn,
marchagainstrevengeporn.org/.
Hargrove, Jenni. “Home.” Nonprofit Jenni, http://www.nonprofitjenni.com/.
West, Sheri. “Home.” LiveGirl, golivegirl.org/.
Schoenborn, Sabrina “Home.” The Girl Narrative, http://www.thegirlnarrative.com/.
Running a business has truly been a test of patience. Being told no all day every day is exhausting, there is no way around that. It feels as if there is only a descent. As someone who was expecting some ups and downs, it was a harsh reality to realize that, for most of my process, it has been a straight descent. Continue reading
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