Author: Arend Pryor | Created: 09/01/2021
Details: Sharing content created as part of pursuing my MBA degree
Assignment Details:
Many digital and social media sites are widely used in marketing strategies.
Create a 10- to 15-slide presentation with detailed speaker notes and visual elements.
Complete the following in your presentation.
Identify a company that could benefit from better use of social media.
Analyze at least 10 digital and social media channels and describe the strengths and weaknesses of each of these as a marketing tool for this company.
Design an online strategy that maximizes the use of some or all of the digital and social media channels, as appropriate, based on your analysis.
Determine key performance indicators to measure the success of the online strategy.
Hi everyone and thank you for joining us today
My name is Arend Pryor and I will be presenting an analysis of a Company known as Alpha Win. If this name is not familiar to you, then you are in the right place, because we are here to talk about how this company can better utilize social media to improve their brand, increase customer interactions, and subsequently boost sales
Before we dive in, I want to give you an overview of what we will be covering
Looking at the agenda, this will include the following:
A brief overview of the company and details regarding their current social media presence
An analysis of 10 different digital and social media channels
A look at the proposed online strategy goals, details for how we plan to achieve these goals, and a look at the key performance indicators needed to measure our progress
After that we will wrap things up with a Q and A session
Lastly, we can review reference information for this presentation
With that, let’s go ahead and get underway
In this section we will do a quick overview of the company, for those who are not familiar, followed by a look at the company’s current social media presence
Alpha Win was started in 2011 under their former name, HITS Endurance, and is known for hosting triathlon races in some of the most popular destinations for travelers.
For those who might be unaware, a triathlon race is made up of three events done one after the other and includes swimming, biking, and then running.
The company takes great pride in being able to offer what they call, a distance for everyone, in order to appeal to beginners, weekend warriors who are looking to try something new, and those looking for a high-level challenge. For example, a beginner might try the Alpha Open distance race, which includes a 100 meter swim, followed by a three mile bike ride and ending with a one mile run. Those who have a few races under their belt might go for the Alpha 140.6, which is the longest distance with a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike ride followed by a marathon distance run.
Race locations include Napa California, New York, Florida and even Palm Springs.
For those not interested in racing, but want to get involved, the company also offers volunteer opportunities at each of their race locations, giving you a chance to give back and possibly work on your tan if volunteering in sunny Palm Springs (Alpha Win, 2021)
In terms of what they offer, the company does a great job hosting their races and attracts a good deal of participants to their races, which typically take place over the span of two days
From a social media perspective, the company is on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram, however, the frequency with which they post is sporadic and the content posted is somewhat limited and lacks prompts to engage their followers and those just viewing
While being on social media is important, not using these platforms frequently and failing to post engaging content will do little to increase brand awareness and improve sales (Author, 2021). This is the reason we are here today. To talk about how we can go about improving the company’s online presence.
In this section we will review a number of digital and social media channels that the Alpha Win company could use and talk about the strengths and weaknesses of each, if used by the company
I would be willing to guess that everyone here today has heard of Facebook. Some of you might have logged in to scroll through your feed just before this meeting. Either way, let’s start things off with the powerhouse of social media.
Strengths of this platform include:
Over 2 billion users are on this platform monthly
Over 80 million small businesses utilize the platform for advertising, and for good reason
The platform has been identified by marketers as one of the most important for marketers in a B2C and B2B capacity (Hartshorne, 2021)
Facebook marketing campaigns allow you to target your audience by demographics and interests
Weaknesses can include the following:
With so many users on the platform, some posts may receive negative comments or false statements
There are no guarantees that users will see company advertisements as their time spent on Facebook may be brief, or they might stop following your page
Larger companies with big marketing budgets can rank higher and be seen first (Webster, 2017)
The next social media platform we will review is Twitter.
Strengths of Twitter include:
Access to potentially 199 million daily active users
Followers on Twitter can be polled for feedback on questions you post such as how they feel about changes to triathlon race details
Twitter can also be a great method of advertising upcoming triathlon races or sharing updates
Weaknesses can include the following:
Message posts are limited to 280 characters (Hartshorne, 2021)
Posting a tweet is time sensitive and unless liked or shared, can be missed by followers if they log in much later
Posting tweets requires an on-going time commitment and potentially management of comments and content (NI Business Info, n.d.)
