SOCIAL MEDIA PRODUCT STRATEGY

This is a first person view of conceptualizing a social media strategy.

Analyze Existing Media

            I’d like to start by analyzing my newest digital marketing venture into marketing. I work with a lady who creates jewelry and while taking this class I thought I could help her with advertising. I setup her up on Etsy, where I helped her take photos and post descriptions of all her items. I find that it is very important to use keywords when selling something so that it makes it easier for buyers to find an item they are looking for. I also proposed business cards. I know that a lot of people don’t think those are “in” but I really felt like while she’s at a craft festival or something similar a business card would be helpful as a reminder to customers. I also created a Facebook page for her jewelry and I think it will be really beneficial when we link it to Etsy. One of the biggest obstacles will be showing how her jewelry is different from others.

Identify the Social Media Trinity

            Social Media Trinity – blogging, microblogging and social networks. After doing some thorough research blogs are actually a great way to discover new recipes and creative ideas. I know until I researched this I thought blogs were more for book reviews and it turns out they are so much more than that. I found a blog called Diamonds in the Library. Becky who runs the blog makes amazing looking jewelry. It gave me great ideas for a jewelry blog to help my friend sell her jewelry. I think that it’s important to see what’s out there before I just go off on a rampage with someone else’s stuff. Regarding microblogging, I’m actually not a huge fan of twitter. To me twitter feels more like short character arguing, Twitter wars if you like. There are so many overopinionated crazies out there it doesn’t seem like it’s worth the time. Now Facebook, I have already created a page for her. I would say 95% of people I know use Facebook. It’s easy to invite people to your page and to setup online jewelry parties. You can also promote your page, it does cost money but I don’t really think the cost is too bad compared to other promotion sites.

Integrate Strategies

            Now that the social media sites have been decided upon and the trinity decided upon they should be put together. The point is to have all of the social media sites setup and working together. Obviously, I will use them independently to reach different audiences. I will be reachable via the social network sites as a back up to the friend I’m creating this for. I will keep to the point of newspaper ads because a lot of older ladies enjoy costume jewelry and that target audience is going to be reached by the newspapers. Through Facebook you can reach the Etsy site to purchase and have your jewelry shipped to you.

Identify Resources

            So now that I have these sites registered for her I need to figure out how to manage to keep them up and running. It can be extremely time consuming to constantly update webpages, social media sites and blogs. There are a lot of bots that could be used to maintain activity on the sites but we want to go with a more personable approach. There are a lot of people who are interested in internships that could be hired for running the sites, in the back ground of course. I don’t think I would entrust them to be the “face” of someone else’s company that would be a lot of responsibility starting out.

Implement and Measurement

The sites should be up and running at least two months before the business technically opens. I think that gives a far enough amount of time to get everything lined up. Etsy is helpful in that your sale posts last several months before they expire. Also on Facebook I can track the daily/weekly visitor log. I can also sponsor the page which is nice. I think running giveaways and asking questions for freebies is also a great way to get feedback from potential customers. I also think I want to track the visitors from the other social mediate and blog sites so creating a spreadsheet would probably be the best idea. The goal is I want to be able to save her money while getting her the best ROI.

References

Safko, L. (2012). The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success, 3rd Edition. Retrieved from https://vitalsource.com/#/books/