bf4f social media strategy
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BF4F Social media strategy
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1. INTRODUCTION
An analysis on BF4F campaign holistically was done with placing emphasis on the
social media strategy. This social media strategy seeks to understand the current
situation of this campaign (Grauman, Koekemoer, 2011), specifically the content
and usage of Twitter and Facebook amongst University of Johannesburg students
and that is done through field research and focus groups (see appendix B). The
outcome of this strategy illustrates what the target audience appreciates and wants
from the campaign; this then informed the decision of the omnipresence and
extreme continuity strategies to solve the problem to ensure maximum student
engagement and changing the power to them as content managers. To unpack this,
the current situational analysis will be discussed as well as the social network
strategy and implementation thereof.
2. SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS
A questionnaire with both open-ended and close-ended questions was designed to
discover the current situation of BF4F in the minds of students (see Appendix B).
100 questionnaires were sent out with each campus having 25 questionnaires to get
an understanding of student’s view on BF4F and their preferred content on the
social networks. Furthermore four focus groups were established (see Appendix C)
to discuss the same content as the questionnaires however there were no
restrictions to the questions as some questions lead to other discussions within the
scope of BF4F. The focus groups were held in informal environments, mostly
student centers and around the university campuses. A summary of the finding is
illustrated using a bar graph and pie chart to demonstrate the number of student’s
views on each category, see below;
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PREFERRED MEDIA CONTENT
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Knowledge onBF4F
Willingness toassociate with it
CurrentPartcipants
The Know on BF4F
1st years
Seniors
Post Graduate
23%
8%
18% 12%
13%
26%
Media Content
Inspirational content
Current Affairs discussions
UJ Students Success stories
UJ initiatives
University Support structures
general fun content (humour)
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3. BF4F SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
3.1 The Parameters
This is an analysis of the brief, the objectives that the social media strategy
seeks to achieve. The fundamental objective of this is to ensure increased
usage of the social networks that is an increase in social network interactivity. In
addition ensure relevant communication to students and finally to involve
students in the content of BF4F social communities.
3.2 Media Objectives
This showcases the campaign in environments that demonstrate how BF4F fits
into the target lives. In addition to communicate BF4F at usage occasion; that is
through content that benefits them, the relevancy that the content would have on
target audience. To establish supporting mediums to advertise the social
networks, this will be deliberated further under the strategy and implementation.
3.3 The Landscape
It is important to scrutinize the trends within the said domain so that it may guide
one’s media strategy. One trend that has been predicted in 2014 is ‘internet of
caring things’; the audience appreciate value added communication, tips on how
they can better themselves or even save money (trendwatching, 2014). In
addition there is a global brain, in 2014 consumers will become more global,
local, flattering and cosmopolitan; which means that global discussions amongst
consumers will emerge from all corners of the globe through social mediums
(trendwatching, 2014). With these two communication trends in mind and also
analyzing our target market, it will be of outmost importance to engage with
them in such a manner, this will be elaborated more on the strategy.
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3.4 Target Audience
This is who the campaign is aimed at, what sort of attitudes or behavior needs to be
changed in order to achieve the set objectives. A deeper understanding of what media the
target market consumes and how they consume it also needs to be grasped. The target
audience is University of Johannesburg students, for the purpose of this strategy an
archetype has be selected to assist in answering the questions listed above on attitudes,
behavior, media choice and usage. ‘The know-how Digital Natives: net generation’ this is a
person who was born during or after the general introduction of digital technologies and
through interacting with digital technology from an early age, has a greater understanding
of its concepts. Alternatively, this term can describe people born during or after the 2000s,
as the digital age began at that time; but in most cases, the term focuses on people who
grew up with the technology that became prevalent in the latter part of the 20th century and
continues to evolve today, they understand the value of digital technology and uses this to
seek out opportunities for implementing it with a view to make an impact. They also
characterized by their use of smartphones as it is the first thing the digital consumer looks
at when he or she wakes up in the morning; he or she takes it everywhere and looks at it
several times an hour (CHARTON, 2014). Digital natives’ characteristics include:
They want freedom in everything they do, from freedom of choice to freedom
of expression.
They love to customize, personalize.
They are the new scrutinizers.
They look for corporate integrity and openness when deciding what to buy
and where to work. .
They want entertainment and play in their work, education, and social life.
They are the collaboration and relationship generation on social networks
They have a need for speed – and not just in video games.
They are innovators
Enjoy media snacking; that is using different media at the same time (e.g.
listening to music, being on twitter and simultaneously surfing the net.
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These characteristics suggest that digital natives want communication that is
personalized to them; they operate on a target market of one hence they don’t
believe in being categorized. This poses a challenge to marketers as it can be a
crisis to speak to individuals in isolation however this can be curbed by ensuring
that the content of the message is customized to what they want to hear and
using the individual centralized words to get their attention.
