The Task

Imagine you work for a digital strategy service provider and have been tasked with developing an online social media strategy. You are to focus on online engagement strategies and ROI measurements. You are required to develop an online social media strategy for an existing:

• Organisation (AIS, Dept. of Human Services)
• Product (e.g. new sports drink)
• Event (e.g. T20 Cricket)
• Brand (e.g. Nike)
• Promotional activity (e.g. Women in Sport)
• Mobile-based apps (e.g. Bleacher reports, YinzCam, run that town, FeeHelp)
• Social games (e.g. FIFA Superstars)
• YouTube channel (e.g. NBA, ImmiTV) or
• SM based tool (e.g. Digital Cheer Sqaud, Sentiment analysis).

Once you have chosen an implementation domain from above choices, your job is to develop a strategy for your chosen case. How would you position the company/brand/event? What social media tools would you use? Justify your channel choice. Who are your online competitors? You need to include ways to measure the ROI of these tactics. Also include how you would evaluate outcomes.

Report Structure

The online strategy should include the following content. This content should be written being informed through readings and activities in the unit during the semester. Cite references as appropriate.

• Executive summary
• Overview/Background
• Overall communication strategy as aligned with organisational objectives and mission
• Objectives (SMART goals), target audience, Key messages linked with communication strategy
• Level of engagement (both for organisation and audience)
• Audit of competition/similar cases
• Online strategic approach: In-depth discussion on what strategic approach will be taken and how. This may include the following:

  • • Channel choice and justification
    • Strategy for each social media channel/tool
    • Content and promotional plan (Examples of scripts and frames/advertisements)
    • Experience/engagement strategy

• Monitoring plan and moderation procedures
• Risk management plan (i.e. a risk table with specific risks and mitigations including legal and ethical risks)
• Exit strategy (in case of sudden closure/retracting from social media engagement)
• ROI (outcomes) and metrics to be used
• Promotion, Evaluation and reporting
• You may also consider including a timeline of social media tactics

Executive summary

The report presented here discusses about the online marketing strategies of T20 event using social media tools. The objective of this report is to undertake an in-depth analysis of the strategies of the event and relevance of social media platforms for marketing.

The report first provides the background of the event and its marketing practices. Then the focus of report moves towards the communication strategies and the vision and mission of the event. The entire report is intended to analyse the current marketing strategies of the T 20 event and the potential online marketing strategies. For the online marketing of the T20 event a few platforms have been proposed, these platforms include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. Being a sports event, it is very important for ICC T20 to stay in touch with its audience regularly and update them about latest trends in sports and especially in cricket. For this purpose the best possible measure is to use social networking sites. These are easy to access and a good medium to float an information among a number of people or target audience in less time. Thus, a contrast has also been made with the competitors to ascertain the validity of the proposed tools of the marketing. Several ethical and legal risks such as security breach, offending users’ sentiments, etc have been identified and along with that the mitigation strategies are also proposed. Finally the return on investment is also calculated for four years and it is determined that using these tools will be beneficial for the event.

Overview/Background

Social media plays a vital role in marketing activities of an event. It helps in making strategies in a significant manner and in capturing large number of people without much efforts and resources. The event that has been taken to analyse the online marketing using social media tools is ICC T20 World cup. ICC T20 World cup is a cricket event being organised by the governance body ICC (International cricket Council). The event has been doing very good business and has become a big widely known event for its 16 teams from different countries. The major objective of this report is to analyse all the factors such as overall communication strategies, organisational objectives, SMART goals and key messages that the event provides to the audience using tools of social media (Melanie, 2015). This analysis will then link to the competitors’ analysis and how do they use social media to remain competitive. This will help the event in remaining competitive by utilising social media for marketing and communicating with the audience in an effective manner. Finally the in-depth discussion will take place on strategic approach like choices of channel and strategies for each social media tool and justification for choosing those tools. This plan of social media marketing and tools will be then monitored to check for risk and risk mitigation strategies will also be provided. After all this discussion exit strategy will also be discussed in case the event had to retract from social media engagement. Finally return on investment will be discussed so as to ensure that the online marketing strategy that will be selected is cost effective and profitable or not. Finally the entire report will be evaluated for its relevance. In this way the report ICC T20 event will be prepared so as to use social media tools for marketing of the brand.

