Social Media Marketing Plan for John Goods Shipping Company

This project presents a comprehensive social media marketing plan designed for John Goods Shipping Company, a UK-based freight and shipping business. The plan begins with an introduction to the company and proceeds with a marketing audit using SWOT analysis to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It then outlines specific objectives, such as brand awareness, audience growth, customer loyalty, lead generation, and feedback monitoring. The plan details the target audience, which primarily consists of B2B clients from various industries, and recommends selecting appropriate social media zones and vehicles across community, commerce, publishing, and entertainment. An experience strategy is developed to enhance customer relationships, and an activation plan is established, including timelines and budget. The plan also addresses the management and measurement of social media activities, providing a framework for implementation and evaluation over a four-month period. The plan emphasizes the importance of leveraging social media platforms to improve brand perception, customer engagement, and business growth.

Running head: SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
Name of Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Introduction into Company..............................................................................................................2
Marketing audit using SWOT to identify the current situation.......................................................3
State objectives of using social media marketing plan....................................................................4
Developing awareness of brand.......................................................................................................4
It can help in increasing the size of target audience and social communities.................................4
It can help in improving customers loyalty through engagement strategies...................................5
Social media plans can help in converting the followers of social media into business leads for
the purpose of developing business.................................................................................................5
Social media plans can also help in monitoring the feedbacks from the customers........................5
Gathering insight into target audience.............................................................................................6
Selection of social media zones and vehicles (relationships, publishing, entertainment
andcommerce)..................................................................................................................................6
Experience strategy..........................................................................................................................8
Establishment of the activation plan & Managing and measuring..................................................9
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
Social media marketing refers to making use of platforms of the social media for the
purpose of promotion of goods and services of a company. Moreover social media marketing
includes terms such as digital marketing and also e-marketing. Moreover by making use of social
media marketing techniques and strategies that are effective, an organization can build better
relationships with customers and also leads that can help in improving the loyalty of the
customers and the leads. Therefore by making use of the social media techniques an organization
can enjoy the benefits of better customers relationships (Atwong 2015). Moreover social media
strategy can help in improving the brand loyalty of John Goods Shipping Company. A social
media marketing plan comprises of different stages and therefore includes- carrying out a
marketing audit for the purpose of identifying the present organizational position, identification
of the ideal customers, preparation of a mission statement for the social media strategy,
identification of the success metrics, preparation of engaging content, investing into tools that are
related to social media and also includes- tracking, analyzing and optimizing activities. John
Goods Shipping Company chosen for the purpose of this study is John Good shipping company
that is a UK based company. The main aim of the paper is to carry out a social media marketing
plan in the chosen company. The paper will discuss about the stages involved in the social media
marketing plan.
Introduction into Company
Job good shipping company is a private company that is headquartered in United
Kingdom and has products of shipping. The number of employees in John Goods Shipping
Company is about 250 employees. It is a shipping agency and a freight forwarding company that

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is situated in England. It is engaged in providing freight services of both air and sea. It is a
family owned business.
Marketing audit using SWOT to identify the current situation
Marketing audit refers to review of the marketing plan, strategies, and objectives and also
of all the activities that are carried out in small businesses (Bekoglu and Onayli 016). The main
aim of the marketing audit is to identify what is working and what is not working for John Goods
Shipping Company such that all those areas that need improvement can be identified. There are
various factors that need to be considered while carrying out the marketing audit such as
distributors, retailers, competitors, the market and other similar factors. Therefore the marketing
audit includes- assessing the strategies, goals objectives and mission of the business to
understand their viability and it is also important because these have a major impact over the
performance of business marketing. Therefore marketing audit includes making use of the
SWOT analysis such that the opportunities and threats of John Goods Shipping Company can be
identified.
Strength
It enjoys employees loyalty evident through
low turnover rate of staff
Better satisfaction of customers by making use
of latest technology
Weakness
Does not make appropriate usage of social
media which is pretty prominent with their
absence in social media platforms such as
instagram and Youtube.
John Goods Shipping Company is also
incapable in conducting extensive offline
marketing activities which is evident with their
absence in best seller business magazines.
Opportunity Threat

