sdc social media strategy for oonasdivers ltd by carrie hall

Oonasdivers Limited 16 Gildredge Road, Eastbourne. BN21 4RL www.oonasdivers.com 1

Social Media Strategy

By Carrie Hall Social Media for Business at Sussex Downs College


Table of Contents

Introduction....................................................................... 3 Methodology..................................................................... 4

Results ....................................................................... 5,6,7 Analysis............................................................................. 7 Conclusions/Proposals ................................................8,9


Introduction

The aim of this report is to explore the Social Media Strategy of Oonasdivers Limited.

Oonasdivers is a specialist tour operator offering diving holidays around the world. In

October this year Oonasdivers will be celebrating 30 years of business, they were the first

established tour operator of its kind, specialising in diving holidays to the Egyptian Red Sea, in the UK. A small company, Oonasdivers has two directors and three employees.

I have worked for Oonasdivers for 12 years, pretty much starting out as tea maker and office

assistant, then as a tour consultant for a number of years. I am now mainly responsible for the website, e-mail marketing, social media and other marketing aspects of the business.

As you can imagine, in the last 12 years there have been some major changes which have

affected the business and the way in which it is run. One of these changes is the introduction

of social media channels, and the massive increase in both the number of people using social media and the number of channels available.

According to the Oxford Dictionary the definition of social media is “websites and

applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.” (www.oxforddictionaries.com)

Over the past five years the number of people using social media has grown enormously,

and it is now pretty much essential for businesses to have some sort of on online presence on the most popular social media channels.

Sean Gardner, currently ranked the number 1 Social Media Power Influencer by Forbes,

says “Social media is not just an activity; it is an investment of valuable time and resources.

Surround yourself with people who not just support you and stay with you, but inform your thinking about ways to WOW your online presence” (Sean Gardner, @2morrownight)

So the question is not “Do we need a social media strategy?” but “What will our social media

strategy be? What social media channels will we use and how will we use them within the time constraints that we have?”

In order to try and keep up with these changes, Oonasdivers set up both a Facebook page

and a Twitter account in 2011. Currently the Facebook page has 3701 likes and the Twitter

account has 447 followers. Oonasdivers also have YouTube, Google+ and Pinterest

accounts, which have been set up more recently, and are not regularly used. Of each of

these, the majority of time is spent on the Facebook page.

This report will examine some of the research conducted by Oonasdivers, what this has shown, and how it has influenced the company’s social media strategy for the future.


Methodology

In order to find out a little more about which social media channels to use and what should

be posted on these channels, some market research was conducted. Consideration was given to the following types of research, definitions of which you can find below:

Primary research is new research, carried out by yourself or an employee of the

company conducting the research, to answer specific issues or questions. It can

involve questionnaires, surveys or interviews with individuals or small groups.

Secondary research is using information or data that has already been created by

somebody else. This may involve looking at sources on the website, newspapers and

previous studies conducted on the subject matter.

Qualitative research is about finding out people’s opinions, and is focused on their

feelings and experience.

Quantitative research is a more logical and data-led approach which provides a

measure of what people think from a statistical and numerical point of view. It has the

ability to gather a large amount of information which can be easily organised and manipulated into reports for analysis.

There are many different techniques of conducting market research, some of these may

include looking on the internet, reading and searching archives and making use of the

information held at your local library. Additionally interviews, observations, questionnaires, surveys, focus groups and reccies are all valuable methods of conducting market research.

An important part of market research is to ensure an information trail is kept, so each type of

research is recorded, with the source, date, title, author and copyright of the material. It can

then easily be found again and referred to if required.

The research method finally decided upon was a survey; this is a primary and quantitative

research method. This decision was based on a number of factors, it was relatively quick

and straightforward to set up and gave the ability to ask direct questions with results that

could easily be measured, and also had the potential to reach the maximum amount of people in the amount of time given.

Oonasdivers already use an online marketing company called Constant Contact for their

email marketing. Another of Constant Contact’s products is online surveys. With an existing

e-mail contact list held in Constant Contact, to which the survey link could be sent, this seemed a very viable method with which to conduct the research.


Results

A total of 257 people completed the survey, the results of which are summarised below.

As you can see, 37% of respondents are aged between 45 and 54 years old, 27% are 44-64

year olds, and just below that 23% are in the 35-44 year old range. A very small percentage fell in the 18-24 and 25-34 year old range.

The most used social media platform is clearly Facebook, with 35% of respondents using it,

followed by YouTube with 18% and LinkedIn with 16%. Google + and Twitter show a 10%

and 9% usage rate respectively, with Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr showing the least amount of usage amongst participants.

