Social Media Marketing Plan - Assignment Example

? Social Media Marketing Plan Outline “Lips-to-Go” Restaurant I. Introduction A. The importance of social media. According to Turner and Shah (2010), Social media has become the hub of modern marketing and advertising. Unlike traditional advertising media such as television and print media, social media provides for a very interactive method and engages the people at a more personal level. Social media is also a very economical way of advertising because most of the services are free. For the services which one has to pay for in the social media platform, one only pays for the actual number of people who actually accessed the advertisement. Social media provides for a platform where the target market can interact with the business by responding to the messages which the organization posts online. II. General Company Description. A. Name, location, product/services. Lips-to-Go is a restaurant and cafe located in Burlington, Iowa. Lips-to-Go offers foods of all types to its customers. Apart from selling food to individual customers, Lips-to-Go also offers mass catering services to groups and parties. For instance, the restaurant offers catering for graduation ceremonies, wedding catering and other social functions. The dishes include dishes of baked chicken, pizza, salads, soups, various other variations of chicken, lip specials, etc. B. Local demographics / target audience. Lips-to-Go is located in Burlington, Iowa. The local population of Burlington is about 25,665 people according to 2010 population census. Of the 25,665, residents in Burlington, about 23.7% are under the age of 18 while only about 6.9% are under the age of 5. This leaves 16.8% of the population in the age between 6 and 18 which is a prime target for social media marketing. Furthermore, of the 25,665 people in Burlington, only 17.4% are 65 years and over. This leaves about 58.9 to be between the ages between 18 and 64. Given this demographics, it is an indication that most of the residents in Burlington are at an age where they are active users of social media. Given the statistics, it could mean that between 30% and 40% of the population are active social media users. This means that by just using social media and the internet in general for marketing and promotion, Lips-to-Go will have reached to over 40% of the market. III. Social Branding / Identity Recognition / Online Presence A. Social media platforms. 1. Company website According to Li and Bernoff (2011), using social media starts with having a well designed modern website. As of now, Lips-to-Go does not have a business website. This is a big setback for Lips-to-Go’s online strategy and the business should consider having a well designed website. Lips-to-Go will design a website and use it to advance its business. While the social media is a good platform for Lips-to-Go to have an online presence, most social media don’t give the users as much control as the business would require with regard to sharing information about the firm (Kabani, 2013). In this regard, a well designed website should be developed which will help the firm have a well branded online presence. The website will be the heart of the online branding for Lips-to-Go while the social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube will be anchored to the website and act as a complement for the website. The website will also be used for other promotional activities such as online ordering etc. 2. Facebook. a) Lips-to-Go has a Facebook page which was established a while ago. The Facebook account is used to post various messages regarding Lips-to-Go, posting photographs of the various kinds of dishes which Lips-to-Go serves, etc. b) Although Lips-to-Go has been having this account for a long time, there is an indication of lack of consistent activity, maintenance and management of the account. Lips-to-Go seems to only update its Facebook status only once in a while and fails to engage its subscribers with daily updates. Lips-to-Go should come up with a strategy which will make it possible for the organization to be able to use the Facebook account in a way that will help in engaging the customers. Lips-to-Go already has about 800 likes of its Facebook account, and this has been achieved without any form of advertising. Lips-to-Go should look for ways to advertise its Facebook account in order to increase its likes and its subscriber base on Facebook. Lips-to-Go should use the Facebook advertising features which help the fan page owners to promote their pages in order to increase their fan base. This will come at a small fee since Facebook charges for every like the page gets from their advertisements. 3. Twitter is a micro-blogging site which can be used to engage the customers of an organization. A lot of organizations and businesses including the world’s largest businesses such as Hewlett Packard, Apple, Google and many others are using twitter to as a way to engage their customers especially with issues regarding customer service. Lips-to-Go must understand that as long as it is serving the public, there will always be those who may be dissatisfied with the service or products. Dealing with issues such as these is now done more on the internet through such media as Twitter unlike the traditional ways of using telephones. Putting up a customer support center which listens and talks to the customers’ concerns online through mediums such as Twitter is one of the best things that an organization such as Lips-to-Go can do. Unfortunately, Lips-to-Go does not have a twitter account, and this means that the business is missing an opportunity to engage the customers through this important medium. In this regard, Lips-to-Go should open a twitter account which is completely free and start engaging their potential and existing customers online using this online media. 4. YouTube is another free online medium, owned by the internet giant Google. This is a channel which can be used to share promotional videos for a business. Lips-to-Go so far does not have any YouTube account, and this is another setback with regard to its online presence and social media marketing. YouTube accounts are free to open and Lips-to-Go need one in order to share promotional videos with customers about the food, the services the menus etc. YouTube has recorded enormous success since it was founded and the number of videos shared on YouTube has indicated that people are very interested in watching short informative, humorous video clips. Every day, millions of videos are uploaded to YouTube, all for free and hundreds of then trend worldwide. Lips-to-Go should open an account which will be used to engage the customers, especially potential customers as a way to increase its customer base. 5. LinkedIn is a social site which helps professionals around the world to share their professional details. Lips-to-Go can talk with its professionals about having well managed LinkedIn accounts, and this may help in creating and managing the online image of Lips-to-Go. 6. Yelp is another online social media provider and concentrates on social reviews of businesses