3.5 The Strategy
This is the section where everything discussed above comes together. All
details regarding the strategy in detail (Williams, 2011). Two strategies are
selected for social mediums, the Omnipresence strategy and extreme continuity
strategy.
3.5.1 Omnipresence Strategy
A full broadside that will cause a social media storm, especially when the
prime objective is to achieve a widespread and instant popularization of
the service, in this case the BF4F campaign. Three social media platforms
will be utilized; Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Facebook is the leading
site with 9.6 million users in South Africa while Twitter has 5.5 Million
users (Meier, 2013). BF4F Twitter and Facebook pages will have the
same strategy and will be used simultaneously, to achieve this; the twitter
account and Facebook page will be linked to ensure consistency and
synergy.
As discussed above on the media content, students selected what content
they want to discuss on social networks. Therefore as they will be the
audience targeted, it is of high importance to centralize the content to
them. Several topics will be discussed on Twitter and Facebook to ensure
a holistic student experience including;
Motivational quotes, phrases, real life scenario’s to inspire students
to reach their full potential, to prepare them for the brightest future
and embody the qualities of a UJ graduate. This will fall under the
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inspirational content; this is will take up 23% of the content on
BF4F pages.
Current Affairs: An analysis and discussions on what’s happening
in the country and globally, this is promote the quality of being
knowledgeable, being a global citizen, broadminded and promote
leadership qualities, this will form 8% of the BF4F content.
UJ Success stories: Give coverage on UJ students that are
succeeding in their own right. The university success stories will
also be discussed on this platform, the objective of this is to ensure
that students draw motivation from their fellow colleagues and
show support in their endeavors. This is to work on the UJ
graduate quality of being smart and agile. 18% of the BF4F content
will cover this.
UJ Initiatives: To ensure that students know about the initiatives
that the university is working on. This includes faculty events, book
reviews, and charity events and so on. This content will take12% of
the pages.
UJ Support Structures: To ensure that students know and utilize
the services of different support structures within the university;
from ADC, Psycad, campus health, People with disabilities, IOHA,
etc. This category will make up 13% of the content on the pages.
General fun content: To make the pages interesting, students will
be encouraged to come up with topic they would like to discuss,
they will help increase engagement and also give them control of
what they want to discuss and their own time. In addition this
category also includes pictures taken at events to encourage
students to tag themselves on our Facebook page hence bring
awareness of the page. This portion will have 26% coverage. An
insert on the latest fashion per season will also be included as well
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as health related information. Inclusion of this will ensure diversity
and open-minded approach to also bring about entertainment,
including comedy. It also support the communication 2014 trend
‘internet of caring things’, sharing this information confirms that we
are genuinely concerned about our students
LinkedIn has 2.7 million users, with 1.5 million groups, 3 million company pages
and 50% percent of users have undergraduate qualifications (Meier, 2013). This
is a great platform to discuss career development related topics. This will serve as
a notification platform of employment opportunities, online workshops on CV
writing, interview skills, and managing and positioning oneself as a brand. To
achieve this and to ensure that accurate and reliable information is put up, we will
be working with Psycad career center on this, mostly on the content. By posting
such will show students that we care about them and want to advance them in
their career path.
3.5.2 Extreme Continuity
This strategy often implies the usage of a single medium however can be used
to support the main strategy. It promotes continuity of the strategy. Such
continuity would involve the monopolization of a certain position, time channel,
and plan to safeguard rentless support for the campaign. The constant updating
of the creative message itself, ensuring that it remains fresh and intriguing; this
will mainly be used for both twitter and Facebook. This strategy will be used as
support strategy for the omnipresence strategy hence more media will be used
to achieve awareness of the Facebook and Twitter pages. The use of print
media (UJ Observer and posters), UJFM and promotional T-shirts will be used,
see below the implementation of both these strategies.
4. IMPLEMENTATION
This outlines which media platforms will be used, how they will be used, timing
of the activity and the execution of the medium (Williams, 2011). This section
also covers the budget needed to implement the two strategies.
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As outlined the main objectives of this social media strategy is to ensure
increased usage of the social networks that is an increase in social network
interactivity. In addition ensure relevant communication to students and finally to
involve students in the content of BF4F social communities. To achieve these,
several media platforms will be used, the first awareness campaign is a flash
mob with students wearing BF4F T-shirts in 4 campuses, therefore the media to
be used will include the UJ Observer to add an A6 advert promoting BF4F,
request UJFM DJ’s to announce this flash mob details. In addition taking
pictures of students during university events and encouraging them to tag
themselves on the pictures will also help gain popularity for the event. To ensure
vibrancy, 4-5 posts will be done daily. At this point, no budget is needed to
execute this; the T-shirts needed for the flash mob will be taken from the ones
we have in the store room.
