Pro Feet Inc., Esteem Athletic

Campaign Overview

Spring 2013

Overview of CampaignGOALS

To build a following and engagement on Esteem Athletic Facebook page by aggregating relevant and shareable content

To increase brand awareness by demonstrating the core values of the brand To establish brand recognition To define and acquire two distinct target audiences: cheerleaders ages 13-17, and

their parents

STRATEGIES

Launch the “I Believe In Me” campaign to creatively promote the Esteem Athletic brand, value, and products to the target audience and increase engagement on social media platforms

Create a content strategy and calendar for Facebook and Twitter

CAMPAIGN MATERIALS

Videos

To supplement the introductory video on Esteem that was created during spring 2012, the Live Oak creative team produced three additional videos this semester. Each video focused on forming personal commitments that address prominent social isses affecting teenaged girls today--self-esteem, self-image, and peer pressure. The talent in the video featured one middle school or high school-aged cheerleader, and a college one., The young talent was acquired through Kimberly Rippy, [what is her job title?] of the Performing Arts Center. The videos were released on Facebook in the weeks prior to launching the “I Believe In Me” campaign to emphasize the Esteem core values that the campaign would address.

“I Believe In Me” Campaign

The Live Oak team developed a 30-day commitment campaign, called the I Believe In Me campaign, which lasted from March 15-April 15. The campaign utilized Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as its social media platforms. During the campaign, an open-ended commitment challenge was posted to Facebook and Twitter everyday for 30 days. To participate, followers were challenged to interpret the commitment in their own way, and then asked to show how they honored the commitment that day by posting a photo on Instagram with a brief explanative caption and the hashtag #esteemgirl. The photo with the most likes at the end of each week were to be featured on Esteem Athletic’s Facebook page and the winning contestant would be sent an Esteem Athletic goody bag. The bag consisted of a body suit, water bottle, and Esteem Athletic ribbons, all packaged in an Esteem Athletic pink vinyl backpack.

Hootsuite

The Live Oak team used the client’s account on Hootsuite to schedule posts, detailing the day, time, and which social media account to post to. Unfortunately, the team encountered some glitches that resulted in much of the memes, photos and videos not to upload properly. As a result, the bulk of the content posted on the Esteem Facebook and Twitter throughout the “I Believe in Me” campaign was solely textual. Additionally, Instagram has not yet been established on Hootsuite, meaning our photos must be posted manually, which led to some infrequency during the month.

Social Media

Facebook

In order to enhance Esteem Athletics’ Facebook page as well as promote the “I Believe In Me” the Live Oak creative team designed a new cover photo which appeared on Facebook for the two weeks leading up to the campaign and throughout its duration. picture was vibrant and colorful, as well as consistent with Esteem’s brand colors. The cover photo also provided simple instructions on how to participate in the contest.

A micro page was also designed and launched by the Live Oak creative team to detail the rules and regulations of the contest, as well as the list of each day’s challenge. The micropage could be accessed directly from the Esteem Facebook page by clicking a tab called “I Believe In Me.”

Below is a sample of the content calendar for the “I Believe in Me” Campaign.

Below are screenshots of the Facebook advertisements that were launched from March 13th to April 16th.

The Live Oak team created a content strategy and content calendar for the 30-day campaign and throughout August 2013. This began with getting to know the targeted audiences- teenage girls who were interested in cheerleading, and the parents and coaches who purchase the gear. We divided the content into categories and organized them in the following buckets: health and safety tips, accessory crafts, inspirational quotes and videos, cheer team bonding ideas, and tips for cheer parents. We were also sure to incorporate data that correlated with Esteem’s core values: power, reliability, performance, achievement, confidence and endurance.

When developing the content for Facebook, we used related websites for ideas, background information, as well as a supplement to daily posts. We would guide leaders to articles on these websites. The link previews on daily posts were visually appealing. We also

connected with other cheer-related pages and cheerleading fans on Facebook by writing on their walls and telling them about the contest, as well as sharing some of their posts on the Esteem Athletic Facebook wall.

Instagram

This semester, the Live Oak team created an Esteem Athletic Instagram account for the I Believe In Me campaign. The creative team created a package of memes with inspirational quotes that represent the core values of Esteem Athletic: Confidence, Reliability, Endurance, Achievement, Performance and Power which were posed on Instagram throughout the campaign. The memes were posted every few days, and on average received between four to six likes each. During the campaign there was one submission on the Instagram, and one ultimate winner!

Ultimately the Instagram was used to help build brand awareness and get involved with the cheerleading community online.

Twitter

The purpose of creating a Twitter account was to increase brand awareness of Esteem Athletic as a branch of ProFeet and to promote the “I Believe in Me” campaign. As a consolidated version of the Facebook page, the Twitter account was designed to reach the targeted audience, cheerleaders ages 13-18 by following similar cheerleading businesses and cross promoting their products and services.

RESULTS

Videos: 93 collective views

“Who We Are”: 29 views

“Be Ourselves”: 36 views

“Best We Can Be”: 28 views

Social Media

I Believe In Me Campaign: 1 winner

This is the “I Believe in Me” entry that was submitted on Instagram. There is a comment on the side informing the participant that they won the Day 6 challenge.

