Marketing Plan

Danqing Liu, Jennifer Talbott, and Geng Zhang

The project
The primary goal of the Media@IU project is to bring the widelydispersed media resources and information on the IU campus into a comprehensive and interactive website in order to foster collaboration and a more coherent community of faculty, students, and community partners at IU. The initial launch of the website will contain four categories of media resources and information: student organizations and clubs related to media activities on the IUBloomington campus, graduate and undergraduatelevel courses related to media (design, production, management, financing & economics) currently offered across the IU Bloomington campus, including descriptions and information on faculty responsible for such courses; media companies, organizations/networks, and individual media professionals currently operating in the Bloomington and wider area (incl. Indianapolis); and additional resources offered by the IUBloomington campus for students pursuing media studies, including facilities and educational workshops pertaining to media. To increase recognition of the project and further promote a coherent community of mediaminded individuals, digital marketing strategies will be used to publicize the Media@IU project (with a focus on social media). Additionally, the Media@IU website will show all interested users that media does not reside in oneor even in three or fourdepartments within the IU Bloomington campus. Rather, there are media resources across at least 17 different departments, with a range of topics from advertising to dance, from film to games and beyond. Just as media is a difficult term to define discretely, it is impossible to draw a boundary around the study and production of it that does not include the entire campus. For this very reason, it is a worthwhile challenge to try and create a point around which the Media@IU community can form.

The challenge
Long- and short-term marketing goals
The goal of marketing initiatives will be to introduce Media@IU to the key audiences and to further solidify the brand of Media@IU as the portal for all things media at Indiana University, and to materialize the media community at IU into a more tangible form: a list

of likers, followers, or friends. As such, social media will play a key role in the marketing, to provide information relevant to this communityincluding news about media, upcoming events on campus, and updates to the Media@IU project. It will also serve as another point of contact for individuals interested in learning more about the project or its administrators. Success in the short term will be measured by the total number of unique connections fostered by the social media initiatives, with an initial goal of 100 connections by the end of the Spring semester 2012. Since most of the key audience groups (outlined below) are not yet familiar with the website or the organization, the first stage of marketing should be to introduce the website and the goals the Media@IU organization are trying to achieve. Along with finding and connecting with key members of the target audience who will help spread the word about Media@IU, it will be important to introduce the organization in an orderly and meaningful way, with a concise mission statement. When the website, blog, social media profiles and offline interactions under the Media@IU brand come together, it will be confusing for the audience if there is not a clear identity behind Media@IU. This potential for confusion may be compounded when Digital@IU begins to engage with much the same audience. In the shortterm, a clear statement that focuses the goals and direction of Media@IU, such as the description that will be featured on the Connect page of the website, will solidify the purpose of the organization in the audiences mind. Once the audience is aware of the website and the organization and has a basic understanding of what the functionalities and goals are of the two, the team should reinforce the identity of Media@IU by sharing continuous content relevant to the interests stated through the first marketing stage. The longterm goals can be achieved through a variety of media presences, including the integrated use of the website, the blog, the social media accounts, and offline interactions. The marketing plan of each of the media presences should be strategized differently yet also complement each other. Besides outputting content that might attract and retain the desired audience, the team should also strive to make media presences interactive. Specifically, for each input or feedback from the audience on social networks, there should be a response from the Media@IU teameither by organizing an editorial team to monitor the social media accounts (such as Facebook page and Twitter) or assigning one team member to respond directly to all inquiries. The website can also be interactive by being open to and encouraging feedback. Since the information presented on the site is likely never to be completed, e.g. course information that changes each semester, the site should have necessary channels to allow outside sources to be added and updated. This way, members of the audience will not only feel that they are passively receiving information but also positively participating in the overall development and evolution of the organization.