Overall communication strategy as aligned with organisational objectives and mission

Communication is an effective tool for an event to establish an interaction with customers keeping in mind the vision, mission and objectives. The overall communication strategy that ICC T20 event has adopted is totally linked to its vision and mission. The mission statement of ICC T20 suggests that it wants to enlighten sense of team working among people and make them aware about the latest trends in cricket by establishing a communication channel that will have an everlasting impact on the audience. This clearly suggests that the strategy of ICC T20 is to communicate to the wider range of audience from all over the world to spread this (Aghaei, 2014). This suggests a wider communication strategy and a channel that will be easily accessible by the people and with that channel they can remain updated about latest fashion trends. The objective of ICC T20 event is to expand rapidly and to create awareness about the cricket among people and make them watch the matches. The objective of ICC T20 is also to regularly communicate the changes in cricket and forthcoming matches’ updates to the people. This suggests that overall communication strategy of ICC T20 is to use modes of communication that are fast, speedy and regularly accessed by the customers. The communication strategy of the event includes use of website and mobile app.

Objectives (SMART goals), target audience, Key messages linked with communication strategy

The objectives of ICC T20 behind using social media tools for communication are:

• S (Specific): To enable the customers to know about latest trends in cricket and to influence them to adopt those trends.
• M (Measurable) : To keep a check on number of people who are getting influenced by the event and its strategy
• A (Attainable): To use platforms of communication that will help in spreading awareness among customers (audience) and ensuring proper channel of communication.
• R (Relevant): To align the communication strategy with vision and mission to bring them in mainstream.
• T (Time-oriented): Setting up the target dates to achieve all the objectives on a timely basis.

The target audience denotes those individuals who are prospective customers and they are expected to watch the event and follow it thoroughly. The target audience o ICC T20 is children, teenager, men, and women in the age group 10- 60 years. The key messages that the event want to communicate to their target audience is regarding the change in teams, updates in cricket, releasing new props, etc. These messages are entirely linked to the communication strategy of the event because the communication strategy of the event is long-term and linked to the vision and mission of the event (McDonagh, 2014).The event communicates with the target audience using its website, newspaper and television.

Level of engagement (both for organisation and audience)

With the help of present communication strategy the Event is able to communicate its messages to a very great extent. The event is able to keep the audience engaged but not to a very great extent. This is because of the reason that target audience of the event is diversified and very huge. The platforms of communication that are the part of communication strategy of the Event include website, newspaper and television. These strategies are not able to maintain a healthy and good communication channel with all the audience and thus the engagement of both the parties in communication is quite low (Ali & Talwar, 2013). The reason behind lower level of engagement is that website is quite complex to access and it is not immediate and responsive. Not all the target groups read newspaper or watch television regularly. In case of any doubts about the event the customer cannot ask anyone. In case of news paper and television the customers again face the same problem. This is the reason why the engagement of customers start becoming low. On the other hand the event does not get feedback on these platforms and due to that the engagement of event is also low. Thus the current strategy of the event is not very effective in engaging the customers and the event. This strategy needs to be changed and the major changes that the event shall implement are related to the usage of different platforms to communicate with the audience (Lambrecht & Tucker, 2013).

Audit of competition/similar cases

It is very necessary to discuss the strategies of competitors because it helps in developing the strategies and improving them to fit the requirements of the event. The competitors of ICC T20 are 50-50 and IPL. These events are internationally recognised and are somehow similar to T20.As far as the image of 50-50 and IPL is concerned in cricket world they are very renowned events. These events have wide varieties of things to offer to wide varieties of audience. The target audience of the event is huge and even after that its communication strategy is worth mentioning. These events use a number of social media platforms such as Twitter, blogs, MySpace, Facebook, Instagram , YouTube, etc. (Ashworth, 2011). These events also have their website and mobile application. Due to usage of all these tools for communication with the target audience the engagement of event as well as the audience is noticeable. This has helped the event in increasing the sales as well as the market share. In this way the event could become competitive with the help of better communication strategies and proper tools of communication.

