Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Social Media Plan
Social Media Plan
Table of Contents
Executive Summary
Brief Overview
4-5
5
6-7
Strategies
Target Market
7-8
Tools
8-9
Implementation
Platform-Specific Tactics and Tools
9
9
YouTube
10
10-11
Content Development
11
Assignments
11
Plan Recommendation
12
Monitoring
14
Tracking
14
Measuring
14
Quantitative KPIs
14
Qualitative KPIs
14
Evaluating
14
14
Tuning
15
Budget
15
Return on Investment
15
Appendix
16-21
2
Executive Summary
James Madison Universitys College of Business (JMUs CoB) has
multiple market segments it can target. The ages of the target markets
range from 16 to approximately 50. The younger portion makes up high
school students while the later years are JMU alumni who enjoy interacting
on social media. The market segments have rapidly increased over the years
because of the increase of social media use. Even though JMUs CoB appeals
to multiple market segments, it should focus on improving engagement and
interactions with high school students, transfer students, JMU business
majors, and potential JMU business majors.
The primary focus of this social media plan is to use social media
platforms to improve engagement among the target market. In order for the
plan to be successful it is important to have a set of goals in mind. Social
media goals for JMUs CoB include:
Have at least 500 member connections by the end of the school year
Strengthen the brand image, primarily among the incoming high school
student market segment.
Strengthen the CoB brand presence primarily among the ages of 17-25
market segment.
Produce more relevant content to increase the share of voice and user
engagement.
engaging. In addition, this plan describes how the status of social media
efforts will be tracked, measured, and evaluated.
A detailed budget towards the end of the plan, shows the cost of
implementing the plan. The plan concludes with a return on investment
analysis. The team leaders responsible for preparing, overseeing, and
executing the plan include Corrie Breshears, Natalie Krewin, Marisa Righi,
and Mitchell Wilt.
Brief Overview
JMUs CoB has created a strong reputation as an impressive business
school that challenges its students. Founded in 1972, the CoB fosters
knowledge in the majors of accounting, finance, computer information
systems, marketing, economics, management, and international business.
According to Bloomberg Businessweek, the CoB remains in the top 5%
of undergraduate business schools across the nation. The CoB was ranked
17th among public institutions and 40th among all business schools in 2014.
In 2013, the CoB was ranked 29th among all business schools. 68% of
students receive a Bachelors degree from JMU and out of that, business is
the most popular major choice with 16%.
There are four main market segments which we recommend the CoB to
target through its social media efforts. These include prospective students
who are high school graduates or transfer students (The Future Duke Dog),
CoB current students (The Duke Dogs), CoB alumni (The Expert Duke Dogs),
and potential employers (The CareerBuilders).
University of Virginia leads the pack placing fifth, based on the number
of followers, likes, subscribers, and group members. Bloomberg
Businessweek placed UVA number one in student satisfaction and in
educational experience. These two factors combined give the brand a
positive persona and online presence. William and Mary placed twentieth on
the list of social media friendliness. This business school focuses on
revolutionary thinking and experiential learning. Following far behind was
JMUs CoB, placing eighty-seventh. Finally, the business school at Elon was
not even found on the top 100 listing.
However, to fully understand JMU CoBs social media presence, it is
suggested to look at each platform individually through a social media audit.
Below are the five key performance metrics and their definition, as defined
by Oxford Dictionary :
Sentiment Analysis: The process of computationally identifying and
categorizing opinions expressed in a piece of text, especially in order
to determine whether the writers attitude towards a particular topic,
product, etc., is positive, negative, or neutral.
Reach: The extent or range of application, effect, or influence (I.E.
number of Twitter followers, Facebook fans, LinkedIn connections, and
YouTube views).
Company posts: Measure the amount of times a company posts on
the social media platform.
Feedback: Information about reactions to a product, a persons
performance of a task, etc., used as a basis of improvement (I.E. The
number of comments, views, likes, retweets to the companys
content).