Target audience
When creating the design and testing usability of the Media@IU website, three key audience groups were identified: students, faculty, and local companies or professionals who are working in or interested in media. Our marketing plan will focus on educating our target audience about how this website can benefit them while endeavoring to connect with them in a more interactive way through social media. Below is an outline of how the website will serve the three groups of users:

Students
If an incoming student or freshman who is interested in film industry wants to see what resources are available to them at Indiana University, he/she should start with the Media@IU website. The straightforward navigation bar classifies such resources into courses, student clubs, local companies and facilities on campus. The underlying database covers all the mediarelated resources a student might need, and will be updated consistently as new courses and other resources become available. Studentswhether undergraduate, graduate, incoming or currentcan use Media@IU to see what media courses are offered across campus; what student groups share their interests; what local media companies have a close relationship with IU; and what media facilities or equipment at IU can help them with their research and projects. For a student, especially one who has limited knowledge about the media industry, it can be difficult to locate resources across campus. Even students who have learned about a specific area of media may have no idea that a course in another department may supplement his/her study. Therefore, toward students, the marketing for Media@IU will endeavor to let students know that the website can serve as a map of media resources on the IU Bloomington campus.

Faculty
For faculty, the website can serve as a platform for connecting with other faculty members for collaboration or further learning, by illuminating what courses are offered in other departments that are related to their interests. In addition, knowing what resources on campus can facilitate mediarelated research can be very helpful, possibly shortening their preparation time and lowering research costs. Beyond other academics, faculty can see a list of local companies that are in the industry and contact them for cooperation on research or projects if desired. Furthermore, if a student asks for suggestions on courses to take, professors and academic advisers can use Media@IU to better guide him/her across departments and schools.

Local companies
Local companies can also benefit from Media@IU. Firstly, if the company is listed on the Media@IU website, students will be more aware of itif the company is looking for interns or new employees, it is likely that they will have more candidates. Secondly, local companies can also use this website to locate professors they want to work with or student groups that they are interested in. Media@IU should position itself as a platform to serve these three audience groups by facilitating networking, communication and efficient location of information. Therefore, the marketing strategies and marketing tools used to promote the organization will be oriented toward letting the audience know how they can benefit from the information provided by the Media@IU website. A detailed look at how social media and offline marketing tools can be used to reach each audience group can be found in the following sections.

The game plan: How to reach stated goals

Social media
With low implementation costs and a unique potential to engage consumers on a personal level, it is quickly becoming apparent that social media has a significant place in every organizations marketing plan. Social media will be used to build a community around the Media@IU brand to reach the projects longterm goals, and in the process will help reach the shortterm goals of increasing awareness and use of the website and defining the mission of the project.

Tools to use
Facebook Facebooks presence is seemingly ubiquitous online, and now appeals to a diverse group of users, from our target audiences of incoming undergraduates through tenured faculty.1

Top 10 Global Social Networks by unique visitors (in 1,000s), June 2011. comScore1

1 The Social Media Data Stacks. Marketing Charts. Watershed Publishing, 2011. PDF.

Likely due to its wide reach and vast amounts of user data and analytics, many corporations and brands are using their Facebook page as a substitute for the company website exemplified by a call to consumers to find/like us on Facebook at the end of TV commercials and other advertising instead of displaying the corporate What Constitutes Permission to Market on Facebook? URL. Users seem to be % of respondents, July 2011. ExactTarget2 acclimating to this trend as well, and are beginning to expect all organizations to have a Facebook page in the way they once expected them to have a website. Due to its wide reach and because users may expect a Facebook page to be available and lively, Facebook will be a cornerstone of Media@IUs social media plan.2 Twitter Twitters reach is not yet as extensive as Facebooks, with only 300 million users3 compared to 800 million on Facebook4, however its popularity and therefore its usefulness to organizations is quickly growing: while it took three years, two months and one day to go from the first to the billionth tweet, it now takes only one week for a billion tweets to be shared (as of 2011).5 Thanks to the design of Twitters interfacewhere posts are queued in a users stream, constantly refreshingit seems that most individuals who have accounts on both Twitter and Facebook tend to post more frequently on Twitter. The constant flow of tweets is easily scanned, and consequently users may accept more tweets per account followed than they might in their Facebook news feedwhich, although similar, organizes posts based on the time it was shared or on factors such as the relationship between two users and the

