TOPIC 9 - SPECIAL TOPICS IN MARKETING: Digital Storytelling and Social Media

Contributing Thoughts

Developing a Social Media Strategy

Group B

GROUP A

1.) When making your brand personable on social media, be sure to balance responsiveness and professionalism when/if reacting to news or trends. "In the process of engaging, you can go too far. As a brand, the key is to understand and determine what lines you don't want to cross, and if you do decide to intentionally cross a line, why and how you will" (Haden, 2013).

. "Everything that you do, or want to accomplish, on social media should be based on the values of your business" (Rampton, 2014).

. More and more companies are forming a separate social media marketing budget, some even pulled from a traditional marketing budgets. Two-thirds of all those businesses that have a social media budget say they plan to increase spending the next cycle (Daoud, 2014).

2.) You don’t have to start from scratch when creating a social media marketing plan. Your customers already have social media and so do your competitors. Look at what they are doing in order to make your own. “Turn to your competitors for inspiration when it comes to what content types and information get the most social media engagement. Also, use social media listening to see how you could distinguish yourself from competitors and appeal to consumers they might be missing” (LaPage, 2014). Also, look at your followers and how they word their messages. See how they tweet and try to mirror that style.

. "A social media campaign demands consistency. We’re not just talking about quality and useful information for your audience, either. We’re talking about frequently sharing that valuable content" (Rampton, 2014).

. While you need to be consistent with all of your social media accounts, always remember to treat each media as its own entity. Keep your posts on each site original, but relevant (Da Cunha, 2014).

3.) Hassan Bawab from socialmediatoday.com writes about making sure everyone on your social media team has a clearly defined role in the company is the initial step in implementing an effective social media strategy (2014).

5.) For a clear and easy social media strategy, follow this social media funnel starting from the very top. "80 percent of marketers incorrectly begin with tactics instead of goals." -eMarketer Report

Strategy Step 7: Be Human

Citations

• Da Cunha, M. (2014, January 9). 6 Social Media Marketing Strategies to Drastically Improve Your Efforts in 2014. Retrieved October 19, 2015.

4.) Knowing your target audience is one of the most important things when it comes to your social media strategy. You’re target audience should not be vague and should represent who you’re typical follower is not just what categories they fit into. For example, according to www.entrepreneur.com, “there’s no point in targeting everyone in the 18 to 35 age group if you really want to get to upwardly mobile young professionals who are technology enthusiasts.” (Foster, 2015)

. Daoud, H. (2014, July 15). 8 Essential Elements of a Social Media Marketing Strategy. Retrieved October 19, 2015.

. Why Most Social Media Strategies Fail. (2014, April 22). Retrieved October 19, 2015, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnrampton/2014/04/22/why-most-social-media-strategies-fail/

1.) Haden, J. (2013, August 16). Be More Personable on Social Media: 3 Tips. Retrieved from Inc.com: http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/make-your-brand-more-personable-on-social-media-3-tips.html

2.)LaPage, E. (2014, October 29). How To Create A Social Media Marketing Plan In 6 Steps. Retrieved October 19, 2015, from http://blog.hootsuite.com/how-to-create-a-social-media-marketing-plan/

3.)Bawab, H. (2014, Feb 18). How to Build and Use a Social Media Team in 2014. Retrieved from Social Media: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/how-build-and-use-social-media-team-2014

4.)How to Build a Social-Media Strategy That Works. (2015, May 12). Retrieved October 19, 2015, from http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/246085

Group D

Developing a Social Media Strategy

Secrets for creating a great social media strategy

When breaking news comes out related to your brand or industry, you should share your opinion and become part of the conversation to make a more human voice (Dyer, 2014).

Make sure you are original and try to stay away from what others are doing "Originality, after all, is not a virtue in and of itself, but only has value if it’s meaningful. Try to be different for difference’s sake and you’ll accomplish nothing more than being weird" (Satell, 2013).

To humanize your social media, use a sense of humor, use everyday language, engage in conversation, acknowledge mistakes, and create a unique voice (Ganguly, 2015).

• Understand your goals and target, depending on that your strategy will be adapted. In effect, if you want to reach your customers or increase the sales it will be different. Only focus on one or two goals because if you have too many nothing will be accomplished (Unknown, 2015).

• Focus on the S.M.A.R.T. strategy for goal setting to ensure your objectives are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time based (Foster, 2015).

• Time limited objectives are the best. Always have an ongoing presence for building a relationship with the target. It needs to be regular with a good content that will interest the customers (Unknown, 2015).

• It’s more important to determine whether sticking to your budget is helping you achieve your marketing goals and bringing you a return on investment (ROI) than to adhere to a rigid and fixed budget (Unknown, 2015).