5. MONITORING AND EVALUATION
To ensure that the strategy works, it needs to be monitored and evaluated. This
monitoring and evaluation will be done for all social networks used. For Twitter
and Facebook, special attention will be given to the number of views a particular
post has, the number of likes and retweets per post or tweet. In addition as the
objective is to increase activity, the number of people commenting is of high
importance. An increase in these will then prove that the strategy is working.
With Regards to LinkedIn the number of views per day will be considered, so is
the connections and the daily comments and messages from our connections.
6. CONCLUSION
This social media strategy is done to help BF4F achieve its objectives of
warranting increased usage of the social networks that is an increase in social
network interactivity. In addition ensure relevant communication to students and
finally to involve students in the content of BF4F social communities. The current
situational analysis was done to understand the current dynamics and those
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then guided the strategy. Research on the BF4F was done as well as the
preferred content on social networks was done. The results illustrated that
mostly postgraduates have heard of BF4F, whereas the knowledge of it on first
years and seniors is very low. The most preferred content is general fun topics,
inspirational content, UJ success stories and UJ support structures information.
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7. REFERENCE LIST
Charton, D. (2014). 8Four trends to shape the marketing and communications
landscape in 2014. http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/423/110691.html
(Accessed 10 March 2014)
Grauman, M, Koekemoer, L. (2011). Digital media. In The nuts ‘n bolts of media
planning. Edited by Belter, L: CTP printers Cape Town
Meier, G. (2013). The state of social media in South Africa 2013.
http://www.bluemagnet.co.za/blog/the-state-of-social-media-in-south-africa-
2013(Accessed 10 March 2014)
Trend Watching. (2014). "instant communication power by letting you post your
thoughts to the web whenever the urge strikes”.
h21ttp://trendwatching.com/trends/GENERATION_C.htm (Accessed 12 March
2014)
Williams, R. (2011). Media Strategy. In The nuts ‘n bolts of media planning. Edited
by Belter, L: CTP printers Cape Town
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5. APPENDICES
Appendix A: Summary of the Social Media Strategy
-----------------------------------------------
Parameters
Increase Usage
Relevant Content
Target Market
interactions
Starting point
Situational analysis
Target market
Outcome
Omnipresence
Extreme
continuity
Media Objectives
Landscape
The internet of caring things
Global brain
Target Audience
UJ Students
Archetype: Digital Natives
Insight
Digital natives want
brands to
communicate with
them not at them
and in a platform of
their choice at their
own convenience
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Strategy
Omnipresence
Strategy
;
Media Type
and Twitter
Rational
Communicate
with students in a
platform they
comfortable in
Extreme Continuity
Strategy
Media Type
Facebook and
Rational
Awareness and
involvement of
students in the
medium used
Implementation Guidelines
Daily interactions with students on Facebook and
Make them content managers
Poster features on UJ Observer as a supporting
medium for the social networks
Flash mob with students wearing BF4F T-shirts in
student center areas to encourage students to
follow, like and engage with them on social
networks
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Appendix B: Questionnaire
UJ BF4F Questionnaire
Please answer the following questions by either ticking or crossing on the applicable
answer. Please also elaborate when required to do so.
First year student Senior Student Post Graduate
1. Do know or have heard of UJ BF4F campaign?
Yes NO
If yes, where? ______________________________________________________
2. Are you active on social networks (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn)?
Yes No
3. What activities do you normally do when you logged in?
___________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
4. Do you like or follow pages on Twitter and Facebook and if yes, what do you look for
in
them?______________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
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5. Now that I have explained to you what BF4F is, which topics would you like to read
and talk about?
Fun Topic (Jokes,etc) UJ Initiatives UJ Events
Current Affairs Fellow UJ students achievements
Inspirational content UJ Facilities
Other ____________________________________________________________
6. UJ BF4F wants to create a LinkedIn account and upload career related material, do
you think it will be beneficial to UJ students?
Thank you for taking time to answer this questionnaire, all the best with your studies.
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Appendix C: Focus Group questions
UJ BF4F Focus group interview
1. How many of you have heard or know about UJ BF4F campaign?
2. Where do you know about it?
3. Are you active on social networks (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn)?
4. What activities do you normally do when you logged in online?
5. Do you like or follow pages on Twitter and Facebook?
6. When following or liking a page online, what do you look for in them?
7. Now that I have explained to you what BF4F is, which topics would you like to read
and talk about?
8. UJ BF4F wants to create a LinkedIn account and upload career related material, do
you think it will be beneficial to UJ students and why?
Thank you for taking time to be part of this focus group, all the best with your studies.