THESIS ARGUMENT: ‘AN ANALYSIS OF UNICEF AND EVALUATION OF THE NEED FOR SOCIAL NETWORK PRESENCE’
Founded in December 1946, and headquartered in New York, The United Nations Children´s Fund (UNICEF) is an international nonprofit organization, which advocates for the rights of children all over the globe. It possesses an international authority to influence the decisions and actions of other bodies, involved in the variety of activities, concerning the right and well-being of the youngest population. With the above in mind, the target audience of the organization from the action perspective includes women and children (UNICEF 2014). The scope of interest and attention, however, which the organization is aiming to achieve, is much wider, as the goal is to create awareness in various social groups, which can help to build on sustainability of the UNICEF efforts in child protection. The audience, therefore, includes international community, partnering organizations involved in human rights and child protection, children and women affected by conflict and local communities and business bodies. One of the important factors, which characterizes the audience of nonprofit organizations in general and UNICEF specifically, is the fact that the average age of the individuals, involved in the nonprofit activities range from 20to 40 years old (Pope et al. 2009).
The organization, among other areas, is actively involved in the promotion of women education, child vaccinations and immunization programs, prevention of HIV and AIDs spread and creation of safe and protected environments for children all over the globe. Finally, UNICEF holds the Convention on the Rights of the Child and is actively involved in the global strive for the Millennium Development Goals. The organization outlines its core priorities in a four-fold strategy for children protection. The priorities include building national child protection systems, strengthening evidence-building and awareness, addressing cultural values and social change and addressing the effectiveness of child protection in natural disasters and conflict zones. These strategic goals are achieved through a number of functional and tactical programs, conducted in partnership with local authorities of Eastern and Southern Africa, Asia and other regions. Some of the examples include such programs, as Justice for Children, Birth Registration, social marketing for violence, social and gender norms creation and partnership with the International Labor Organization (ILO) on the issues of sexual abuse and child labor.
For most of the past decade, the international community saw an increasing use of social media by the nonprofit organizations. Kanter and Fin (2010) argue that in order to understand the role of social media in the activities and progress of UNICEF and other nonprofit organization, it is critical to consider the influence of the Millennials, the young people, who were born between 1976 and 1992. These individuals, according to the studies, conducted and presented in the research, build on a strong foundation of social citizenship and public opinion. Given the fact that Millenials are the digital natives, social media presence and social marketing become prominent for nonprofit organizations.
With regards to the specific impact of social media on the activities on the nonprofit organizations, we should consider the quick access to the virtual meeting place, visualizing UNICEF identity, peer sharing and collaboration. The reality shows that social media is a way to create a bond of comprehension between the audience and an organization. Social network campaigns are not new for UNICEF, and it is widely present in MySpace and Bebo websites. The experience of the organization with such campaigns, as Born Free from HIV on Bebo, Youth Voice on Facebook in 2007 and 2008 illustrate a significant financial and reputational response (UNICEF 2014). Social media campaigns can be used or donations and fundraising, recruiting, increasing visibility and knowledge transfer to the interest groups. The outcomes of the campaigns are majorly seen through increase in the loyalty of the interest groups and target audience. This loyalty and interest, consequently, bring advocacy and financial savings to the organizations like UNICEF. In increasingly complex international economic and political environment and parallel trends in decreasing findings makes marketing and for-profit philosophy become part of the marketing strategies of nonprofit organizations (Levine and Zahradnik 2012). Large and politically powerful bodies, like UNICEF, majorly target intangible benefits from progressive marketing and social media, such as visibility and built-for-purpose campaigns. The role of financial return from social presence, however, cannot be underestimated, given the growing proportion of digital native population.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Beth Kanter and Allison Fin, 2010. The Networked Nonprofit: Connecting with Social Media to Drive. San Francisco, CA: Change. John Willey & Sons.
Helisse Levine & Anne G. Zahradnik (2012) Online Media, Market Orientation, and Financial Performance in Nonprofits. Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, 24:1, 26-42
Jennifer A. Pope, Elaine Sterrett Isely & Fidel Asamoa Tutu. (2009) Developing a Marketing Strategy for Nonprofit Organizations: An Exploratory Study, Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, 21:2, 184-201.
UNICEF (2014). About Us. Unicef Corporate Website [Online], http://www.unicef.org/about/who/index_introduction.html (Accessed 2 April, 2014)