Average response time: The amount of time between user
generated comment and company response.
As seen in Appendix D, it is evident there is the most social media
presence on the CoBs and marketing departments Facebook and Twitter
pages. Both platforms have a strong number of posts within a year, relative
to all other platforms used. However, all social media platforms lacked in
two-way conversation and engagement. Furthermore, LinkedIn and YouTube
had weak post numbers and content (little to none within a year). The
sentiment analysis reveals that JMUs CoB is not making effective use of its
social media platforms as of today.
Competitive Analysis
A SWOT analysis has been compiled to determine the strengths and
weaknesses of CoBs social media platforms of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube,
and LinkedIn. The SWOT analysis also illustrates possible opportunities and
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threats that may affect CoBs social media posts. This provides insights into
CoBs social media internal functionality and external influencers.
A general strategy found in Appendix item B can be formed utilizing
the SWOT information in Appendix item A. CoBs social media platforms
strengths and opportunities are significant, the SWOT Matrix recommends
carrying out the S-O (strength-opportunity) strategy. This strategy advises to
pursue opportunities on social media platforms that are a good fit for the
CoBs strengths. As a result of this SWOT profile, the CoB should focus
resources on the social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and
LinkedIn. These platforms represent the best opportunities for the company
and emphasizes the CoBs strengths.
S-O Strategy: Follow social media platform opportunities that match
the CoBs strengths on the social web.
W-O Strategy: Overcome weaknesses in social media platform
development and performance in order to take advantage of
opportunities on the social web.
S-T Strategy: Identify ways the organization can use its platform
strengths to reduce its vulnerability to external threats from
competitors including other business schools on the social web.
W-T Strategy: Creates a protective strategy for the CoB that reduces
the chances the organizations social media weaknesses will make it
vulnerable to external threats.
Goals
In consideration of company and competition research, it is apparent
that JMUs CoB has several opportunities of growth through a comprehensive
social media plan. The overall goal of the social media plan is to gain brand
awareness and increase user engagement. Below are more specific
quantitative and qualitative goals for each social media platforms:
Quantitative
1. Facebook- Increase the word-of-mouth by 20% on the site.
Goal: Increase number of applicants to JMU declaring a CoB major for
Fall semester of 2016.
2. Twitter- Boost engagement by averaging 3 retweets or replies per
tweet.
Goal: Increase number of followers of the JMU CoB Twitter account by
100 by the end of the
school year.
6
3. YouTube- Have one new video every month for one academic year.
Goal: To have at least 5 likes for each video.
4. LinkedIn- Create 20 member connections by the end of 1 month after
implementation.
Goal: Have at least 500 member connections by the end of the school
year.
Qualitative
1. Facebook- Produce more relevant information to create depth and
discussion on the site.
Goal: Strengthen the brand image, primarily among the incoming high
school student
market segment.
2. Twitter- Produce more relevant content to increase the share of voice
and audience engagement.
Goal: Increase word of mouth through recommendations.
3. YouTube- Produce more current content to gain more views, subscribers
and generate more comments.
Goal: Strengthen the CoB brand presence primarily among the ages of
17-25 market
segment.
4. LinkedIn- Produce a visually appealing page to increase connections
and overall interest.
Goal: Increase traffic and conversions by utilizing CEO and key-word
searches.
Strategies
JMUs CoB will pursue a specific set of strategies for the social media
plan. Even though the strategies range in risk and difficulty, CoB will be able
to achieve them though high help efforts from faculty, alumni, business
students, and SMAD students. With all the help, the strategies can be
achieved. The CoBs comprehensive social media strategies include:
the brand. This would give JMUs CoB more insight on what gets people
talking about its brand and how it can be improved.
JMUs CoB should use one Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to spread the
word about the CoB rather than each business major spreading
different messages. This will eliminate confusion and make it easier to
find out what is going on in the CoB.