• Characterize your customers by create buyer personas. Sit down and create a detailed profile of your ideal customer. Start by giving them a name. How old are they? What is their income? Do they have children? What do they like or dislike? What motivates them? And so on. If you have more than one ideal customer, create a persona for each (Foster, 2015).

• Marketing plans should be maintained on an annual basis, at a minimum. But if you launch a new product or service, take time to revisit your original plan or develop a separate campaign plan that you can add to your main plan as an addendum (Unknown, 2015).

• There’s the old saying “you can have it fast, free, or effective; you can’t have all 3 at once and you’re lucky if you can get 2 of the 3” (Unknown, 2015).

(Pick, 2014)

75% of consumers say they use social media in the buying process. Yet nearly half of marketers only “somewhat agree” that analyzing social media engagement can help improve the bottom line (Pick, 2014).

Work Cited

Ganguly, Ishita. "9 Ways to Humanize Your Brand With Social Media." Social Media Examiner RSS. 6 Apr. 2015. Web. 20 Oct. 2015.

Dyer, Pam. "12 Essential Elements of a Social Media Marketing Strategy." Business 2 Community. 19 Oct. 2014. Web. 20 Oct. 2015.

Satell, Greg. "How To Build An Effective Social Media Strategy." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 6 Oct. 2013. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.

Pick, Tom. "31 Sensational Social Media Marketing and PR Stats and Facts." Business 2 Community. 6 July 2014. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.

Peterson, Rob. "7 Infographics Show How to Develop a Social Media Strategy | BarnRaisers." BarnRaisers RSS. 12 Oct. 2015. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.

Hemley, Debbie. "26 Tactics, Tools and Tips to Create a Strong Social Media Content Strategy." Social Media Examiner RSS. 24 June 2013. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.

Monitor your social media engagement compared with your competitors’. Share the results with management to help justify a request to dedicate more time and resources to the company’s social media efforts (Hemley, 2013).

References :

Developing a Marketing Plan. (2015). Retrieved October 19, 2015, from https://www.sba.gov/content/developing-marketing-plan

Foster, J. (2015, May 12). How to Build a Social-Media Strategy That Works. Retrieved October 20, 2015, from http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/246085

How to Build a Social-Media Strategy That Works. (2015, May 12). Retrieved October 19, 2015.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/246085

(Peterson, 2015)

Concluding Thoughts

Don't just post a statistic. Relate to the topic. Be cmprehensive in your contributions. Ex: Group D

SUMMARY OF POINTS

Step 7: Be Human

Your company has to act like a person, not an entity.

Why?

The mechanics of social media force companies to compete for attention versus customers' friends and family members.

How will you make your social media about people, not logos?

Group A - Be consistent, but treat each platform as its own. *Included only 4*

Group B - You don't have to start from scratch with yor strategy.

Group C - Maintaining your marketing plan should be evaluated as need

Group D - If many consumers (75%) use SM in the buying process, your strategy should align with this.

COOLEST FACT AND WOW FACTOR

Act like a person, not an entity.

Group C - Maintaining your strategy

Group D - but very, very busy

Strategy Step 8: Create a Channel Plan

Step 8: Create a Channel Plan

Only after you know why you’re active in social at all, and how you’ll measure social media strategy success should you turn your attention to the “how” of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the rest.

Dunkin Donuts Vine advert (not Vine anymore - Instagram, TikTok, and SnapChat have evolved this concept

Now you're ready to plan.

Social Media Strategy Recap:

Strategy Step 4: Select Success Metrics

Strategy Step 3: What's the Point?

Step 4: Select Success Metrics

How do you know if this strategy is making a difference?

Determine which key measures you will use to evaluate your social media strategy effectiveness.

How do you measure ROI? Shares have value more than likes, but the only value we care about is $$$.

Know if you strategy is working?

What IS your strategy?

Step 3: What's the Point?

Determine the focus of your social media strategy.

What do you primarily use social media for?

• Awareness?
• Sales?
• Loyalty?
• Retention?

What part of your strategy converts to dollars?

Narrow Down Your Purpose

The best social media strategies are those that

focus (at least initially) on a more narrow rationale.

Example: Frances M. Olivier Law Firm

Business Type: Law Firm

2015 SM Strategy Focus:

To generate new client leads and provide a medium for educating current and prospective clients of growing legal opportunities in insurance and will/estate practice areas.

Source: Culturecast Agency

Visible Quiz

2 of 2

You may collaborate with your peers, but you only get 20 seconds! I will randomly call on students to respond for a chance to earn 5 points on your answer.

Credit is awarded only when the answer is correct AND a rationale is provided.

How do you measure ROI? Shares have value more than likes, but the only value we care about is $$$.

True (T) or False (F)?