by the public. Businesses open an account in yelp.com and the public can log into Yelp.com and rate the services and products of a business. The public rates the business using a five star scale where an individual can give a rating of one to five stars. Apart from rating, the members of the public can also write a review of a business especially with regard to the quality of service and the quality of the products. The reviews can be positive or negative depending on how the individual felt about the services or services of a certain business. This can be a very good way to know what people really think about the business (Kabani, 2013). If the business is rated high and given positive reviews, it is a very good way to reach to more customers because potential customers can judge the business based on what others are saying about it. If the business on the other received negative reviews, Lips-to-Go will use the information to know where to improve in order to get positive reviews in the future. B. All the internet platforms including the website should be interlinked in order to make it easier for users to use the media. C. Content types. 1. Photographs The different kinds of social media determine what kind of content can be shared on them. With regard to photographs, Facebook and twitter are the best social media on which to share this kind of information. Sharing photographs can be a very good promotional method as Lips-to-Go can use this to showcase their various products. Lips-to-Go for instance can share the photographs of their daily special dishes in order to let the customers see them before getting to the restaurant and actually ordering them. A well taken photograph of a well prepared and served dish can act as a way to attract customers, either instantly or in the future. 2. Video testimonials can be uploaded on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. YouTube is, however, the best of the three principally because it is primarily designed for video sharing. Lips-to-Go can use short videos to communicate to customers about various issues. The videos can be videos of testimonial from customers who have used and liked Lips-to-Go’s products and services. At the same time, Lips-to-Go can upload video clips about other issues such as sharing on the preparation methods of the various dishes. 3. Specials- the social media platforms will also be used to share about the special dishes of the restaurant. Like any traditional restaurant, Lips-to-Go has daily special dishes which change every day. Sharing both video and photographs of this will be a good way to promote the business. IV. Monitoring / Action Details. A. Using social media needs a way to determine just how effective the campaign is. It would be very unwise for Lips-to-Go to just use social media and fail to have a way to determine how effective this is. This, as Safko (2012) argues, is especially so with regard to the tools which will cost the firms some money. Most social media platforms have advertising tools and also provide tracking tools which are used by the users to determine how useful or effective use of these advertisements are. 1. Facebook Insights is for instance a tool provided by Facebook to users in order for them to gauge how effective their advertising campaigns in Facebook were. This tool is used to measure the growth of the fan base, the growth of interaction rates with the fan such as how often and how much the funs respond to posts etc. Lips-to-Go will use this tool to determine how successful its use of Facebook advertising tool is. 2. YouTube insights also work almost the same way as Facebook insights. The basic idea is to provide users with a way to measure just how effective their campaigns on the social media platform have been. In YouTube, insights are used to measure the rate at which the videos uploaded by the users have been shared and viewed. Lips-to-Go will use this tool to determine how successful its use of YouTube is. 3. Google analytics and LinkedIn analytics will also help in identifying the effectiveness of the Lips-to-Go’s campaigns on these social media platforms. B. Regular postings will be necessary in order to keep the customers engaged. Lips-to-Go should be able to be consistent in the way it uploads and updates content online in order to ensure that customers hear from Lips-to-Go every day so as to keep the memory of Lips-to-Go in the minds of its customers. This should however be controlled in order to avoid annoying the customers with excessive and boring information. C. Monitoring customer feedback will a los be an important part of managing the Lips-to-Go social media platforms. In fact as Safko (2012) says, this is the whole idea behind having a vibrant social median presence in order to solicit for customer feedback and act on it. Yelp will especially be very useful in getting customer feedback on which to act on and make Lips-to-Go a better business. D. Providing appropriate responses will be a requirement in order to managing good relations with the customers. This means that those who will be mandated with the function of managing the social media accounts must be well educated on customer service as well as public relations. V. Conclusion Lips-to-Go will need to develop a new and well planned online presence plan. Social media is becoming such a serious issue with regard to businesses managing their image and their interactions with the public that most businesses are taking it a notch higher by hiring a whole team of professionals to manage their social media platforms. Lips-to-Go should not be left behind in this because if fails, its competitors will beat it on this end, and this could have dire consequences on the future of the business. In line with this, it is important for Lips-to-Go to hire at least one professional and experienced online relations employee who will be dedicated in helping to ensure that that the business is able to manage its online presence and image. This will include making sure that Lips-to-Go has a sleek and technically sound website which is well maintained. The online relations human resource will also be mandated with the responsibility of making sure that all the social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Yelp are well managed by updating and uploading content on a daily basis. For the more dynamic platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, the updates will need to be done a number of times a day. For YouTube platform, the video uploads may be done on a daily basis but ensuring regularity and consistency. References Kabani, S. (2013). The Zen of Social Media Marketing: An Easier Way to Build Credibility, Generate Buzz, and Increase Revenue. Dallas, TX: BenBella Books. Li, C. & Bernoff, J. (2011). Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press. Safko, L. (2012). The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success Wiley Desktop Editions. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Turner, J. & Shah, R. (2010). How to Integrate Social Media into Your Marketing Plan. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. Read More