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