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Utilization of their social media appropriately
and professionally and initiating marketing
activities through instagram and Youtube
Expansion of their business
John Goods Shipping Company faces fierce
competition from SMT shipping and also
Maritime
Increasing charges of logistics which includes
shipment cost and cost of human resources.
State objectives of using social media marketing plan
Some of the main reasons behind using a social media plan includes- developing
awareness of brands, it helps in increasing the size of the target audience and social community,
it helps in increasing customers loyalty through various engagement strategies, it helps in
monitoring feedbacks from the customers and moreover it can help in converting the followers of
social media into leads and thereby help in business growth (Broekemier, Chau and Seshadri
2015).
Developing awareness of brand
By developing awareness of the brand, the entire sales process can be shortened, the
market share can be increased and moreover a brand can be positioned in the minds of the
customers as a leader in the market. Therefore it is necessary to evaluate the strategies of brand
positioning used by the organization presently as it can help in understanding the impacts of
marketing activities of John Goods Shipping Company on the target audience. Therefore by
modifying the existing social media platforms that is used by John Goods Shipping and also by
making use of some new social media platforms, John Goods Shipping Company can be able to
develop awareness of its brand (Dwivedi, Kapoor and Chen 2015).

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It can help in increasing the size of target audience and social communities
The social media plan can help in increasing the target audience of John Goods Shipping
Company by tracking the social visits, by sharing the voices of communities and also by taking
into consideration the community performance. John Goods sales can therefore increase the size
of its target audience by modifying its face book page such as to keep a track of the number of
visits and also to have a look after the community performance activities (Vaughn 2016).
It can help in improving customers loyalty through engagement strategies
The main aim of organizations is to develop better relationships between the customers
and themselves and therefore it becomes necessary to engage the employees in order to attain
their loyalty. This can be done by carrying out publishing activities that interest the target
audience. Therefore John Goods shipping can also carry out the same activities with the help of
some new social media platforms such as Instagram. This is so because instagram makes use of
various marketing techniques such as influencer marketing can be done with the help of the same
platform.
Social media plans can help in converting the followers of social media into business
leads for the purpose of developing business
Social media plans can help in converting the followers on social media into business
leads by making use of content marketing techniques and also by handling the feedbacks of the
customers efficiently.
Social media plans can also help in monitoring the feedbacks from the customers
Through social media platforms, regular feedback of the customers experience can be
taken in relation to the products and services offered. Which can help in measuring the

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satisfaction of the customers and moreover it can help to change the brand perception of the
customers, it can help in perception evolution, it can help in measuring the performance on the
basis of response and also resolution (Keegan and Rowley 2017). Therefore by modification of
the existing social media platforms such as twitter, John Goods Shipping Company can improve
its brand perception. For that it may have to appoint professionals for handling their social media
presence.
Gathering insight into target audience
The target audience of John Goods shipping includes customers from various industries
such as automotive, packaging, retailing, furniture, food and drinks and also recyclables. The
target audience of John Goods Shipping Company mainly comprises of B2B companies that are
operating in the above mentioned industries (Tuten and Solomon 2017). Moreover the customers
of John Goods Shipping Company range from organizations that are blue chipped to even
individual shippers. John Goods Shipping Company serves the needs of its customers by
providing value to them at competitive prices. Moreover John Goods Shipping Company
believes in adopting a partnership approach while working with the customers for the purpose of
delivering solutions that are innovative and also ensuring transparency in its activities.
Selection of social media zones and vehicles (relationships, publishing,
entertainment and commerce)
Social media Zones and vehicles includes four main zones as has been shown in the
picture below and therefore includes- social community, social commerce, social publishing and
also social entertainment (Macarthy 2018). Social community refers to all the social media
channels that are used for carrying out interactions between groups and individuals and also

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other activities with the help of community. Some of the major social media channels includes-
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Social commerce includes- the trading of goods
online between various groups and individuals. Some of the major social commerce channels
includes Trip advisor and others. Social publishing refers to sharing information or content to the
audience about a particular topic. Some of the major channels of the social publishing zone
includes- Youtube, Tumblr, Flickr and Blogger. Social entertainment zone refers to all those
platforms of social media that is used for the purpose of entertainment and enjoyment. Therefore
it includes- art, videos and games. Some of the main channels of this particular zone includes-
instagram, Myspace and Come2Play.
Figure 1: The four social media Zones
Source: (Tuten and Solomon 2017)