Online strategic approach: In-depth discussion on what strategic approach will be taken and how

After reviewing the current strategies of the event it is very important to review these strategies and by bringing in certain changes in it. The event is required to make changes in the choice of channels, strategy for each channel, promotional plans and engagement strategy (Jones, 2008).The analysis depicts that the engagement strategy of the event is not very effective and due to that the entire process of marketing and communication is getting affected. Following is the in-depth discussion on all the aspects on online strategies:

• • • Channel choice and justification

There are a number of channels of communication that ICC T20can use. These channels include Facebook, YouTube, Flicker, Twitter and Instagram. The target market of the event comprises of children, teenagers, men and women of age group 10-60 years. This target audience can be captured by the Event using these online channels of communication. The reason behind taking these channels is that it will enable two way communications. The event will be able to know the feedback and opinion of the customers (audience) very easily while using these sources of marketing. On these social media channels the event can easily upload pictures and share with their customers (Barret & Weinstein, 2014). The news regarding new launches can also be shared easily. The trends change very rapidly and it is very important to timely update customers about that. This can only be possible with these channels.

• • • Strategy for each social media channel/tool

The strategy that the event is going to use with each social media tool is given below in the table:

Content and promotional plan

The promotional plan of the event shall be followed by some offer to attract more audience (Haung & Sarigollu, 2012). The event will use the content related to sports and offers on various sports brands. Different scripts and advertisements shall be used for different social media platforms. For an instance the event can use this advertisement for Instagarm (see figure 1). In this advertisement the content belongs to a sport event. The event will release this advertisement on Instagram. This picture is a screenshot of a video of TV commercial of T20 event. This is for those people who do not watch TV but have an online access to Instagram. The advertisement also gives an opportunity to look beyond the advertisement and know what goes behind the scene.

Figure 1: Promotional Plan

Experience/engagement strategy

This advertisement will help in attracting and engaging the target audience. This is because of the fact that audience is very fond of knowing about their favourite teams and when it comes to look into the lives of celebrity they don’t miss this chance. Celebrity endorsement plays a vital role in engaging customers (Brindley, 2014). This is also true in the case of T20 event.

Monitoring plan and moderation procedures

It is very necessary to monitor the success of any plan. This will only be possible after making a proper plan for that. To monitor the success of social media tools in T20 event, following monitoring plan is prepared:

Risk management plan

Risk is inevitable part of any event and it can also affect ICC T20 event. The event will invest huge money in online marketing and if it fails then the event will have to suffer loss (Haung & Sarigollu, 2012). This is why it is very important to access the risk in advance and also prepare mitigation strategy for it

Exit strategy (in case of sudden closure/retracting from social media engagement)

There are chances that the customers may outcry and the event may have to retract social media marketing (Cho, 2008). The exit strategy in that case depends upon the situation but the event shall be prepared for this advance. It can be easily done by the event by deactivating Facebook account, Deleting Twitter and Instagram account. It will also be required from the side of the event to withdraw all the resources from this to stop flow of capital.

ROI (outcomes) and metrics to be used

The return on investment is a technique that is used to ensure that the strategies that have been implemented are working. It calculated the long term returns that the event will get after investing huge sum of money (Grewal & Bart, 2015). ICC T20 has invested on social media marketing with the expectations that it will give returns to the event in near future. Given below is the matrix of return on investment of ICC T20for next four years:

The analysis of return on investment suggests that the event can invest on social media tools for online marketing. The return is coming out to be positive and this is nothing but the profit to the event (Cutler, 2010). In the first year there will be no return but after that the return is huge and the event can take this decision to use these social media tools for its marketing activities.

Promotion, Evaluation and reporting

In this manner the entire analysis of online marketing tools usage by ICC T20 suggests that the event will expand with the help of online marketing tools (Fan & Lau, 2015). There are several risks associated with these tools but the mitigation strategy that has been provided can help in dealing with those risks. The return on investment suggests that using social media as marketing tool will be very beneficial for the event. The event will earn huge return because of these tools in the future. The analysis also suggests that these tools will help the event in establishing proper channels of communication and better interaction with customers. It will also help the event in achieving its objectives as per the vision and mission of the event. At this step the entire report is evaluated to ensure that the strategies that have been framed here are relevant to the event in the longer run or not (Fraj, 2013). In this way these strategies will be relevant and they can be promoted to the next level.