Michelle Krasniak - Social Media Marketing All-in-One For Dummies

Depending on your marketing plan’s complexity and the availability of support, think in terms of a timeline of 3 to 12 months to complete the following steps. Estimate spending half your time in the planning phase, one-quarter in execution, and one-quarter in evaluation and modification. To set up your own custom social media marketing plan, follow these steps:

1 Do market research and online observation.

2 Draft marketing goals, objectives, and your marketing plan using the form in Figure 3-5.

3 Get your marketing ducks in a row with in-house preparation:Hiring, outsourcing, or selecting in-house staffTrainingTeam-buildingWriting a social media policy document

4 Complete preparatory development tasks:Designing advertising creativesContent overview (an outline of which marketing messages you want to send out when)Measurement plan and metric implementationSocial media tool selection and dashboard developmentSocial Media Activity Calendar setup (see Book 1, Chapter 4)Programming and content modifications to existing website(s), as needed

5 Create accounts and a pilot social media program.

6 Evaluate the pilot program, debug it, and modify it, as needed.

7 Launch and promote your social media campaign one service at a time.

8 Measure and modify social media in a process of constant feedback and reiteration.

Don’t be afraid to build a pilot program — or several — into your plan to see what works.

In 1987, the Cole brothers established a family restaurant in Irving, TX, with a focus on friendly service and simple, handmade. Italian food. Today, i Fratelli Pizza ( www.ifratellipizza.com ), which now focuses on pizza, has grown to 20 locations since its start. The company has always valued charitable giving and active involvement in the community.

Courtesy of i Fratelli Pizza

The company began using social media in 2010 as a no-cost method for staying “top of mind” with its patrons. Starting with Facebook, i Fratelli soon added a blog called “The Sauce,” followed by Twitter and Instagram.

As it approached its 25th anniversary in 2012, the company decided to involve the community in its charity efforts, creating a weekly promotion called Pizza Dough Nation, which is still an active promotion today. Residents nominate locally based nonprofits, churches, and high school booster clubs to receive 15 percent of the value of orders placed on a specific day using the recipient’s name, as seen in the following blog. The website also includes a description of the program, a nomination form, and tips for organizations to promote their fundraiser themselves.

At that time, while giving grew, so did site traffic, Facebook likes, viral sharing, sales, and positive branding. “The Dough Nation program allowed us to appeal to a new specific market (for example, a congregation or booster club) weekly, plus it gave us content to talk about across all platforms,” former Marketing Manager Rachel Black explained. The specific results, even in the first few months of the program, were impressive: a tripling of Facebook impressions, a five-fold growth in retweets on Twitter, and a growth in ROI (in terms of increased sales) of more than 300 percent.

The company and the receiving organization both used social media to promote the fundraiser. For i Fratelli, that meant using tweets for geotargeted messaging, cross-promoting among Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the blog, and identifying influencers to tell the story.

While Black found that Facebook is the best channel to drive participation in Pizza Dough Nation, she always promoted the fundraisers on all its channels. (See an example on its Twitter feed in the nearby figure.) At the same time, the sponsored organization shares the promotional burden by publicizing the fundraiser among its own members and supporters.

Courtesy of i Fratelli Pizza

Black said that at the time, the company spent about 20 hours per week on social media, with one team member creating all the social content in-house for four to five posts per week for the restaurant. Initially, i Fratelli used an outside agency to create and implement the master promotional campaign for Dough Nation but now handles that in-house as well.

Although Black used Google Analytics to monitor a pay-per-click AdWords campaign for the restaurant business, she didn’t actively monitor social statistics. While she occasionally did a Facebook ad campaign to promote a specific sweepstakes or event, Black spent less than $500 total on Facebook-sponsored posts.

While the Dough Nation campaign seems simple, it was carefully planned and executed. Black pointed out that it’s critical to target the correct audience when promoting a fundraiser on social media. “Our Dough Nation organizations have specific, sometimes small, groups of supporters, which need to be targeted directly.” Organizations get the best results when they use their own platforms to reach their audience and schedule the promotion in advance.

“It’s important to use social media to your best advantage by understanding how others utilize the platforms,” Black advised. “For instance, we will tag influencers such as the Convention and Visitors Bureau on Dough Nation posts so they can retweet to their followers. The more post and re-post action you can capitalize on, the wider your audience. We also take the time to engage with others’ posts weekly; when it comes time for our promotions, we have a captive audience ready to return the favor.”

The following list of sites constitute i Fratelli’s web presence:

www.ifratellipizza.com

www.facebook.com/ifratellipizza

https://twitter.com/iFratelliPizza

www.instagram.com/nevertrustaroundpizza

www.ifratellipizza.com/blog

Chapter 4

IN THIS CHAPTER

Scheduling social media activities

Building a team

Writing a social media policy

Keeping it legal

Protecting your brand’s reputation

After you create a Social Media Marketing Plan, one major task you face is managing the effort. If you’re the only one doing the work, the simplest — and likely the hardest — task is making time for it. Although social media need not carry a lot of upfront development costs, it does carry a significant labor cost.