The group project wherein we applied the internet marketing tools was a great learning experience. It gave me hands on experience to apply the various tools to improve the effectiveness of the client’s online marketing. Owing to paucity of time we couldn’t touch upon every aspect of internet marketing thus we chose email marketing, Google Analytics, Google Adwords, social media analytics and designed a content calendar. However had we been given access to the various social media platforms by our client we could have had better learning across a wider spectrum. Also our client wasn’t a fan of Hootsuite, which further restricted our learning. For this project our aim was to analyse user engagement. I chose the social media analytics but due to restrictions from our client my analysis was just Facebook focused. I tried to learn and come up with the best possible recommendations to our client.
We chose PurpleDirt, a community jewellery house that supports Nicaraguan women. We expected a great learning experience owing to the ease and flexibility to post on the social media platforms but we were not given the passwords despite signing the Non disclosure agreement.
After gaining information about the business model, what are their points of differentiation, their competitors etc., we decided how to leverage the internet marketing to the fullest. We suggested them to leverage this attribute of supporting the Nicaraguan women, which we hadn’t seen much at their social media platforms. From our first interaction with our client we learnt that we all were on the same page and they wanted to highlight the cause they support that is the Nicaraguan artisans, the handmade jewellery pieces, and the use or recycle materials such as guitar strings etc.
We suggested them to run a Christmas campaign and put their pieces of jewellery on discount. We learnt that they were about to launch a 10 day campaign starting November 24 so we decided support their campaign.
I chose to work on the social media analytics as I wanted to learn how to leverage it for internet marketing. Unfortunately we weren’t given the passwords for social media platforms and on requesting them many a times we suggested them to assign us an analyst role for Facebook. Thus our social media analytics was just limited to Facebook. We still reviewed their Twitter account and found that they weren’t quite active on Twitter and the levels of engagement and content didn’t drive much traction. Having reviewed their tweets for a month I found that they hardly had any engagements, retweets etc. for any of their postings even during and after the campaign. The only retweets were from their administrator. We realised the content isn’t very engaging. Even the discount offers made have poor content and thus it’s difficult to gain any traction.
Based on our first review of their key accounts we sent them a content calendar with all the detailed information, when and what to be posted. The client was really impressed with the kind of detail we provided both in terms of content and context but still our recommendations weren’t taken into consideration. We were expecting them to make some changes to their posts or their content a bit for A/B testing but that didn’t happen. Our client isn’t keen to leverage Hootsuite, we also suggested them to leverage email marketing. We designed email templates using the images they would use for the actual campaign on the mail chimp but the client wasn’t very keen to send across newsletters during the campaign.
Facebook Account Analysis
Having learnt about the social media analytics tools I reviewed their Facebook activity for the past 6 months. They have the videos and pictures relevant to the cause they are supporting but neither the content nor pictures or videos are gaining any traction. The first day of the campaign had the highest amount of engagement but that declined drastically during the rest of the campaign.
I analyzed the following:
- The Demographics
The audience they target is female within age group 25-44. But surprisingly male in the same age group turned out to be their fans. This showed that their targeting was quite wrong or rather they weren’t catering to the correct group. Their target’s geographical location was Vancouver which was consistent with their assumptions.
- Audience Reached
Surprisingly the audience they reached was much younger than they cater too.
- Content Analysis
We further looked into the average number of clicks, likes, comments, shares and engagement rate for both Organic and Paid and again ironically the paid had almost 50% lower engagement rate.
- Videos
Also videos had the highest amount of post clicks but couldn’t yield any active engagement such as likes, comments, or shares.
Further we viewed their competitor’s activity on Facebook and also reviewed their websites. PurpleDirt has just one potential competitor but on reviewing their activity it seemed clear that they are not a big threat. However based on their activity on Facebook we recommend Purple Dirt to make few amends in their mission and the vision statement in their info page.
During our final presentation we explained to our client how the boosted posts on facebook don’t lead to any post clicks or user engagement or doesn’t facilitate any traffic to the website. Instead PurpleDirt should spend money on Google Adwords. On Facebook it’s the content that matters and helps in creating user engagement. Their content lacks in communicating a captivating story and also their visual appeal is missing. Facebook represents the human side of the business wherein the rule of one – in – seven stands valid.
Overall this group project was a great learning experience and it was a great help to our client who was highly impressed with our level of detail in recommendations. I’m sure they will surely use our recommendations for their next campaign which we suggested them to run in January 1, 2016.