Target Market
The CoB has several target markets that it wants to appeal to:
The Duke Dogs- This segment consists of JMU business students as well as
JMU students deciding whether or not to declare a business major. Current
business students will be interested in events that CoB offers, such as guest
speakers and networking events. Current students will also be interested in
important deadlines for things such as CoB 300 and graduation applications.
JMU students who think they might want to declare a business major might
want to know the ranking of JMUs CoB or even information from current
students who enjoy being a business major.
The Future Duke Dogs- This segment includes high school students as well
as transfer students. Both high school students and transfer students will be
interested in similar things, such as the atmosphere of the business school,
its ranking, majors offered, and events/clubs students can be involved in.
These potential students will also want to see the accomplishments of
current students as well as the faculty.
The Expert Duke Dogs- This segment includes JMU alumni. Alumni will
want to see how the CoB is improving, which might incentivize them to
donate money to the program. Also, JMU alumni could also be potential
employers to current JMU students.
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Tools
The social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube)
were chosen by the demographics of the previously mentioned market
segments. By selecting these platforms, the CoB is capable of having a high
concentration of the target market engaged in the brand. The different target
markets determined the type of social media platform chosen. For example,
Facebook was chosen because the The Duke Dog and The Future Duke Dog
market segments range between the ages of 17 and 22, the prime age of
Facebooks highest users. By choosing Facebook, JMUs CoB will have a
means of connecting and engaging effectively and efficiently with its market
segments. Furthermore, Facebook allows for real time informational and
social sharing, all of which the CoB should be accomplishing.
Due to the high, real time sharing aspect of Twitter, the overall
positivity of tweets should increase from its current standing. Twitter also
allows for tracking viewer comments and responses. All market segments
would benefit from the use of Twitter.
YouTube was chosen as an effective tool in order to increase visual
sharing. JMUs CoB would utilize video sharing in an attempt to increase user
generated content. Examples of videos created and produced are videos of
JMU alumni sharing their success after college because of their experience in
CoB. In addition, as seen in Appendix F, there will be a video showing current
students volunteer work in the community. This will increase the overall
positivity of each post and allow for sharing across social media platforms.
Furthermore, YouTube was selected to increase brand awareness in the
Expert Duke Dog and Future Duke Dog market segments.
Given the professionality of the CareerBuilders market segment,
LinkedIn was chosen in order to improve the quality of relationships as well
as increasing overall brand positivity in the business community.
Therefore, as discussed above, the social media platforms selected
correlate well with the selected market segments. By aligning the platforms
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this way, owned and paid content will eventually become earned content.
This is achieved by increasing brand awareness through strengthening brand
persona and user engagement.
Implementation
The competitive analysis, goals, strategies, target market, and tools
were all taken into consideration when creating the following social media
tactics. This part of the plan will also indicate how content will be generated
for each social media platform chosen (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and
YouTube). Lastly, this plan will specify the specific staff members responsible
for carrying out the tactics.
Twitter: Twitter is currently the fourth most popular social media platform,
with over 307 million users. Twitter is great social media platform to reach
people on the go, so it is important to post messages that are short and to
the point. Lastly, Twitter is a great platform for engaging directly with
customers so it is important to respond in a timely manner. The following
tactics will be used to engage more closely with the younger part of CoBs
target audience:
Respond to questions and comments in a timely manner. If it could be
within 1 hour that would be ideal.
Average at least three tweets a day. Over time the number of tweets
per day could increase depending on the amount of interactions per
day JMUs CoB is receiving.
Create branded hashtags that the JMU CoBs target audience can use.
Use Ow.ly to shorten links in order to share interesting articles, videos,
and other news pertaining to JMUs CoB.
Follow Twitter users that engage with the JMU CoB Twitter page.
Retweet others who share positive messages about JMUs CoB.
Go to business classes and ask students to follow the Twitter account.
