Carpe Diem Education

Carpe Diem Education provides unique “gap year” opportunities for students ranging from new high school graduates to sophomores in college. Gap years are growing in popularity in the United States, and Carpe Diem stands out from other programs by focusing on growth and transformation through experiential education, community and intercultural exchange.

In October of 2017, Carpe Diem approached A.wordsmith with the goal of creating an official strategy for their social media platforms and leveraging their word-of-mouth-power. A.wordsmith created an initial 12-month plan targeting Carpe Diem’s three distinct audiences: students, parents, and educators. The strategy tied the organization’s social channels to their larger marketing goals. Each month, A.wordsmith crafted a full content calendar, implemented the content and worked to build the community on the channels. After a year and a half, all three platforms saw substantial growth.

Instagram:

• Followers grew 30%
• We implemented a successful Instagram Stories initiative, featuring content directly from students and educators in the field:
  • Stories have an average completion rate of 74%
• 59 out of the top 60 posts for engagement in the last two years were during our 18 months of partnership

Facebook:

• 179% increase in engagement, exceeding our goal of a 10% increase (778 monthly engaged users in October 2017 to 2,170 in March 2019)
• Followers grew 16%
• 73.4% increase in organic impressions, exceeding our goal of a 10% increase (9957 in October 2017 to 17,272in March 2019)

Twitter:

• Twitter followers grew 21%
• 80% increase in engagement, exceeding our goal of 10% (0.5% engagement rate in October 2017 to a 0.9% engagement rate in March 2019)