Pearl Amaechi College Glasses: Social Media Marketing Plan College Glasses (CG), a recent start-up that sells sunglasses, is still in its infant stages as a company. In order to further expand the company and become more efficient and effective in its future efforts, College Glasses needs to evaluate its current marketing efforts and revamp a currently lacking social media presence. College Glasses: An Overview College Glasses is a new company, started by two recent college graduates. They work closely with clients to create unique products for customers. CollegeGlasses.com is a full service company committed to designing, manufacturing and delivering high quality customized sunglasses for colleges and organizations in the United States. On their site, they claim to “specialize in making colorful wayfarer style sunglasses that are wildly popular with the 10-25 year old demographic.” Audience- Target Market College Glasses’ general target audience, as specified by their website, is 10-25 year old male and females living in the USA. However, it will help to narrow the demographic focus to an age window of 18-24 yrs., especially since most of their merchandise (glasses) cater to fraternities, sororities, and those of voting age (there is election paraphernalia), and more generally, college students . The target demographic for College Glasses is the 18-24 year old university student. They are Joiners (who have a profiles on different social networking sites) and Spectators (who read online information, and watch videos but do not participate) in the social media groundswell.

College Glasses: Social Feedback Cycle

The above Social Feedback Cycle examines the phases at which the consumer interacts with the company. In the awareness phase, CG has four mediums that are try to engage the consumer. These include Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and YouTube Facebook and YouTube seem to be the most successful, as the Facebook page has over 5,800 likes, and the sole YouTube video that they uploaded has over 46,000 views. Pinterest and Twitter seem to be less successful in engaging and increasing awareness. Their Twitter account has 86 followers, their Pinterest has 9 followers. Considering the other two mediums that have thousands engaged, CG can surely increase awareness among their target demographic in this realm. At the point of purchase (where the consumer is in the process of buying the product), there is only one element being used to increase sales. A Facebook coupon that gives 20% off of glasses purchases for an event that uses CG. It is effective, but there are a multitude of other point of sale channels that CG can add – for example, showcasing positive reviews on the checkout page of the site. Other than that, there are not many POP channels being used, which is definitely a place where CG can expand and ensure competitive sales closures. The following Touchpoint Map further evaluates the effectiveness of the current channels CG is utilizing. There is a need for College Glasses to revamp their current social media marketing efforts, however, they are putting in a decent effort currently. It will be beneficial to look at how effective these efforts are. Examining the ROI (Return on Investment), we can see where efforts are wasted, and where efforts are creating profitable and useful results through number of visitors, page views,

fans, followers, etc.. The ROI is a simple, effective tool for examining marketing channels. Dividing the benefits of an investment by the cost of the investment will give a number that, if negative, can be a sign for CG to stop investing in a certain ineffective channel. The awareness channel that performs the best in terms of ROI is CG's YouTube channel. There is only one Point-of-Purchase channel that CG utilizes – Facebook Discounts. YouTube is by far, the top performer. CG has created only one well-thought-out visual representation of their product, but this small effort has created over 46,000 views. This is an amazing example of a profitable and effective ROI – little effort/resources, large returns/results). Although, as stated in previous places, the consumer engagement on YouTube is very low and needs to be addressed- CG needs to energize the consumer! The strongest experience that CG creates for the consumer is company feedback – the customer service responsiveness, which is driven by operations (the product CG delivers). In the past, there has been less than ideal feedback, but CG has made the effort to be responsive. This is a great facet of CG's social media presence, as some companies are unable to keep up with posting updated content on their site, or do not know how to engage with the consumer. The only thing missing is a large consumer base that is engaging with CG on social media. Why are they missing? Since the target demographic is not made up of Inactive participants (who are removed from social media), then there is an error that CG is making. CG needs to entice the consumers to be engaged with the brand.

Opportunity &Methods College Glasses: Strengths and Weaknesses The general lack of Social Web conversation is not necessarily positive nor negative for CG, but it does indicate a need to engage the consumer. It is helpful for marketing efforts and opens up a huge opportunity, as all CG must do is add/modify their current efforts. Although, it is important to note that on the social web, any absences are noted, and failing to participate in the growing groundswell can build mistrust. College Glasses comes into contact with the consumer at various times during the awareness/consideration/purchase phase, so it will help to evaluate these points (namely, touchpoints) and determine how effective they are. CG's top Touchpoints: YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. CG's weakest Touchpoint : Pinterest. Although it is undeniably the weakest touchpoint, CG’s visually oriented product line could greatly benefit from incorporating Pinterest and using it to its full potential. Pinterest is a “neglected star, the kind of thing that could be a powerful talk generator if” CG uses it to engage with the target demographic and spark conversations with the groundswell...especially since the target demographic is heavily invested in Pinterest (Evans 162). CG's new channels to implement: Polyvore, Instagram (with tags)

