Client: AUB’s Business Students’ Society
Prepared by: Joya Bassim
Agenda • The Business Student Society (BSS) brings together the Business students at
AUB and aims at providing all the help it can to them.
• As part of the BSS Cabinet, and one of the admins of their social media platforms, I found this as a chance to develop their SM strategy and improve their digital presence.
• The BSS Cabinet was restructured last October and we had to re-create a brand new online presence since the coordination was lost with the former cabinet.
• The first aim behind this Strategy is Data Collection, making the society’s digital presence a portfolio of what the BSS’s agenda that will be used by next year’s new cabinet.
Executive Summary
• AUB’s BSS is definitely lacking exposure and interaction from students.
• Simple guidelines can be followed for their SM presence’s improvement.
• As BSS’s SM presence is relatively new, a more interactive content based strategy is needed to spread the word and build the Students/Society connection.
Social Media Presence
Facebook 354 followers 263 engaged 510 total reach
Twitter 49 followers 38 following ONLY 80 tweets
Instagram 459 followers 506 following 134 posts
Snapshat 76 snap contacts - 7 snaps
WHAT’S THE POINT?
Why is the BSS present Online?
• The current BSS social media platforms aim to keep OSB students in touch with our society’s latest moves and events including: Lectures, Competitions,Workshops, Charity Events,Field Trips, Parties and Social gatherings and last but not least the OSB Annual Gala Dinner.
Business Goals
Promote BSS’s events
Develop the
society’s Digital
Persona
Build an “OSB Spirit”
Develop the a
sense of belonging
to the faculty’s students
From a Need to the Other
The need for the presence
of an OSB Spirit and
Unity
The need for a well-
established business students’ society
The need for an
aggressive, extensive SM
strategy to back up the
society
Monitor the students’ Conversation
Identify and engage student influencers
Maintain the Connection Society/Students
Understand the impact through metrics
BUILD AN OSB SPIRIT
Trend the Hashtag #OSBgrad15 to make sure students’ senior year memories are all
in one place.
Make students connect through the BSS’s Facebook page for
instance, in the seniors’ voting get them to tag
each other.
Post pictures of the students in events on SM platforms and tag them.
Make sure your online presence is strongly
linked to OSB’s official SM accounts
BUILD THE BSS’S DIGITAL+ NON-DIGITAL PERSONA
Help students find us easily in order to
increase the number of followers.
Make sure students (starting with BSS
member or influential OSB students who have a lot of reach) are sharing
the BSS’s posts on Facebook to increase
reach ( get to the friends of friends)
Post pictures of BSS members sitting on stands for instance and assisting
other students to show the society’s commitment.
Use tools such as social mention (Appendix )to
help detect conversations of people
about the BSS
Mapping business Goals to SM Goals
Success Metrics’ Selection
Current SM Operations
CoordinationThe BSS is composed of 4 committees handling the society’s four main activities: the virtual stock exchange, the OSB Gala dinner, entertainment and collaboration committees.
Scrutiny & Accountability
The 5 Cabinet members involved in the society are not enough with respect to the objectives without the members’ cooperation. Currently, the member at large Ramzi Hamdan mainly handles the society’s SM accounts.
Data Management /Consistency
Due to the lack of contact with the former cabinet, the BSS could not access to the original SM accounts. Social Media Data must be managed to ensure a smooth transition from one cabinet to the other (see strategy themes).
Current SM Operations
How did we get here?1. Lack of an OSB Spirit and unity with respect to
business students’ academic and entertainment activities.
2. Lack of awareness of the business student society.
Summary of Existing Operational Complexity
Tweets and FB posts are bound to the events’ and workshops’ promotion . So they are pretty straight forward and simple and they are posted by the Cabinet members who are students.
Likely Increase in Complexity with
increased SM Channels
The BSS is currently present on 4 SM platforms because it has to be where OSB students are (its main target audience). This should lead to an increase in responsibility yet not complexity. The process should be refined and created in a systematic way. (Check strategy themes)
SM FRAMEWORKContext
Lack of set SM Goals the BSS aims to achieve probably because it has very broad business goals in the first place.
CultureToday it is crucial for a university Club or Society to have an online presence as students expect online interactions today.
ProcessThe process is mainly in a construction phase where BSS cabinets are trying to improve with probably some little measurements
MetricsBasically the word of mouth, how much people are talking online and offline about the BSS and its initiatives (check slide about KPI’s)
PeopleBusiness students, basically the BSS cabinet are handling SM but they can use their marketing knowledge and apply it to improve the society’s online presence
Policies No clear policies mentioned.