2 The Social Media Data Stacks. Marketing Charts. Watershed Publishing, 2011. PDF. 3 Twitter. Wikipedia. Wikipedia, n.d. Web. 8 December 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter 4 Statistics. Facebook. Facebook, Inc., 2011. Web. 8 December 2011. 5

http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics #numbers. Twitter blog. Twitter, 14 March 2011. Web. 8 December 2011. http://blog.twitter.com/2011/03/numbers.html

number of comments/likes per post.6 This organization means that some posts may be more persistent in a users news feed (if many friends continue to comment on it, for example), rather than consistently moving down the queue as time goes on. Because of its quick rise in reach and its apparent perception as a forerunner of new media, Twitter will be a complement to Facebook and a significant part of Media@IUs social media efforts. YouTube Although Media@IU may not have original videos to post (except perhaps short clips taken from media speaker series), YouTube may prove a useful resource to help connect media producers on campus and around Bloomington. Through a YouTube account, administrators could curate playlists of videos created by student classes or groups to further solidify the sense of community around Media@IU.

Guidelines for use

As the social media plan is implemented, it is important that updates be consistent in tone and volumea schedule should be set and followed to ensure a fairly even amount of posts per day or week. While some updates may be crossposted on both Facebook and Twitter, one account should not be a direct copy of the other. Suggestions for use are outlined below: An initial schedule of posting once per day on Twitter and three times per week on Facebook may be used. o This will allow time for the administrators to figure out how social media for Media@IU will fit into their schedule.

It will also allow time for admins to find sources for posting news items consistently.

A tool like HootSuite (www.hootsuite.com) should be used to manage the posting schedule. With a paid account (starting at $5.99/month), HootSuite admins can:

Allow multiple users to manage one account Post to both Facebook and Twitter accounts (available for free accounts) Schedule posts to be updated in the future, and manage a queue of posts to help stay on schedule (available for free accounts) Designate someone to approve posts before being sent Analyze link clickthroughs (available for free accounts) and generate other social analytics reports

6 What is a highlighted story? Facebook Help Center. Facebook, Inc., 2001. Web. 8 December 2011.

http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=277741542238350

The tone on Twitter should be personal and show that there are individuals posting items, rather than a nameless corporation. Users seem to appreciate personal touches like impromptu photos (taken on a phone, for example).7

Marketing Contact via Social Networks, % of respondents, July 2011. ROI Research and Performics7

The tone on Facebook may be more official; as mentioned above, many companies and users are comfortable with the idea that a Facebook page is a near replacement for a corporate website. Posts on both tools should be a balance of news from external sources (for example, an article from Mashable), news specific to Media@IU or media events on the IU campus (a featured class offered next semester, work from an IU club, or an upcoming speaker event), and interaction (responding to comments/replies, asking for input in a poll or starting a # [hashtag] discussion)

Interaction should perhaps be of all activity, as social media is at its best when users are engaged. Users should be invited to populate the Facebook page with polls and discussions, such as what is your favorite course in media so far? or did you know about these 10 hidden gems that can help you produce media? Any others we should know about? Input from the audience should be responded to quickly to foster a sense of collaboration, as mentioned in the target audience section above. The medium of the post should also vary, with a variety of textonly, photos, videos and links.

The Social Media Data Stacks. Marketing Charts. Watershed Publishing, 2011. PDF.

Implementation (timeline)
January: start regular Facebook updates. The team can launch a campaign through February targeting high school seniors who are applying to and accepting offers from universitiesshowing that IU is a great place for media research and production with a wide variety of courses and resources. February: start regular Twitter updates. The team can launch a campaign through April targeting current IU undergraduates who are registering for classes for the Fall 2012 semesterdriving students interested in media to the website to help them search for classes they may not have known about or considered. March: start YouTube channel, with playlists of student work. The team can launch a campaign on Twitter targeting current students that will funnel users to the YouTube students can be asked for links to their work and encouraged to tag their videos with a standard Media@IU tag. Simultaneously, local companies looking for interns can be targeted to push them towards the YouTube channel, and encourage them to make sure they are listed on the Media@IU website.

