COMI 610 Social Media Strategies and Tactics Digital Paper Outline

UPDATE March 10, 2013: I would like to provide a link to my draft on Storify. It is a work in progress. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thank You!


http://storify.com/kristingrosso/comi-610-social-media-strategies-and-tactics-digit


The following is my original post which contains an outline for the digital paper found on Storify:

I would like to share some content that I am working on for a Storify digital paper.  Please note this is a work in progress and what I am offering here is an outline of content for the sake of discussion.

This paper is a curation of my social media activities and analyses obtained throughout the duration of the Marist College graduate course COMI 610, Social Media Strategies and Tactics.

This information is valuable for auto dealers to read as well because it outlines what should go into a social media plan. So although the topic this week is about my study of social media planning rather than the automotive industry,  dealers can use this outline in planning social media for their businesses.

My comments about this project:

• I learned a great deal of information about the "why" and "how" of setting up blogs. Prior to this course, the thought never occurred to me that a blogger ought to choose a topic based on what the audience desires. 
• This project has clarified the importance of maintaining regular contact on social networking sites in order to gain desired readership for my own blog content.
• I have learned that creating a following through social networking is hard work and requires diligence and thoughtful planning.

As I have mentioned above, this is a rough outline for my Storify digital paper and it is not necessarily in the layout that my final Storify paper will have, but to pose a question: What content would you suggest I add to this and what would you suggest I edit and/or remove? Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.

 

Introduction

My name is Kristin Grosso and I am a marketing professional who specializes in the equine and automotive industries. I received a BA in Sociology from Skidmore College in 1991. In 2011, I completed a Professional Certificate, "Marketing Strategies for Business Leaders" from Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management.  I have 20 years of experience in marketing and sales, nine of which have been spent consulting for clients in the equine industry. These clients have included insurance companies, college equestrian programs, dressage trainers and clinicians, not-for-profit agencies, and retail businesses. Horses are my passion, but I grew up with the automotive industry as a member of a family who owns several automobile dealerships which encompass 20+ different franchises.  The automotive industry excites me-it’s in my blood- and I chose my blog theme and topics as a way to explore and share information about auto dealer marketing practices.  I have accepted a position as integrated marketing communications consultant for the family auto group beginning in September 2013, upon completion of my master’s degree.  Although at the present time I do not have a website for my auto marketing business, more information on my equine marketing business, Sport Equine Marketing, LLC can be found here: www.sportequinemarketing.com.


Social Media Plans and Policies 

1. Goal

The goal of my social media plan was three-fold and for educational purposes:

• To engage my Marist 610 classmates in two-way communication by providing interesting information.
• To attract other marketing professionals in the automotive industry and share information with them, with the intent of learning more about marketing practices for auto dealerships from them.    
• To attract automobile dealers and their employees to my blog so that I could share information with them about social media.

2. Identify Blog Topic

The first step of my social media plan was to identify a blog topic that was of interest to my classmates and various publics involved with the automotive industry. To achieve this, I listened for conversations about marketing practices for auto dealers, and followed them on the internet. I then joined a few conversations. Speaking with dealers and employees about the shortcomings they feel exist in their marketing plans, I identified a need for a better understanding of how to apply social media to a dealer IMC plan. So, I chose to focus on this topic for my blog.  This topic aligned well with the course requirements for COMI 610.

3. Target audiences:

• COMI 610 classmates.
• Marketing professionals in the automotive industry.
• Auto dealers and their employees.

4. Objectives:

• Increase awareness of my blog among the auto marketing community.
• Encourage comments on my blog, from both classmates and auto dealer marketing professionals who could provide valuable input.
• Inform dealers and their employees about social media use for their businesses.

5. Site Policies: The blog site policies were communicated on the blog to ensure a positive environment in which to meet the objectives noted above. They are as follows:

 "This blog is intended to provide informational content and encourage participation from visitors surrounding the topic of integrated marketing communications for auto dealers. I ask that visitors please post content that is relevant to this subject only.   Due to the nature of a site that encourages participation from readers,  I cannot promise that the information provided on this site, or information linked to from this site is accurate, truthful, or complete and as such I am not responsible for errors in information on this site. 

The views provided by others on this site do not necessarily reflect my own. I reserve the right to edit or delete posts, and/or remove authors who violate the site policies.