LISTEN AND COMPARE
Key Performance Indicators• Offline KPIs:
– Keep track of the number of audience in actual events ( ex: number of donuts sold at Valentines’ event)
– Distributing end of term surveys for BSS members to check for any enhancements and suggestions.
• Online KPIs:– Checking sentiment analysis for posts– Engagement rate with posts– Reach of posts– The growth of the SM networks is definitely an extra indicator for
the success of the SM strategy.
The benefit: Measurement• Potential reach. The numbers of fans, followers, or “eyeballs.” It is more
accurately seen as potential reach, as you’ll never have all of those people paying attention to you simultaneously.
• Mentions per time period. How many times the BSS is talked about online during a given time period. This can give you a sense of overall awareness and chatter.
• Inbound links. A solid indicator of the students that are aware of you and are telling others about you. Share of voice. How much you’re mentioned or covered in comparison to the competition. (check appendix 2)
• Share of conversation. How often the BSS is mentioned in context of the conversations that are most relevant to you.
What should BSS’s SM strategy be?
BSS’s SM Strategy’s four pillars
Engagement Awareness
Interaction Consistency
Engagement
• Engagement is key for all other themes of the strategy since it:
– Drives the buzz – Identifies people– Confines information
• Example of engagement: Post pictures or quotes about graduation where students would tag each other engaging with the BSS and with each other simultaneously.
Engagement
• You do not just want students to know the BSS but also to be aware of what it is actually offering as a society. Awareness could help in:
-Humanizing your brand -Managing your brand’s reputation
• BSS’s target market does not have time to read anymore, they would rather see Visuals or only read a few words. This is why photos (Event Albums for instance the CAP AND GOW ALBUM) are the most engaging posts.
Awareness
Interaction
CHECK APPENDIXES 9 AND 10 FOR MORE DETAILS
• By interaction, we mean students’ connecting through the BSS and having conversations on our social media platforms. This is essential to:
-Promote Audience Participation
-Increase Word-of-Mouth with Incentives
-Encourage Consumer Created Content
-Strike an Emotional Connection
• Consistency in terms of content and avoiding clashes between the different BSS SM channels’ posting strategies and the presence of different accounts under the name of the BSS
-It Strengthens Brand Name Recall
-It Doesn’t Portray Conflicting Personalities Within Your Company
-It Doesn’t Create Confusion Among Your Fans
CHECK APPENDIX 1
Consistency
9AM
DON’T GIVE ANY KIND OF INFORMATION, THIS IS A TEASER
#WHATSHAPPENINGATOSB
10 AM
Good Morning! What do you think BSS’s surprise is for the day?! Use
#WHATSHAPPENINGATOSB as the teasers’ hashtag.
12PM
TUCK TUCK TUCK (Put time passing emoticon) #WHATSHAPPENINGATOSB
still used as a hashtag
12PM
HATS OFF GRADUATES!COME LEAVE YOUR HANDPRINT AT OSB #OSBgrad15
1PM
Show the world that you’re an OSB graduate! Come pick up your OSB grad15 bracelet #OSBgrad15
2PM
Shooting for the GALA’s video !We’re getting really excited, are you?! Feeling
the Goosebumps! #OSBgrad15
MONDAY WEDNESDAYTUESDAY
Content calendar Sample : FAREWELL WEEK ON FB and INSTA
Recommendations:• Collaborate with business partners(other societies at AUB) and
get more OSB students to follow.• Respond to your fans’ questions and comments more quickly.• Like other related Pages (ex: OSB page) and interact with them
(directing students to the OSB page and vice-versa)• Feature Professors in your posts! They are also major
influencers.• You should also be active on twitter. You should post short and
witty tweets that grab the attention of the students.• Review the length of your posts.• Publish posts more often without burdening students.
Conclusion
• Without the intensive, engaging SM strategy , the BSS wouldn’t have reached the same level of success this year. What’s important is for the future cabinets to stay consistent and offer the same content standards and strategy objectives in order to make sure this success is maintained for the next generations.
APPENDIXES
BSS-AUB is not doing so well in terms of likes compared to similar FB pages
The number of likes should be benchmarked against the number of OSB students for it to be an effective KPI
1
Lack of consistency on Facebook
2
Performance of the BSS FB page
3
Creating a sense of unity for the faculty
4
Voice of Customer
Where is BSS’s reply to Rana and reaction(if any is needed) to Khaled’s post?
5
An “all too rare” strategy on FB
6
A “Broadcast” Strategy on Instagram
YES! That’s what we are looking for. The best KPI is you audiences’ positive reviews. 7
BSS’S INTERACTIONS WITH THE COMMUNITY
8
Interaction at its best on BSS’s Instagram account
9
Encouraging students’ interaction on FB
This is what we should do : get students connecting on the BSS pages.
10