0%

5%

23%

37%

27%

8%

Which category describes your age?

18 - 24

25 - 34

35 - 44

45 - 54

55 - 64

65 or older

35%

9%10%

16%

18%

3%

1%

3%

5%

Which Social Media platforms do you use? Select all that apply.

Facebook

Twitter

Google+

LinkedIn

YouTube

Pinterest

Tumblr

Instagram

None of the above


This survey question led to some very clear results with a massive 78% of participants

spending the most amount of time on Facebook. YouTube falls into second place with 8%,

followed by LinkedIn and Google+ with 5%. Twitter falls behind with just 4%. Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram were not selected by any of the participants.

The highest percentage of participants, 36%, answered this question with weekly, followed

by 26% answering every couple of days and 22% answering daily. 11% answered less than

weekly with very few wanting to see updates twice a day or more.

78%

4%

5%

5%8%

0%

0%

0%

Which Social Media platform do you spend the most time on? Please select one.

Facebook

Twitter

Google+

LinkedIn

YouTube

Pinterest

Tumblr

Instagram

1%

4%

22%

26%

36%

11%

How often would you like to see updates from us?

3-4 times per day

Twice a day

Daily

Every couple of days

Weekly

Less than weekly


This question was included in the survey to give an indication of what participants would like

to see us posting on social media. The most popular responses were special offers for dive

holidays (21%), latest diving news (18%), and underwater photos (16%). There was also

some interest in news from our resorts and liveaboards (14%) and competitions (12%). Just 8% of respondents selected travel news.

Analysis

These results clearly show that Facebook is the most popular social media channel of the survey participants, and is the channel where the majority of their time is spent.

According to Social Media Today, the growth period of Facebook has come to an end, with a

1.5 million drop in the amount of users since January 2013. There are now over 31 million

users, meaning Facebook still has the single largest concentration of consumers on any social media platform.

Although the younger generation seem to be opting to use other social media channels, the largest demographic remains the 25-34 year olds.

Both YouTube and LinkedIn also had a substantial amount of usage amongst participants.

According to Social Media Today, though LinkedIn has been quiet on the subject of UK

growth since passing the 10 million UK user mark early in 2013, there does seem to be a

change in the way the site is used. Recent research from Econsultancy suggests that

LinkedIn is responsible for 64% of visits to corporate websites from any social media site, which is streets ahead of Twitter.

Another interesting result from the survey was that 36% of respondents would only like to

see updates from Oonasdivers once a week, followed by 26% who wanted to see updates every couple of days.

18%

16%

11%21%

12%

14%

8%

If you were to follow Oonasdivers on any platform, what would you like to see? Select all

that apply.

Latest diving news

Underwater photos

Funny diving related pictures andstories

Special offers for dive holidays

Competitions

News from our resorts andliveaboards

Travel news


Conclusion and Proposals

Based on the results of both our survey and the figures provided by Social Media Today, it is

evident that the majority of time needs to be dedicated to our Facebook page. The survey

results also gave a good indication of how often people would like to see posts and what

kind of posts they would appreciate. Please see below for a list of proposed changes to our Facebook page based on the results of the research that was conducted.

Create a Custom Tab on the Page for Special Offers

84% of survey participants indicated that they would like to see special offers on the

Facebook page, a good way to to do this and to keep the offers as part of the page

would be to create a custom tab using an app such as Shortstack. This seems to be a

good compromise to keep offers visible but not to post too much and try and push sales

on the page.

Post 4 times per week

Though the majority of participants indicated that they would only like to see weekly

posts, it is believed this would not be enough to keep the page visible. Visibility of a page

is already tricky with the algorithms within Facebook, and it is believed 4 times a week

would be a fair compromise between 34% of participants who would like to see weekly

updates, the 24% who would like to see updates every couple of days and the 21% who would like to see updates every day.


Make each post a different type of post and post on certain days of the

week

For example one post may be about the latest diving news and could be posted

on Monday, another with an underwater photo which could be posted on

Wednesday, a fun competition could be posted on Friday and the latest news

from our resorts and liveaboards could be posted each Sunday. Ideally by doing

it this way followers will begin to expect and look for posts on these days.

Try to make each post either one that followers will want to share, will

want to comment on or want to like!

This is easier said than done but certainly worth a try. Once a person shares, comments

on or likes a post, this is shown in their newsfeed and is therefore visible to their Facebook friends, making your page reach much higher.

Though the majority of time will be dedicated to Facebook, in the future Oonasdivers

would like to strengthen their presence on other social media channels such as

YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+, More time will need to be spent researching each channel and how the company can use it to reach their target markets.

sdc social media strategy for oonasdivers ltd by carrie hall

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