Image: Polyvore “set” CG, as a highly visual brand, needs to engage in social media channels that host consumers within the targeted demographic, but also reinforce this visual nature. Instagram is “a fun and quirky way to share your life with friends through a series of pictures. Snap a photo with your mobile phone.” (McCracken). This new social media platform can be extremely beneficial to CG, as WOM

advertising among friends is what can fuel energized conversations in the groundswell about CG. Polyvore is a social site where “members choose clothing and accessories from the site's collection of items from stores across the Web, then assemble and share them as sets. They can also share items to answer pressing questions posed by other members” (McCracken). College Glasses can create sets of outfits that include their product. Interest in different parts of the outfit included in the “set” can attract attention to the designs that College Glasses features, increasing awareness to the product without costing CG too much time or money...a big, positive ROI! College Glasses hopes to expand the ideal image of the brand into an image that reflects a dynamic and adventurous college student. Within the target demographic, there is a huge presence on social networking sites – including Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter, which College Glasses is already utilizing. Polyvore and Instagram are two mediums that CG can penetrate in order to achieve business objectives, especially since an analysis of the user demographics match the target demographic of College Glasses. For example, Polyvore users are made up of 73% female visitors, 55% 18-34 years old, 81% of users also use Facebook, 61% blog (which will be useful in CG spreading brand awareness), and 51% already use twitter. (Polyvore 8). Similarly, 12% of online adults use Instagram, which is dominated by young adults. Some 27% of the Internet users between ages 18-29 use Instagram. As the data shows, CG's target demographic is on these sites. If College Glasses can successfully create a presence on these sites, they can be able to achieve their business objectives. Business Objectives College Glasses is steadily increasing their social media presence. They are on Facebook and Twitter, which are debatably the two most popular mediums to use for this demographic. They have over 5,000 likes on Facebook...which is a solid start for a company! However, this presence ends here. This is where there is a great opportunity to expand the reach that this company has. One thing that is also lacking from the Facebook page is an interactive nature. The company fails to

interact with its consumers and those included in their potential consumer profile. Since it appears that joiners and spectators have the most important impact in this segment, it is necessary that CG expand their reach. Now that an analysis of CG's current state is complete, a framework for future operations can be pursued. In the creation of a revamped social media campaign for College Glasses, identifying key business objectives is important. The company can't make improvements or evaluate successes or losses without a baseline of goals to follow and objectives that will guide all actions. There are three key objectives identified for CG that will improve the effectiveness of its online campaigns. 1. The first is to increase online presence. A simple search on the company (using Google, ice rocket, etc.) reveals that there is not much of company online presence. There aren't many sites that the company has a presence on. This naturally stems from the fact that CG is an infant company...but it also stems from the fact that they have failed to use diverse mediums to advocate the company. People are not talking about, engaging with, or connecting with the brand. In order to quantify an increased online presence, CG can monitor how many search results lead to the company website or mention the company name, using Google Alerts. Currently, the amount of search results/sites that lead to/mention CG specifically is14. This is alarmingly low, and there is a huge opportunity for CG to increase and diversify the mediums that mention CG. The new aim for CG is to increase mentions by 50%, so about 34 new mentions. 2. The second objective created for CG is to increase product awareness/advocacy among those in the target demographic. The Joiners and Spectators are simply participants in the online realm. They both read online information, and while Joiners can post some information on online social networks like Facebook...both of these groups tend to not be as engaged online. This is where CG can increase its awareness and encourage participation. Currently, CG has 185

twitter followers, 0 twitter interactions, and 16 followers on Pinterest. With this revamped social media plan, CG can increase awareness within Twitter and Pinterest to match the numbers that we see with Facebook and YouTube. The new aim for CG to achieve will be 500 Twitter followers and 300 Pinterest followers. College Glasses should be aiming to generate interaction through replies and comments. We want true engagement with the content! Looking among CG's profiles on social media sites, there is little to no discussion/engagement/conversation between the company and consumers, but also between users of the product. The company, in one of their catalogs, includes some consumer feedback, but it is all positive, and no sources are cited – which is bad because this one-sided reporting can illustrate bias and create mistrust.  Student Campus Representatives can be a very integral part in increasing awareness among college students. Joiners and Spectators are very apt to rely on content that peers are creating and sharing. Word of mouth advertising can be integral to creating trust and reliability for the brand. Word of mouth on college campuses will also attract traffic to online social media mediums (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.). There are currently very few campus reps, so increasing the availability to 5 per region can be beneficial in increasing awareness.  College Glasses also should differentiate themselves with their customizable sunglasses...it will be beneficial to highlight these differences to their consumers to show college students how unique their product is. Increasing product awareness will also help with accomplishing this need for differentiation. 3. The third objective created for CG is to increase new sales/acquisitions. Once there is an increased product awareness among the groundswell and among the target consumers, CG must make clear to the consumer WHY it is necessary to use the product, and not those of competitors. This goal is one that is in close reach, as one facet of CG's current social media

reach is already quite high (Facebook likes). CG need to convert this social media reach into sales growth. CG produces products for individual customers and for organizations buying in bulk. CG has been using their marketing efforts in attracting those customers that will buy in bulk...which is translated to their social media presence- they target to organizations as a whole. They can overcome this problem by simply engaging the individual consumer! For example, instead of marketing to University of Virginia, they should market specifically to the students that will purchase the product. Narrowing the marketing focus will energize the groundswell. Energizing the consumer will prompt larger organizations to be interested in mass purchases of the product, which will also increase sales. A 30% increase in sales is a great starting point for CG. Since there is no specific public access to CG's previous sales data, increases in new contacts and leads can be a quantifiable metric, as an increase in new contacts will most likely result in a causal increase in sales.

