SSB Youth Social Media Project Toolkit

  1. Create a project timeline (see document A)
  2. Recruit students
    1. Identify schools, youth groups, etc. to recruit student employees (see document B--Youth Contact Sheet)
    2. Reach out to these organizations to set up a time to present the campaign to students (see document C--Letter to Youth Organization Contact)
    3. Create a Powerpoint to present to interested students (see document D--Youth Social Media Campaign)
    4. Direct interested students to an online Google Forms application
  3. Conduct interviews 
    1. After choosing the most promising students, set up interviews, making sure to have several interviewers, ideally more than two
    2. Use a hiring rubric to rate each interviewee (see document E--Hiring Rubric)
  4. Onboard hirees
    1. Have students sign an employment agreement via Google Forms to set expectations and clarify job requirements
    2. Use a Doodle Poll to find a time for your first meeting as a group
  5. First meeting
    1. Send out an agenda prior to the first meeting (see document F--First Meeting Agenda)
    2. Go over the purpose of the sugary beverage social media campaign, and seek to ascertain what time and days of the week are best to meet, and how frequently to meet. Half-an-hour to one hour, weekly, worked best for our group.
  6. Small Groups
    1. After the first meeting, evenly group students into small groups depending on personal interest to research relevant topics to present to the group such as:
      1. Social Media Social Justice Campaigns and Social Media Platforms
      2. Structural Racism/Sugary Drink Marketing
      3. Sugary Drink Health Impacts
      4. COVID and dietary related chronic disease
        • Provide a list of online resources to jump-start their research
        • Give the groups about two weeks to research and to create a Powerpoint presentation
  • Presentations
    • Give each group about 30 minutes; 20 minutes to present and ten minutes for questions.
  • Focusing your group’s messaging & choosing social media platforms
    • After everyone has presented, send students a Google Form to ask which topics they find most compelling and which social media platform they would prefer to work on
    • Once feedback has been received, group students by social media platform and announce the topics that received the most votes (they will be used to shape the campaign’s messaging)
  • Beginning the Social Media Campaign
    • Establish accounts on the social media platforms you intend to use
      • Make sure everyone has access to user names and passwords
    • Come up with hashtags to use on posts
    • Group students into small groups based on the social media platform they’ll be utilizing
    • Give groups two weeks to come up with messaging ideas and initial posts 
    • Have the groups present to each other
  • Launching the Social Media Campaign
    • Create a Google Form for students to sign up for days to post
      • In our group, Instagram students posted three days a week, and TikTok students posted two days a week (one post per day)
    • Create a Google Calendar that delineates who posts on which day
  • Provide Opportunities for Leadership in the Community
    • If possible, find community groups to have the students present their findings to. Our group presented to City Council, our local youth council,  and to our healthy drinks for kids coalition.