This blog encourages comments and participation. However, please note that to ensure a vibrant, enjoyable environment for all involved, the following types of comments will be deleted:

•          Personal attacks on any individual

•          Offensive language or concepts

•          The use of profanity

•          Spam or questionable spam

This blog does not share your personal information with anyone and it does not collect information pertaining to your visits. However, we do collect analytical data related to content and blog performance. If you would prefer not to be included, please modify your browser cookie settings.  Occasionally content on this site or other websites is republished without permission, and we are not responsible for that.

Please note that this policy is subject to change at any time. Thank you for participating!" (Grosso, K. 2013. Site Policies).

6. Strategies to Create Engagement

•  Connect with marketing professionals, auto dealers and their employees, and classmates on social networking sites and then share, tweet, and pin links to my blog to attract those audiences to my blog.
• Retweet, share, and repin posts from other auto dealer blogs and sites with the goal of capturing their attention and drawing them to my blog.
• Measurement: Measurements were taken from Blogger stats,  from tracking Facebook likes, shares, and comments, from tracking Twitter tweets, retweets, and interactions, and from repins on Pinterest. See below for analysis.

7. Activities: This section of the Storify paper will highlight various posts I made on my blog and on my social media sites, to show the activity I used to gain two-way engagement my from friends and followers.

In addition to that activity, I invited two authors from outside the class to participate in my blog:

Sue Carbone, Director of Advertising for Carbone Auto Group and Barb Mazzotta, graphic designer for Carbone Auto Group.

8. Analysis

Pageviews: There were a total of 416 page views:  39 in January,  350 in February, and 27 in March.  The Social Media Planning for Auto Dealers post has the greatest amount of views at 73, followed by 65 views for Social Media Policy and Security for Auto Dealers.

Blog posts:  5 blog posts were entered during the course (# of comments generated are noted here):

• Feb. 1:  Welcome. generated 1 comment
• Feb. 4: Lincoln Motor Company's Recent Social Media Campaign "Steer the Script" Attempts to Capture the Attention of the Buyers it Seeks generated 7 comments
• Feb. 6:  A major social media mistake auto dealers make generated 7 comments
• February 11: Social Media Planning for Auto Dealers: Flexibility is Paramount generated 41 comments
• February 26: Social Media Policy and Security for Auto Dealers: Protect your employees. Protect your business. Protect Yourself generated 18 comments

Traffic Sources: 

Audiences:

Twitter trends

Tweets (relevant content highlighted in yellow):

Twitter Interactions (relevant content highlighted in yellow):

Pinterest (relevant content highlighted in yellow):

Facebook:

I posted links to my blog on Facebook on February 1, 4, 6, 11, 14, 26, 27, and 28, and March 2.  The February 4th and 6th posts were each "liked" by one person and the February 1st post generated three likes, two comments and one share

9. Conclusion

In conclusion, I did accomplish my objectives:

•  Increased awareness of my blog among the automotive industry marketing community.  Gained followings from Liqueo, and dealership employees. My blog was also shared through a Facebook friend to her family who owns dealerships in NJ.
• Encouraged comments on my blog, from both classmates and automotive industry marketing professionals who could provide valuable input.  I gained valuable input and participated in meaningful discussions with classmates on the blogs. I did engage in a few outside discussions via email with a couple of auto dealer employees.
• Inform dealers and their employees on social media use for their businesses.  I did receive feedback that the content I provided was useful.                                                                            

In the future, I would follow many more dealers on social media. I purposely refrained because this was a class assignment and I preferred to keep it somewhat private, only including dealers that were family or people I know personally.  In the future, I would contact all dealers I could on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest and encourage them to follow my blog via tweets, posts, pins, etc.

Lesson learned: The most valuable insight I gained from this project is that I  cannot just shout my ideas at audiences. As interesting as I may think my ideas are, if others are not interested in what I have to say, my attempts to communicate it are worthless. I must determine ahead of time what my target audience is interested in, and then decide if what I have to say is worth communicating.  It does not work the other way around. As David Meerman Scott says, social networking is like a cocktail party. I should never go in and yell “BUY MY PRODUCT” (p. 39),  or speak more than I listen. (Scott, 2012).  I must listen more than I speak and treat social networking relationships the same way I'd treat interactions with people I meet in real life.

References

Grosso, K. (2013). Site Policies. Retrieved from http://integratedautodealermarketing.blogspot.com/p/site-policies.html.

Scott, D.M. (2012). The New Rules of Marketing and PR. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.