LinkedIn: LinkedIn is the most popular social media platform for
professional networks. LinkedIn has over 400 million members in over 200
countries and territories. This social media platform would be ideal for the
CoB to utilize in order to appeal to potential employers. LinkedIn would also
be a useful platform to illustrate JMU CoBs brand image and serve as a
connection platform for CoB alumni, potential employers, and current
students.
Organize LinkedIn accounts to create a similar image between the CoB
page, CoB accounting page and CoB marketing page.
Key CoB professors should strive to complete 100% of their profiles
and optimize with appropriate keywords.
CoB professor, student, and alumni profiles should include links to the
company website, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
CoB professors, students, and alumni should ask for recommendations
to show credibility.
Post a thought-provoking announcement once a day.
Participate in industry groups (business schools and business topics) a
minimum of once per week to build brand awareness and establish
credibility.
Connect with industry thought leaders and participate in their posts
once a month.
Build relationships with companies interested in hiring JMU CoB
graduates.
Go to business classes and ask students to connect with the JMU CoB
LinkedIn.
11
YouTube: YouTube is the second most popular social media platform, with
more than 1 billion unique visitors per month. As more people prefer to view
their information visually, this social platform will be key for engaging
customers. Also, YouTube is a great social media platform to utilize because it
is easy to share content on YouTube on other platforms. The following tactics
will be used to increase customer engagement in a visually appealing way:
Create videos that show students helping out the local community.
Create videos showcasing students in each major.
Create videos that focus on events that JMUs CoB puts on.
Tag videos with relevant keywords to rank higher in the YouTube search
engine.
Videos should not be longer than 2 minutes because people lose
interest. Use YouTube Analytics to analyze videos to see when viewers
lose interest.
Embed the logo/image for JMUs CoB in all videos.
Post one video per month.
Reply to comments daily.
CONTENT DEVELOPMENT
12
ASSIGNMENTS
In order to execute platform-specific tactics and generate content,
specific roles and responsibilities will be assigned based on expertise, staff
availability, and allocated budget. Since JMUs CoB social media is in the
beginning stages there will not be a large staff managing social media. The
following personnel will be involved in the implementation of the social
media plan:
Carrie Wood, Director of Integrated Marketing Communications
SMAD student workers
Plan Recommendations
As seen in the sentiment analysis (Appendix item C) it is suggested
that overall owner engagement and involvement be increased. It is
recommended that each social media site be integrated into one main site.
For example, Facebook marketing, accounting, and economics pages should
be mentioned on the CoB Facebook page to better integrate a consistent
brand image across all platforms. Below is a listing of the social media
platform suggestions per existing page:
Facebook Marketing: The social media engagement is low due to
little to no two-way conversation. In fact, nearly 47% of all posts had
absolutely no interaction (likes, shares, comments, etc.). In addition,
most posts made by the owner are informational based, leading to a
neutral sentiment analysis decision. Moving forward on this page, it is
recommended to decrease the number of informational posts and
increase the number of thought and question driven posts. From here,
engagement on both ends should increase.
Facebook Accounting: The Facebook accounting page lacked in all
areas of brand communication (quality, quantity, brand awareness,
etc.). In addition, the page lacked informational posts. Combining these
areas of weakness has lead the page to have no engagement. It is
suggested that the Facebook accounting page should revamp its
approach to increase social media presence. As of today, only four
posts were made within one year. So, to start, it is best to increase the
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Monitoring
TRACKING
The CoB will create a plan to track keywords and topics. By
determining these keywords and topics the school will gain more interaction
on its social media sites. Studying people and their interests will give insight
into what gets them talking.
MEASURING
Social media measurement determines the amount of content and the
attitude of the brand and topic on social media. The amount of content such
as posts, comments, likes, tweets, retweets are all quantitative metrics. The
actual thoughts about the brand meaning any feedback, mentions,
comments, and conversations are qualitative metrics.