Moving on, let’s next take a look at Instagram
Strengths of this application include the following:
At their current size, Instagram has over 1 billion active users
Hashtags can be used and shared to improve branding and awareness of race locations and challenges
Ads can be linked with those purchased to run on Facebook, limiting the amount of time that needs to be spent on creating advertisements
Weaknesses:
Content (photos, videos and stories) must be engaging to get likes and follows
Users are less likely to click links on this platform
Options for ads purchased within Instagram are somewhat basic (Sorensen, 2021)
Next up is one of my personal favorites and where many of us turn to learn new skills and seek out quick bites of entertainment these days, YouTube.
Strengths of this platform include the following:
Posting videos on YouTube is free, which is a huge plus
Links to your channel or videos posted can be easily shared
Compared to other websites, YouTube allows users to upload longer videos
Weaknesses:
Companies must work to promote their own videos
Creating quality content can require a time investment and experience editing video content
Growth of subscribers can be a slow process (Pescosolido, 2019)
Next let’s take a look at the strengths and weaknesses of one of the most popular social media platforms today, TikTok.
Strengths of this platform include:
Strong base of users at 1.5 billion
Uploaded videos are short and do not require extensive editing
Video ads play automatically as users scroll through their feed
Weaknesses of this platform include:
Age range of their user base is between 10 and 29 years old, which includes only a portion of the company’s target market
Utilizing TikTok would require a resource to take on managing and uploading content
Pricing for ads is more expensive than Facebook (The editorial unit, 2020)
Snapchat would be an interesting choice for marketing as it has some similarities to TikTok, however, it currently does not have the same level of popularity.
Strengths include:
Strong user base at 166 million
Strong visual options make this application more engaging to users
Snapchat’s interface is said to be more intuitive and robust than competitors (Bhasin, 2019)
Weaknesses of this option are:
The number of daily users has been on the decline
There is a lack of useful analytics for measuring engagement of campaigns
Once viewed, content/ads are gone and are not available to view again by the same user (French, 2020b)
Next let’s take a look at WhatsApp. A very popular application for communicating, but not for sharing content.
Strengths of this application include:
Large number of users at 700 million
WhatsApp is noted as being top ranked for messaging and internet based calling
Can be marketed to triathletes who are part of a team as a way of communicating prior to an event
Weaknesses:
Privacy of customer data seems to still be a concern
The application lacks a group call feature, which may be a drawback for some
Plenty of competition exists for this type of application as this is an easy market to enter (Bhasin, 2018)
Switching gears for a moment, let’s talk about the option of blogging in order to increase customer engagement.
Strengths include the following:
Blog posts can be shared and drive traffic to the company’s website
This form of advertising increases customer engagement and forms relationships to improve brand loyalty
Posts can be customized to target specific audiences
Weaknesses can include:
Producing and managing content can be time consuming
Requires an engaging writing style and effective communication skills
Growth of an audience can be slow (Is It Worth Blogging for Your Business? Weighing the Pros and Cons, 2019)
Next up, we will take a brief look at what may be an unlikely candidate, Pinterest.
Strengths of Pinterest:
Pinterest is said to be a great option for driving traffic to your blog or website
Pinterest has a high conversion rate of users who ultimately purchase the products they see and pin
Based on the algorithm, items that are pinned to a user’s board increase the likelihood of showing up for others. Posts also have a long digital-life
Weaknesses:
Creating content can be time consuming
Primary users of Pinterest are females between the age of 25 and 50, which would limit our target audience on this platform (French, 2020a)
Unsure how successful event planners are with increasing participants for their events via posts on this platform
Lastly, let’s talk a bit about a platform that aligns very closely with our brand, Strava. This app is one of the gold standards used by triathletes everywhere to log and share their workouts. Think Facebook for physically active users.
Strengths of this platform include:
Triathlon related workouts and challenges can be shared to promote upcoming races and build a community
The primary users of the platform include our target market
User engagement is high based on the ability to map your workout route (if outdoors), tag gear, people and events
Weaknesses of this site include:
Not all users are interested in shared workouts as they have their own routine
For some athletes, training is seasonal leading to a decrease in use of the platform during their offseason
Creating a following of users can take time
Now that we have an overview of the most popular social media platforms as well as their strengths and weaknesses, we are going to review details for an online strategy aimed at improving the social media presence of Alpha Win.
The first step in this process is one of the most important and that is to establish some specific and measurable goals.
The creation of these goals is based on a comparison of how the company is currently utilizing social media combined with ideas of where they would like to see improvement.