Strategy Step 2: Listen & Compare

Strategy Step 5: Analyze Your Audiences

Step 2: Listen & Compare

Where and how should you be active in social media?

The Answer?

Listen to your customers & competitors

How do I accomplish this?

Broaden your social listening beyond your brand name.

Who are the competitors that your business should consider following?

Track more than your own brand.

Step 5: Analyze Your Audience(s)

What are the demographic/psychographic characteristics of your current or prospective customers?

How does that impact what you can and should attempt in social media?

Why Social Media Strategies Fail

Who are you interacting with?

Example: American Airlines

Source: Aaron Wolfe, Social Media Analyst, American Airlines

Social Media Strategy: BE SOCIAL

• Lack of Monitoring & Measuring
• How well is your Facebook campaign doing?
• Are people leaving comments?
• Are you making any money or gaining subscribers because of your Facebook content?
• Continuously create and promote content that is triggering responses from your audience
• Tools: HootSuite, Social Mention, Twitter Analytics, Facebook Insights, or Keyhole (all free)

Success can be MEASURED!

We learned very quickly that Facebook is a conversation. What do you do when over 80,000 people have rated you and you still only have 1.5 stars?

Our social media team has identified that our top users are coming to us with dissonance. Our second most frequent user is going to be the "travel nerd" who loves air planes, new technology, and flight education. We are working to make that user our number 1. It's not an easy task, and we have a large team.

The truth to social media marketing failure: a lack of true strategy.

-Convince & Convert

Let's break this down a bit:

You have a lot of pieces now, and you know their significance.

What is the strategy behind your social media marketing campaign?

How will you present this to your client?

Visible Quiz

1 of 2

You may collaborate with your peers, but you only get 20 seconds! I will randomly call on students to respond for a chance to earn 5 points on your answer.

Credit is awarded only when the answer is correct AND a rationale is provided.

"Companies should focus more on how to BE social, and less on how to DO social media."

The best social media strategic plans:

• Are "tools-agnostic" - anything beyond material phenomenon
• Set forth objectives & metrics that supersede any particular social venue

The best social media strategic plans set forth objectives & metrics that supersede any particular social venue.

True (T) or False (F)?

Don't just do. BE.

Strategy Step 1: Build an Ark

Pizza Hut's Emoji Campaign

Domino's has launched a new system where users can simply tweet the pizza emoji at the restaurant to place an order.

Source: "Social media, social network concept" image via Shutterstock.

Read more at http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/38930.asp#multiview#3BPuHhTolIffd2TY.99

Step 1:

Create a cross-functional team to help conceive and operate the strategy.

Why?

Social Media impacts all corners of a company.

No person should "own" the social media strategy.

Social is a team effort.

Strategy Step 6: What's your 1 thing?

Step 6: What's your 1 thing?

Your product features and benefits aren't enough to create a passion worthy stir.

How will your organization appeal to the heart of your audience, rather than the head?

Ex: Disney is about magic, not movies.

Ex: Apple isn't technology, it's innovation.

"Passion is the fuel of social media."

Why Most Social Media Strategies Fail

THERE IS NO METHOD TO THE MADNESS

Thought-Provoking Activity

• Values Don't Match
• Content should be based on values

• Not Consistent
• Quality, Useful Information, Frequency (Tools: HootSuite, SproutSocial, Buffer)

• Misunderstanding How Social Media Really Works
• Truly discover who's your audience and where they spend most of their time when choosing which outlet to use

• Not Providing Anything Different
• Content should be unique

• Shouting, Not Listening
• Don't just promote, ask for feedback

Avoid These Mistakes!

Think-Pair-Share Instructions: When the activity begins, students get two minutes to answer the question (think). One minute is provided for students review their work (think), then pair up (2 = pair), and discuss their responses with each other (share). The instructor will randomly call on students to respond for points.

Time Limit: Think (2 minutes) - Pair (2 minutes) - Share (2 minutes)

Scoring: 2-3 students. Called on. Randomly. Tell your partner's response aloud for YOU to earn up to 10 points. Must include the course reference and an example (see rubric in Moodle) (i.e. John tells Mary's response for John to earn points).

GO.

Information pulled from:

Why Most Social Media Strategies Fail - Forbes

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnrampton/2014/04/22/why-most-social-media-strategies-fail/

Social Media Strategy in 8 Steps | Convince and Convert: Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy

http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-strategy/social-media-strategy-in-8-steps/

When you think of the word "strategy," does social media come to mind? Why or why not?

Why would a business not have a social media strategy?

Social Media Strategy

Devising Your Social Media "Game Plan"

with contributions from Jonas Dominique, Culturecast, LLC

Digital and Social Media Marketing

Topic 9: Developing a Social Media Strategy