Both qualitative and quantitative metrics are Key Performance
Indicators (KPIs). KPIs are business metric measures that evaluate the
success of organization. It is crucial to choose the correct KPIs and ensure
that they align with the social media goals of the company quantitative
metrics and KPIs need to relate to SMART goals (Specific, Measureable,
Attainable, Realistic, Timely).
EVALUATING
In order to determine how successful the social media plan is, the CoB
must ensure there is a close relationship between the goals and the social
media metrics. The key is to see which strategies work towards
accomplishing the social media goals and which do not. Strategies that do
not help accomplish goals should be changed.
monitoring tool. The price is reasonable while it offers tools for Twitter,
Facebook, LinkedIn along with click stats (Appendix item H).
Tuning
In order for the social media plan to be implemented correctly, your
social media marketing team will have to constantly monitor and adjust
elements of the plan to increase the chances of success. The social media
strategies will continually be accessed, and the strategies and tactics will be
changed accordingly in order for goals to be achieved. Reevaluating goals,
strategies, tactics, and plan execution is key because of the ever-changing
nature of consumer tastes, the economy, competition, and technology. For
example, for now four social media platforms should be enough, but in the
future JMUs College of Business might want to consider acquiring more
social media platforms like Instagram. Therefore, the marketing team should
always be looking to fine-tune the social media plan in order to maximize the
plans results.
Budget
Sharepoint will have no cost for implementing the social media plan
because JMU offers a free version to faculty and students at this time. Video
specialist, content creation, and copy editor will also be at no cost due to the
volunteer help from JMU SMAD students.
We recommend investing in Hootsuite Pro because this tool will help
monitor and measure the results from multiple social media platforms.
Hootsuite Pro will give results in an efficient way and help optimize
resources. This is an attractive option by ensuring only one password for
several people to access Hootsuite and oversee each other's activity.
Facebook would also be utilized on a daily bases to track post engagement
and monitor usage of advertisements. The cost of this will be $1 per day.
Therefore, the total budget allocated for the social media plan would be
$484.88 for the first year of implementation.
Return on Investment
Due to the fact that the social media goals for JMU CoB are not directed
towards sales and increasing profitability, ROI is not needed. Instead, the JMU
CoB should use Proxy ROIs. Proxy ROIs measure the long-term impact of
17
Appendix
Appendix A) SWOT Analysis
Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Staff, students, and alumni are
enthusiastic and proud of JMU
COB
Ability to utilize several resources
that JMU has for example, SMAD
students for video/ content
creation
Threats
Other business schools have a
strong social media presence
Competitors include aggressive
social media strategies across the
web
Competitors have their own brand
community demonstrated through
18
Strengths (S)
Weaknesses (W)
Opportunities (O)
S-O strategy
W-O strategy
Threats (T)
S-T strategy
W-T strategy
19
20
KPI Formula
KPI (One-year)
Performance
Targets
Word of Mouth
Share of Voice
(SV)
SV= Brand
Mentions / Total
Mentions
=1191
= 12% word of
mouth
Increase to 15%
word of mouth
Word of Mouth
Audience
Engagement
(AE)
AE= Comments +
Shares / Total
Views
= 393,163
= 1.2% word of
mouth
20% increase to
24% word of
mouth
YouTube
Word of Mouth
Conversation
Reach (CR)
CR=
Total People
Participating /
Total Audience
Exposure
Increase to 5
likes per video
21
= 277996
0.3 likes per video
*Unable to
compute based on
lack of LinkedIn
social media
presence
22
No Cost
$119.88
Facebook Ads
$365
No Cost
No Cost
$484.88
YOUTUBE
LINKEDIN
23
Boost engagement
by averaging 3
retweets or replies
per tweet.
Create 20 member
connections by the end
of 1 month after
implementation.
30% growth in
number of followers
70% increase in
number of videos
viewed
35% growth in
number of retweets
50% increase in
number of unique
visitors
20% increase in
number of shares
15% growth in
number of mentions
15% increase in
number of positive
comments
24