"While about 10 percent of the U.S. non-disabled population is said to be moderately or severely depressed, research shows that about 20 to 30 percent of people with long-term disabilities are living with depression” - Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation

At Disability Foundation we have built a support network to inspire people with disabilities to think beyond barriers. We provide opportunities to engage in outdoor activities like sailing, hiking, paddling, or self expression from music and gardening, or the independence that comes from custom assistive devices. We encourage people with disabilities to redefine what is possible.

It’s about inclusion – it’s about giving people options. Our programs tackle social isolation felt by many people with disabilities. People tell us of their need to reinvent themselves after spinal cord injury; people born with medical conditions such as cerebral palsy often grew up feeling excluded from outdoor activities. We offer possibilities.

Gerry Burns, whose passion became adapted sailing following his injury, says, “Often I’ll look at the whole city of Vancouver and the mountains, and think I’m the luckiest guy in the country. I’m quadriplegic but the luckiest guy in the country."

We recently launched TetraNation. It shares videos of the inventions of our volunteer-led community of technically minded people who invent mobility solutions for people with disabilities.

One of the most important aspects of what we do is to communicate about the possibilities to people out there. There are thousands of people who can benefit, and many more who love to volunteer and support. Further there is need to create awareness among the public about disabilities - cerebral palsy, spinal cord injury, paralysis - and accessibility issues. In addition, we like to draw attention to the capabilities of people with disabilities.

Social media has been an important channel for us. But every social media platform is a world in itself. Trying to follow what is going on is like drinking from a firehose! It would be great to just handle social media all day long, but the reality is there are many other functions I need to spend time on.

I found the Hootsuite + Cloohawk combination to deliver significant results. Essentially, it allows me to achieve more in less time.

1) Highly Productive

Cloohawk gives a bunch of conversations relevant to Disability Foundation and inclusion. Further these conversations are divided into the right tasks like Like, Comment, Retweet and so on.

It just frees up my time so I’m able to plan, and think long-term and tactically, rather than just reacting to stuff.

Now I spend just 30 minutes at the start of the day on Twitter management, and it’s super productive time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2) One Single Dashboard for Management & New Ideas

Hootsuite is an exhaustive platform with multiple streams, scheduling and replying options. Cloohawk slots seamlessly into Hootsuite. Cloohawk gives me list of ideas on how to engage with my target audience. The variety of possibilities is impressive. So from this single dashboard, I seamlessly discover and execute diverse engagement options. 

I even take some of these ideas to other social networks, and Hootsuite helps me do that without effort.

3) Variety of Content Ideas

Hootsuite exposes me to content feeds that I’m following; Cloohawk gives the latest trending stories from across the news and social media. It’s social media listening on a vastly larger scale. I’m finding news items and issues ahead of other organizations working in the same field as us. This wide variety of material helps me everyday to communicate the message that there are more possibilities than barriers for the disabled.

4) Increase my audience

One of the important social media activities for me is to build a big audience of people with disabilities, potential volunteers and funders. Sharing interesting content helps a lot in this aspect.

Cloohawk further helps to grow twitter following with the ‘Follow Unfollow’ tasks. Cloohawk identifies influencers and leads who will be interested in our mission and suggests to follow them.

This is tremendously helpful as it is very difficult to dig up such aligned set of audience otherwise.

5) Listen to Right Conversations & Engage

Though our mission remains same, the topics of buzz on social media and conversations is ever changing. Cloohawk is a smart listener. It picks up the right conversations and suggests ways to engage with the conversations - with replies, comments, likes, retweets and so on.

It is as simple as replying to email, while getting to know all that happens in your domain in one shot!

Conclusion

Overall, Hootsuite+Cloohawk works seamlessly, because it gives me so many options. I’m in the rare position of achieving more while putting in less time and money – in other words, being productive in other areas, also. As a non-profit, we have to work fast and lean, while being focused on the brand.

In the last two months my number of followers became 3X, around 100+ people engage with us daily.

Of course it is a smart way of building social media success.

Written by: Matthew Wild, Communications Coordinator, Sam Sullivan Disability Foundation