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Therefore, John Goods shipping also needs to select the channels of its four major social media
zones. For the social community zone, the channel that can be used by John Goods Shipping
Company is modified version of Facebook and twitter as these can help John Goods Shipping
Company in carrying out social interactions between John Goods Shipping Company and its
customers. For the social commerce Zone, John Goods Shipping Company can make use of
channels that can supports its business (Koskinen 2016). For instance in order to support John
Goods Shipping Company’s presence in the e-commerce industry, various e-commerce
companies can be used. For the social publishing zone, the channel that can be used is Youtube
as it will help John Goods Shipping Company in spreading better information about its products
and services to the target audience. Moreover, for the purpose of the social entertainment zone,
various channels such as Instagram can be used. This will help the company in engaging the
customers through entertainment and enjoyment.
Experience strategy
Experience strategy refers to the experience that a customer has with a company before
and even after sales. Customers are being provided with new ways for experiencing the goods
and services with the help of latest digital technologies. And the customers are selecting goods
and services based on their experience. Therefore it is necessary for companies to adopt an
experience strategy that is digitally driven such that they can meet the expectations of the
customers. The main aim of the experience strategy that is digitally driven is to build better
customer relationships. Therefore the strategy of digital experience will include all the phases of
lifecycle of the customers. These include- awareness, selection, consideration, experience,
engagement, support and also loyalty and retention.

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Figure 2: Digital Experience strategy
Source: (Goyal 2017)
Therefore John goods shipping company can make use of the strategy of digital
experience for improving the overall experience of the customers and also for the purpose of
generating leads through better customers relationships.
Establishment of the activation plan & Managing and measuring
Stages of the social media
marketing
Time period required (total
time period of 4 months)
Cost of implementation
(budget= $40000)
Conducting marketing audit
for understanding the present
position of the company
2weeks-4 weeks $ 5000
Identification of the target
audience
4 weeks- 6weeks $ 2000
Creation of a mission
statement for social media
6 weeks- 8weeks $ 2000
Identification of the success
metrics of the plan
8 weeks- 10 weeks $ 1000
Creation of engaging content
to engage the customers for
longer period of time
10 weeks- 12weeks $ 10000

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Investing and making use of
management tool that supports
social media
12weeks- 14weeks $10000
Tracking, analyzing and
optimizing all the social media
activities
14weeks- 17weeks $ 10000
Conclusion
Therefore from the above discussion, it can be concluded that social media marketing
plan is necessary for all organization for the purpose of improving their brand image, good will
and also for improving the loyalty of the customers. Moreover the social media marketing plan
can provide for a competitive advantage to John Goods Shipping Company carrying out the
same. Small and medium size enterprises have to face a number of issues while carrying out their
operations and may find it difficult to attract more customers and therefore they may adopt the
social media marketing for the purpose of attracting and retaining customers. From the paper the
stages of the social media marketing plan has been understood and the paper also discusses about
an experience strategy for improving the customers experience. Further from the paper the
activation plan can be understood and also the managing and measurement of the same can be
understood.

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References
Atwong, C.T., 2015. A social media practicum: An action-learning approach to social media
marketing and analytics. Marketing Education Review, 25(1), pp.27-31.
Bekoglu, F.B. and Onayli, C., 2016. Strategic Approach in Social Media Marketing and a Study
on Successful Facebook Cases. European Scientific Journal, 12(7), pp.261-274.
Broekemier, G., Chau, N.N. and Seshadri, S., 2015. Social media practices among small
business-to-business enterprises. Small Business Institute Journal, 11(1).
Dwivedi, Y.K., Kapoor, K.K. and Chen, H., 2015. Social media marketing and advertising. The
Marketing Review, 15(3), pp.289-309.
Goyal, L., 2017. Leading digital strategy: driving business growth through effective E-
commerce. Vikalpa, 42(2), pp.128-130.
Keegan, B.J. and Rowley, J., 2017. Evaluation and decision making in social media
marketing. Management Decision, 55(1), pp.15-31.
Koskinen, S., 2016. Increasing Social Media Engagement through a Digital Marketing Plan.
Case: Plootu.
Macarthy, A., 2018. 500 Social Media Marketing Tips: Essential Advice, Hints and Strategy for
Business Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and More!.
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Tuten, T.L. and Solomon, M.R., 2017. Social media marketing. Sage.