We found

that the posts with

inspirational quotes were among the most popular, often resulting in multiple likes and shares.

Facebook: 443 ‘likes,’ 54 posts

Esteem’s Facebook likes increased tenfold, resulting in a total of 443 likes after utilizing Facebook advertisements. We made an error by setting the target age range to “13 and older,” as well as including both genders to satisfy both target audiences. While this did bring a lot of traffic to the page, we did not hit the target of audience (girls, 13-18) as strongly as we intended.

Below is a graphic illustrating the increase in Facebook likes- highlighting the increase after using Facebook advertisements in March.

Not only that, but this increase in likes allowed for an increase of reach and people “talking” about the Esteem Athletic page.

Instagram: 28 followers, 49 following, 49 photos, 56 ‘likes’ received

These are some examples of the memes that were created for the Instagram account, and one example of a “shared” photo from another account.

Twitter: 14 follows, 108 following, 65 tweets

Prior to the contest, there were only 28 tweets posted on the Esteem Athletic timeline. The account had 103 followers and followed 14 people. During the contest, there were 37 tweets relating to the “I Believe in Me” campaign, making a total of 65 tweets for Esteem Athletic. None of the tweets during the campaign were retweeted and favored from followers, suggesting that the contest information did not reach past the followers and their timelines. Because the information was not reaching new Twitter users, Esteem Athletic was not generating any new viewers or possible consumers with this social media account.

CAMPAIGN SUMMARY

Over the course of the spring 2013 semester, fine-tuned and launched the “I Believe In Me” campaign, which was detailed in the fall 2012 semester. The campaign is a giveaway promotion, in which the eligibility is sharing participants’ commitments on Instagram. The creative team produced a packet of Internet memes and the Facebook materials (microsite, cover photo, logo).To help with consistency of our social media content, we used Hootsuite. The site allowed us to schedule posts and assign what content was to be posted on assigned social mediums.

We focused on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to build a stronger online presence for the client. For content of these sites, we researched similar and relevant pages on these mediums, as well as blogs and other sharing sites. We also utilized the three commitment videos made during the fall 2012 semester to add to the visual content.

While there were a number of setbacks that got in the way of the campaign’s full potential, the biggest issue was that the Facebook advertising target audience was not defined well enough. By setting parameters that were too broad, we did not hit the target of audience (girls, 13-18) as strongly as we intended.

Despite the setbacks we encountered this semester, we are confident that future teams will not make the same mistakes we did. While we did achieve increased traffic and online following, we know there are tasks we could have done better. We have scheduled relevant and engaging content through Hootsuite to go onto Esteem Athletic’s Facebook and Twitter pages. We project that future concepts with our learned lessons in mind will achieve the goals set with the client.

FUTURE IMPLEMENTATIONS

The first priority is to build trust with the followers. Viewers will not like or share information about an organization they are unfamiliar with or do not know anything about. Esteem Athletic must produce content on their social media sites that build brand trust and awareness, promoting who Esteem Athletic is, what the organization offers and how the consumer can benefit from their products and services. We can recruit cheerleaders that we know to get the ball rolling with engagement, and to show others in the target audience that their peers are into Esteem.

The second change must be the target audience. For future contests, instead of trying to hit both target audiences, one should be picked. This leads into changes in the content. By researching the targeted audience and understanding their lifestyles, values, daily activities, interests and use of social media, Esteem Athletic can determine who specifically do they want to pursue and how to attract those consumers. There should be research about what those consumers like to post about or what they tweet/retweet/favorite about, and then form Esteem Athletic posts and tweets based on the results. The content should be interesting and feature videos, photos and other forms of visual subject matter. Majority of tweets that are retweeted on different timelines are photos and events that are dramatic, exciting, interesting and new. Esteem Athletic can create fun, creative and newsworthy cheerleading tweets for their followers to show to their friends, who will then want to share with their friends and followers, and so on. There has to be more visuals than text for the followers to be interested because the majority of people don’t take the time to read an entire tweet or phrase. Once these tweets are geared towards the targeted audience, based on their interests, and have significant visuals, then Esteem Athletic will increase their followers and spread their information nationally. It would also benefit the Facebook page to post more about the product, so that the audience knows what kind of company Esteem Athletic is, and what products Esteem offers.

Another important aspect to note in terms of target audience is to be sure that future Facebook advertising has a succinctly defined target audience to maximize the potential of the ads. Future teams should also be sure to regularly follow up with Hootsuite, to make sure all content is going through to the assigned social media sites.

In the future, it may be best to supplement online efforts with an offline plans. For example, once a target audience for a future contest is set, have a local focus group with members of that audience. This way, the team can better understand the schedule and restraints the target audience faces, and cater the social media content to those specifications.

Another offline idea is to find cheer competitions that are not sponsored by competitors, and have representatives of Esteem Athletic distribute free products and talk to participants and their families about the brand.