Case Study: Great Basin National Park Foundation

Sector: Nonprofit
Project: Social Media Campaign; Social Media Strategy; Social Media Audit

Great Basin National Park Foundation reached out to Sarah Best Strategy to create a social media campaign promoting Great Basin National Park's centennial celebration of its stunning underground Lehman Caves. Together, we launched a six-week campaign to drive sign-ups for the Centennial lecture series and to generate leads, reaching 79,327 people and generating 1,020 link clicks to the event landing page. We also helped Great Basin National Park Foundation develop a longer-term social media strategy to maximize their efforts to raise awareness of the park and all it has to offer.

The Challenge

Wheeler Peak in Great Basin National Park.
As the official non-profit partner of Great Basin National Park in Eastern Nevada, Great Basin National Park Foundation passionately works to enhance, preserve, and interpret the park’s starry night skies, wide-open scenery, cultural heritage, and diverse native ecosystems. The park is well-known for its extraordinary dark-sky offerings, on-site observatory, and natural underground Lehman Caves.

Great Basin National Park Foundation sought out Sarah Best Strategy to develop a short-term social media campaign to generate leads and raise awareness of the Lehman Caves centennial celebration, as well as a longer-term social media strategy that would help them optimize efforts to increase the park's visibility and grow their potential donor base.
​​Sarah Best Strategy partnered with the foundation on a six-week social media campaign to drive sign-ups for a virtual lecture series celebrating the park’s Lehman Caves Centennial. SBS also provided a social media strategy and social media audit for Great Basin National Park Foundation's Facebook and YouTube accounts.
Stalactites hang over a temporary pool created by snowmelt inside one of the Lehman Caves. Several stalagmites protrude from the pool.
Primary goals for our work together included: 
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  • Promoting the virtual Lehman Caves lecture series as a means of gathering leads to nurture into donors; 
  • Increasing awareness of the park and its offerings, as well as park-related events; and 
  • Understanding how to most effectively use limited bandwidth to grow Great Basin National Park Foundation's social media following.

The Idea

SBS created a six-week Facebook advertising lead generation campaign specifically driving sign-ups for a virtual lecture series celebrating the centennial of Great Basin National Park’s spectacular Lehman Caves. The aim was to leverage the lecture series—which took participants inside the caves’ 100-year history, ecology, and preservation—to generate interest in and awareness of the park, grow Great Basin National Park Foundation's email list, and cultivate potential new donors.
Additionally, SBS performed an in-depth audit of Great Basin National Park Foundation's Facebook and YouTube accounts to define an ongoing engagement and growth strategy. SBS developed a thorough understanding of Great Basin National Park Foundation's existing social media efforts and performance by:
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  • Conducting interviews with staff members to discuss challenges and opportunities;
  • Reviewing existing social media content and metrics on Facebook and YouTube; and
  • Researching competitors' and peer organizations’ social media.
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​​We used this comprehensive data to create a detailed strategy presentation with the Great Basin National Park Foundation team.  ​​
A large stalactite formation inside one of the Lehman Caves.
Photo: Maci M.
The presentation highlighted the best practices Great Basin National Park Foundation was already implementing and identified opportunities for growth, including:
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  • Establishing clear, engaging, consistent branding and voice;
  • Identifying target audiences (both current and aspirational) and determining how to best communicate with them; and
  • Maximizing limited social media bandwidth by curating content from other sources, creating more evergreen content, and creating templates for posts.

The Results

Our lead generation campaign to drive sign-ups for the Lehman Caves lecture series garnered the following results:
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  • Great Basin National Park Foundation spent $498 over six boosted Facebook posts; these posts reached 79,327 people.
  • The campaign generated 1,020 link clicks to the Lehman Caves landing page.
  • Posts we created about the Centennial event were shared 157 times.
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The campaign also provided a framework for Great Basin National Park Foundation to use when designing and optimizing future campaigns.
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Meanwhile, the audit and presentation empowered Great Basin National Park Foundation staff with best practices and actionable next steps for developing and maintaining a successful, efficient social media program.

"The team at Sarah Best was great to work with. We were so fortunate to receive a grant to cover a social media strategy audit and event campaign. The campaign was successful in reaching a wide and new audience. Due to the social media audit, we now have a plan in place, that we were able to hand off to an intern to run with. We feel confident we now have the tools to grow our social media in an effective and efficient way." 

​— Aviva O'Neill, Executive Director, Great Basin National Park Foundation