The Beer Store

1. The Beer Store A Strategic Plan for Social Media in 2011 – Erin Scott

2. Goals • Make The Beer Store the ultimate source for beer. • To create more effective social media channels that encourages greater engagement and investment from new and existing consumers. • To increase profits by making The Beer Store more accessible and well known. • Elicit more feedback from consumers by connecting social media channels; engage and motivate The Beer Store’s most active online influencers and advocates to ensure that their input is acknowledged and facilitate two-way communication.

3. Objectives • Appeal to publics that may not choose to purchase beer at The Beer Store by increasing and improving social media outlets over the next four months. • Better utilize third party endorsements by bridging all existing social media channels by the end of June. • Increase online traffic 20 per cent by making www.thebeerstore.ca more interactive over next four months. • Increase total feedback gained by social media 30 per cent over next four months.

4. Position The Beer Store has been around since 1927. TBS is an organization with a rich heritage and strong community tradition. We are the primary distribution and sales channel for beer in Ontario. Now, we want to be the ultimate source for beer in Ontario. WE CAN DO THIS!

5. Why We’re Here • On top of providing Ontario with over 350 types of beers at 440 locations, our business is to create value for stakeholders. • We provide the widest selection of beer in Ontario, taste guides, recipes, food pairings, entertainment and responsible hosting ideas, free issues of Chill Magazine and even access to special occasion permits. • There are changes to our social media that will increase interest in TBS. In order to gain the interest of those who are not familiar with TBS, additional and bettering our use of cost-efficient social media is recommended. • The Beer Store needs to be the ultimate source for social media, too.

6. How We’ll Do It • Using social media channels to appeal to new publics. • Working together with Chill Magazine to best utilize current partnership. • Evaluating tools that TBS’s partners have used to determine which channels to add, as well as which channels yield the least amount of Internet traffic. • Creating more opportunities within existing channels where consumers and members of other external publics can give feedback directly to The Beer Store’s public relations team.

7. Methods • Facebook page will include more discussions, with some topics to be determined by “fans”. • To combat the LCBO’s Food & Drink, TBS will produce a monthly E-newsletter with entertaining tips, recipies, food pairings and more. This information will no longer be limited to the website. • The creation of a Digg or StumbleUpon account will disseminate promotional information about TBS, encourage consumers to create fan lists, facilitate a reciprocal relationship between the consumer and TBS where opinions can be heard and replied to, and it will ultimately create social media trails. • Pictures and videos of events, products and consumers will be shared on social media channels, creating a feeling of inclusivity amongst consumers; creating a channel on youtube will do this.

8. Methods • The creation of a smart phone application, exclusive to TBS, that allows consumers to find TBS locations both by city and postal codes. Consumers can also search where a preferred beer is sold. • An addition to the smart phone application will allow average consumers and retailers to receive new product and promotional information as soon as it occurs. It will also extend TBS’s outreach in the world of social networks. • Smart phone application will not only help consumers find the closest TBS but also provide current information such as which locations are closed for renovations and provide a second TBS location. • Chill Magazine produces radio segments with their “Beerologist”. These Beerologist segments will be either filmed or set to video footage and posted to both TBS’s website, Facebook page and youtube channel.

9. Measurements & Metrics • The research strategy will require monitoring and measuring the use of both new and improved social media channels. Google Analytics will be the main tool used for monitoring any increase in web traffic. • Sales will be the most obvious tool to measure any gain of consumers. • Content analysis of feedback and discussion boards on Facebook, Digg, and Twitter will be essential in understanding the public engagement with TBS.

10. More • Monitoring social book marking site, del.icio.us will provide information about the popularity of TBS’s new social media efforts as well as show how consumers are ‘tagging’ all TBS’s channels. • Using bit.ly or the like to shorten links for Twitter – these sites also track the number of unique visits to the linked website. • All data from content analysis and sales monitoring will be collected in a cohesive report to present to line managers. The results of the report will justify the strategic plan.

11. Measurements Breakdown • There are three Key Performance Indicators (KPI) used to measure social media ROI. • Volume: fans, followers, trends, ‘likes’, et cetera. • Engagement (with the brand): retweets, subscribers, commenting, sharing, anything conversation-like. • Conversion: click-throughs, E-mail lists, sales, or basically turning a prospective consumer into an actual one. • Some useful tools/sites include: hootsuite, bit.ly, goo.gle, socialmention.com, samepoint.com, backtype.com and twitteranalyzer.com.

12. Measurements Breakdown • Here are three alternate names for the categories of social media measurement. • Quantitative Metrics: numbers, unique visits, length of visits, et cetera. • Qualitative Metrics: the emotional components, comments, sharing, ‘@replying’ et cetera. • ROI Metrics: conversions of prospective clients or consumers into actual clients or consumers. • All social media channels should drive consumers to the landing page on our main website, which is analyzed by Google Analytics. This is how we measure our efforts.

13. Budget • Use of existing Google Analytics account. No further cost. • BackType.com is set to soon launch a new Twitter ROI tool. • Terametrics is launching an ‘Optimizer for Twitter’. Cost TBD. • $36,000 - $40,000 salary toward newly hired Social Media Marketing Strategist. • Price of smart phone application TBD. Consult with same company that oversees TBS’s website.

14. Expected Outcomes • We become the ultimate source for beer! • A notable increase in web traffic through all current and proposed social media channels. • Collection of information from monitoring feedback, traffic and all aspects of Google Analytics that will be used in future public relations decisions for TBS. • The bridging of new and proposed social media channels will create trails that will go on to attract more consumers. • An increase in contest participation as well as event awareness and attendance. • Overall increase in product awareness, number of consumers and profit.