This led to the creation of the following high-level goals. Specifics for each of these will be discussed in the slides that follow:
Item one is to increase our brand awareness
Next, we would like to improve engagement with our followers
Lastly, we would like to do more targeted advertising of our triathlon events
Next, let’s talk about how specifically we plan to accomplish each of these goals.
For the area of “increasing brand awareness,” we feel the best platforms to start with are Facebook and YouTube, both of which are currently used by the company. The difference going forward is that we want to focus on creating and sharing high-quality videos that not only promote our events, but also include the following key components:
Alignment with our company’s mission and vision
Showcase the determination of our competitors
Show appreciation for our volunteers and employees
Prominently include the Alpha Win logo
Have a short message from our company president
In the area of “improving user engagement,” we feel that Facebook, Instagram, and Strava would be the best platforms to utilize to get people talking and sharing our content with friends and family.
Starting with Facebook, the following are being suggested:
Producing and sharing high-quality videos that include the key components mentioned in the previous slide. We feel this will make a huge impact!
Additionally, we will continue to create Facebook posts that include flyers for upcoming races, however, these posts will also include engaging questions and information that encourage feedback from viewers/attendees.
We will also designate a social media resource to post short Facebook stories before, during and after the event. This might include race preparations/set-up, interviews with racers, finish line highlights, etc. We want these videos to be short, entertaining, and offer a peek into the races that take place in our various locations
Instagram:
Our Instagram account should be linked with our Facebook account so that stories can be shared on both platforms
We should increase the number of quality photos posted from our events
Signage should be utilized during events that encourage racers to tag our Instagram account in their photos and use event specific hashtags
Strava:
With Strava, we should start by creating an Alpha Win community where we share information about the mission and vision of the company. This should also include the company’s logo
Users who are part of this community can share their workouts and complete challenges that can be shared with their friends
That said, we should also look to post challenges to improve user engagement
Lastly, we would like to continue to advertise details for upcoming races, however, would like to drive more traffic to our website. In order to help, we are recommending a focus on utilizing the following social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. Based on the demographics associated with the most common users of Pinterest, we like the idea of adding some focus here to encourage more females to enter the sport of triathlon. Specific details for these platforms are as follows:
Facebook:
In addition to posting flyers for upcoming races on our Facebook page, we will pay to boost these posts via an advertising campaign that targets our specific audience in order to reach a larger population.
These boosted ads will include links that drive users to our website to register for upcoming races.
Instagram:
With Facebook offering the ability to link to Instagram, any paid ads will also be shared via Instagram, which will also drive users to our website.
Pinterest:
Considering the high conversion rate and click-through of users on this platform, we will use it to advertise our upcoming races and drive traffic to our website.
Lastly I wanted to cover how we plan to measure success in each of the areas identified as overall goals. In all cases, there are specific analytics we will be looking to measure, prior to starting, and on a monthly basis in order to monitor progress. Likes, views, comments, number of shares, etc. are some of the most popular analytics to track when measuring social media goals such as these. Overall, we are looking to see improvements in all of these areas.
For the area of Increasing Brand Awareness, we will be looking at Facebook and YouTube to track the following.
Facebook Posts:
Views, likes, comments, and shares.
YouTube Videos:
On our YouTube channel, total number of views, likes and subscribers are our main points of reference.
In terms of measuring success for improved user engagement, this is where we will also be looking mainly at comments and shares as these are actions that show interest.
Facebook:
We will track likes, comments, and the number of times posts have been shared
Instagram:
Tracking post views, likes, and engagement using analytics collected via the Instagram business account or via 3rd party software
Strava:
Collecting data on Strava will be similar to Facebook in that we will track likes by post, comments and shares. We will also track the current number of members who have joined our community.
Finally, we will track interactions with regard to our efforts to advertise upcoming triathlon events. One of the big indicators here is website traffic and number of participants that sign up for events as the goal is to see increases in each of these areas.
Facebook:
This will include tracking analytics for paid advertisements such as number of people reached, number of clicks, and total cost. We will also track standard analytics such as likes, comments, and shares.
Instagram:
Instagram advertising will mirror Facebook ads since these platforms are linked and the same areas will be tracked.
Pinterest:
Utilization of Pinterest will be a new venture for us and we are hoping to see an increase in female participants for events and increased traffic to our website. This along with the analytics available via the site will be tracked for this goal.
That’s all the information being covered today. Before concluding this presentation, I wanted to thank everyone for their time and attention in covering the elements associated with the proposed marketing strategies shared. I welcome any questions you may have before we conclude
Last but not least, the references pages will provide you with details on where information that was used for this presentation originated
Thank you again for your time
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