College Glasses has made four main promises to its consumer = providing an *affordable, *stylish&personalized, *quality sunglass alternative that is *easy to order. To follow through on their promises, College Glasses has established many points of contact between them and their consumers. In order to evaluate CG's efficiency and create a successful social media plan, an examination of these touch points and how effectively they sync between operations and marketing is necessary. There is a disconnect between CG's promise and delivery (however, this is based on the sole customer feedback that is available for CG).

Social Media Channels and Metrics Elements that will be utilized for CG campaign

Business Use

Campaign Objective

Ratings, Reviews & CG can use it as a Increase Sales Recommendations business tool – verify product quality and

Metric

How to track metric

Time to implement

5 rating scale; Amount of responses in relation to sales

Monitoring incoming info on Within 1 CG website through admin month account

Amount of Views and Likes

Creating an admin account to track consumer activity.

Amount of responses

Monitoring incoming info on Within 1 CG website through admin month account

prompt timing “Sets” on Polyvore Evaluate product visibility User Generated Content (design ideas; contests)

increase online presence

Listen to groundswell Increase Sales

Photos (Instagram) Connect with Groundswell;

Increase Awareness; Amount of likes; increase online Amount of presence comments

Within 3 weeks

Creating an admin account to track consumer activity.

Within 2 weeks

Increase Amount of pins; Creating an admin account Awareness; increase amount of repins; to track consumer activity. online presence amount of followers

Within 1 week

Increase Awareness Number of Creating an admin account Followers/Retweets; to track consumer activity. Number of Mentions/Replies

Within 1 week

Increase Awareness; Number of Likes; Sales Number of Comments

Creating an admin account to track consumer activity. Facebook Insights

Within 1 week

Increase Awareness Number of Comments Number of Shares

Creating an admin account to track consumer activity.

Within 1 month

Increase Sales and Awareness

Creating an admin account to track consumer activity.

Within 4 months

solidifies brand identity in consumers mind. Photos (Pinterest)

Connect with Groundswell; solidifies brand identity in consumers mind.

Twitter Microblog (already in use)

Connecting and talking to with groundswell

Facebook

Connecting and talking to with groundswell

YouTube

Talking to and engaging the groundswell

Augmented Reality Users virtually try on Social Networking product, then share Site experience with friends. Energizes groundswell

Number of registered Users;

The Big Picture: College Glasses Augmented Reality Social Networking Site There are many social media elements available to Companies...not just College Glasses. The most important thing to evaluate, however, is how the elements tie into engaging CG's groundswell. Not all will be applicable, relevant, or effective. A big obstacle that CG will encounter is creating enough diverse content for the groundswell to engage in, since they currently only have one specific niche product – sunglasses. College Glasses needs to provide value in the content/information that they provide to consumers. College Glasses currently uses photos. However, they can do so in a more dynamic way. Previously mentioned was Instagram and Polyvore, which will be a part of the new social media plan. CG can change the way they look at sharing photos...not just to display the sunglasses, but it can be to showcase unique designs that consumers create for their sunglasses. College Glasses can create an ideal around the brand – an image that transcends the onedimensional nature of what customized sunglasses can provide to the consumer. They can do this by creating a persona of the person that wears the sunglasses...or creating a social network revolving around College Glasses that engages consumers to talk, share experiences, reviews, share diverse content, etc. Below, we see the augmented reality site that would have a social networking component. Users use webcams or upload photos of themselves to the site, create designs with College Glasses, then have the option to connect and share with friends. This social media platform can easily be integrated with Instagram, Pinterest, Polyvore, Facebook, and Twitter. Here is a template of the site:

Image: College Glasses Augmented Reality Social Networking Site College Glasses has many resources available to implement a new social media plan. Significant changes lay ahead, especially with the implementation of a new social networking site. But with the vision to engage the target demographic and achieve clearly labeled business objectives, College Glasses has the opportunity to change the way its consumers see its product. References:  Chowney, Vikki. Revealing the demographics behind Pinterest's users. http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/8796-revealing-the-demographics-behind-pinterest-s-users. Accessed November 2012.  McCracken, Harry. 50 Websites That Make the Web Great. http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2087815_2088173_2088187,00. html . Time. Accessed November 2012  Discovery. http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/change-social-networking. Accessed December 2012  Polyvore Brings Together Social Networking and Shopping. http://carlsbad.patch.com/blog_posts/polyvore-brings-together-social-networking-andshopping. Accessed December 2012  Quantcast Analysis: Sunglass Hut. http://www.quantcast.com/sunglasshut.com. Accessed December 2012  Polyvore Intelligence Report. http://www.polyvore.com/rsrc/pdf/PIR-2011.pdf. Accessed

December 2012.  Women Prefer Pinterest, Young Adults Choose Instagram [STUDY] http://mashable.com/2012/09/14/women-prefer-pinterest/ Accessed December 2012