Future uses
In the future, the social media tools will be used to further increase connections and foster discussion. Along with the initiallyidentified tools mentioned above, the social media plan may expand to incorporate additional tools as resources allow, including, for example:

LinkedIn: to connect with professional groups and participate in discussion threads GoodReads: to create a reading list of thoughtprovoking titles for the community to read and discuss Tumblr or a blog on the website: to generate content that can be shared with the community, perhaps asking members of the Media@IU community and visiting speakers to contribute to posts

Other new media initiatives Link sharing

Link sharing is a lowcost initiative that may make great strides towards the shortterm goals of awarenessbuilding, if partner websites are carefully selected. The team can ask to place a link to the Media@IU website on a partner site in exchange for a reciprocated link on mediaiu.indiana.edu (or in exchange for adding the partner site to the database or featuring work from the partner organization on the home page if appropriate). Key

partner sites that will likely benefit Media@IU the most and best fit with the project mission include:

IU Office of the Registrar, where current students may go to research classes IU Office of Admissions, where incoming students may start to learn about whats available at IU IU Career Development Services, where students may go to find potential employers and vice versa Websites for mediaheavy departments on the IU campus, including: o The Department of Telecommunications o Communications and Culture (CMCL) o The School of Journalism o The School of Public and Environmental Healths (SPEA) Arts Administration program o The School of Library and Information Sciences (SLIS) o The School of Education

The IU Bloomington AZ Big List The organizations list on the Faculty & Staff page off the IU Bloomington home page

As awareness of the project grows, more link sharing opportunities will likely present themselves. All link sharing can be reinforced with connections across social media as available, for instance liking the IU Career Development Services Facebook page and following them on Twitter.

PR and offline marketing

As stated in the Vision Document, offline interactions are just as important as online interactions. Offline interactions reinforce and fuel up the dynamics that are generated through online interactions. They also serve some of the core values of the organization, such as building a hub for people from interdisciplinary backgrounds to mingle together and collide with creative ideas. In the 2012 Spring semester, the marketing plan will be carried out in conjunction with four types of offline interactions: official website launch event (April), workshops, presence at media talks, and representation at student fairs (Fall).

Launch event
The official website launch event is essential as the debut of the website as well as a public exhibition of the organization. It sets the tone of the organization and makes the first

impression with the audience. The preparation of the event should get started at the beginning of the 2012 Spring semester and continue through midApril (see tentative schedule below). The planning should include at least five parts: the guest lists, the playlist, the promotion of the event, location scouting and reservation, and logistics. Individual tasks should be assigned into these categories accordingly.

Tentative launch event Gantt chart

Guest lists There will be essentially two parts of creating the guest list. First, the team should select the people that seem most likely to come. Second, these people should be contacted to find their time availability. The first process should take up about four weeks (Jan 9 Feb 5) and the checking process four weeks too (Feb 6 Mar 4). It is advisable that the lists be finalized before the playlist is set, because some of the activities in the playlist depend on how many and which guests are coming. Playlist Some of the activities in the playlist depend on how many guests attend and who agrees to come. But others are applicable to the general public, meaning that no matter who comes and how many show up, such activities can take place at a given time, such as an opening talk and the voting for an official logo. However, the organizer should be mindful of the number of attendees when considering logistics (catering, SWAG, room reservation, etc.). An online registration system may come in handy here. Equally important is that the schedule for preparing activities on the playlist should include time slots for rehearsals, checking upon the compatibility of computers and projectors, wireless connections, fine tuning the timing of speeches and other things as needed. Promotion Promotion of the launch event should be throughout the semester and even after the event is played out. However, it is still arguable whether it should start in the first week of the semester (Jan 9 Jan 16) or later. Pros of starting in the first week: because the primary service of the website is the course database system, it will be very helpful for returning students when they are in the final process of fixing their Spring course schedules. In this case, the promotion of the website in the first week of class will be wise. Cons: marketing strategies at this stage may not be fully fleshed out and it is recommended that once a marketing effort is taken place, it should be consistent. So

any major changes made after its first rollout could be dangerous and distracting. Thus, whether the promotion of the launch event should be started in the first week or later in the semester remains open to debate. For promotion, the afterparty followup is also critical. Video clips taken during the event should be edited, updated, and distributed through various media presences in a timely manner. Thankyou letters should be sent to the guests. In a nutshell, the afterevent activities are the best time to secure loyalty. Location scouting and room reservation Depending on the number of attendees and activities on the playlist, the investigation of locations can run through February. The room reservation can be started parallel to the investigation. However, the team may want to assess the timing of making reservationsif it is done too early, there may be changes coming up later to cause reconsideration of the room; too late, the most ideal room options will be taken. After all, the team would want to check the facilities a particular room has to ensure it fits activities in the playlist. Logistics Logistics may include but are not limited to: Timeline creation and monitoring; Budget development, management, oversight, and reconciliation; Onsite event staffing and floor management; Print design & production arrangement; Production managementlighting, sound, video, staging, tenting, show flow writing, and script assistance; Permits/parking.

In carrying out the logistics, a small/nimble volunteer program may be needed as the coordination of the logistics tasks are beyond the control of twothree editorsespecially for some specialized tasks such as camera, lighting, etc.

Workshops
Media@IUspecific workshops can be helpful in conjunction with seminars and workshops held by departments/schools (such as the T600 seminar in Telecommunications). For one thing, anything that adds content for the Media@IU website will be worth doing. There can be two types of workshops: workshops that are hosted by the Media@IU organization and workshops that Media@IU is covering. For workshops that are hosted by the Media@IU organization, once desired topics are set, the rest of the preparation is neither complicated nor timedemanding. Topics are the most essential part of the workshops, and different methods can be used to make the topic selection effective. As mentioned before, the team should make every effort to try to keep the organization

interactive. Users should be able to recommend topics/speakers they are interested in on every media presence run by Media@IU, and should expect a response after each submission. After receiving recommendations from users, the Media@IU team could frame the topic into a workshop and contact desired speakers on the users behalf. They could also ask for help from the users in getting in touch with potential speakers. For topics suggested without specific speakers, the team will need to research who the appropriate speakers should be. This research can be done solely by the team or in coordination with the users. When the workshops are held by other departments/schools, Media@IU can provide assistance to the organizers by sharing the teams coverage of the event with the original hosts and helping to promote them through its media presences. This can be done through the blog and Events section in the website. Those workshops can also be the content of the Media@IUs own social media updates. Covering events hosted by mediafocused departments and schools will help to build relationships with them. That is, when Media@IU hosts workshops, those departments and schools may like to partner up with the organization or help it the same way that the Media@IU team did for their events. The collaboration process will be valuable for both sides down the road.

Presence at media talks

Interdisciplinary media talks are an integrated part of the workshop initiative mentioned above as occasionally, speakers come to the campus and give talks to students. It is also beneficial for scholars and professionals to have special guests to interact with who are related to or interested in media and creative industries. The Media@IU team can host the visiting guests, and also can work with other departments to facilitate the events. The events can be promoted through social media and/or a Media@IU blog, and also can be featured in the Event section on the website. Media@IU administrators can take pictures as the events go and post lively updates during the event to give a more instant and spontaneous feel to interactions. These guests can be arranged either directly by Media@IU or by other departments and schools.

IU Student Involvement Fair (Fall)

The IU Student Involvement Fair will be held every September on the Bloomington campus. It is an excellent opportunity for Media@IU to showcase itself and market its presence in a public setting. The nature of the Media@IU project makes the Fair a perfect marketing channel because swarms of new students will be looking for courses and student organizations to connect with. The preparation for the Fair will be much simpler than the launch event because the time and location are arranged by the school. There is no need to invite guests or schedule speakers. Some budget may be devoted to creating and ordering SWAG and printing

banners for the Media@IU booth. There is a signup process for the booth reservation, and whoever is charged with organizing the Fair will need to contact the IU Student Involvement Fair committee first and reserve a spot. The fair will also be a great opportunity to gather volunteers involved in media courses or clubs to work at the Media@IU booth, so they can interact with new students, and to simultaneously collect information from interested students to add to the Media@IU email list or to connect through social media.

Conclusion
With the beginnings of a database and a website facilitating easy browsing and search for media resources, Media@IU can use online and offline marketing tactics to tell students, faculty, and local companies about the site and encourage use and feedback. As more users interact with the site and learn about the mission of Media@IU, social media and faceto face interaction at mediarelated events will build the media community on the IU Bloomington campus into a visible, interactive, and lively community for years to come.