social media plan

Introduction

Swift Express Rental is a car rental company situated on the wondrous island of Mauritius. Being a tourist magnet country, swift express rental services adult tourists and citizens with up to date, exotic and state of the art vehicles for rent. To be used for the individuals leisure, pleasure and or business trips around the Island. With our head office located at Vacoas and several other outlets spread across the Island, we are only but a call away.
Swift express rental was founded by late Sir Richard Bronson in the mid-eighties (1985). He was one of the pioneer tour guides of his time, ferrying tourists from point A to point B sailing boats around the island and showing off the Mauritian aquatic splendor to the tourists who came in search of adventure. Every once in a while he will use his old beat down beetle (Volks Wagen). During the course of his services, development improved around on the island with construction of new road networks and just then he decided to invest his savings in buying cars, moving his business mainly to car rentals and thus became swift car rentals.
Over the course of time Richard Bronson, expanded his business as his customers increased, buying more cars and employing more staff till he passed away in 2008. His son Peter then took over and was only able to manage the business for five years, business dwindling and loss of customers pushed him to sell the business. In 2013 a group of friends bought off the business, maintained the name but embarked on a rebranding campaign by buying new cars, renovating old office buildings, building new outlets and developing new advertisement strategies.
Realizing that days gone are the days of old where newspapers, television, radio and handbills were the modus operandi in information dissemination, swift express rental have upgraded their advertisement portfolio by introducing and delving into ‘Social Networking Strategies’ to help improve and bolster their clientele by reaching out to a wider, vast, and more specific target audience with the sole aim of improving their customer base.
According to the 2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, 83% of marketers say that social media is important for their business. And marketers plan on increasing their use of YouTube (76%), Facebook (72%), Twitter (69%), blogs (68%), Google+ (67%) and LinkedIn (66%) in that order. As more companies integrate social media into their marketing and communications plans, emphasis needs to be on creating a social media strategy. Without a strategy, there’s a very good chance you’ll lose sight of your goals, and not make the impact you originally intended.

Like every other modern day business organization, Swift express rental is no different in recognizing that information technology and information systems is the new trend of the 21st century, with its wireless network spanning the world and connecting over one billion users worldwide.
Aims and Objectives

Swift express rental’s sole aim and objective is to reach out to and indulge a newer, younger, hip and vibrant customer base on the island employing social networking sites as its mainstream link to adult youths looking to renting a car. Clear cut strategic decisions have been made and implementation is underway with prospects of creating a social media strategy that includes uses of but are not limited social networking sites such as; Facebook, Twitter, Wordpress and Youtube. Swift express rental plans to use this media to gain social presence, market their services on the worldwide web and also to make them easily accessible just by the simple click of a button any and everywhere on the island.
This social media strategies aim to achieve the following feats;
• Give Swift express rental an online presence
• Advertise Services
• Increase current customer base
• To create a means to receive feedback on customer satisfaction
• Enlighten customers about ongoing service promotions
• Creating an effortless link to improve customer/company relations
The social media strategy objective are to;
• Improve swift express rental’s google analytics
• Improve awareness of services rendered
• Improve profit margin by reeling in new customers
• To inform tourists of our services
Target Market

Swift express rental’s target market for its services are; tourists – Who are new in town and need a car to get around the island, university students – Who are of the age, possess a driver’s license and want a car to go adventuring the island during the holidays or who even plan weekend road trips to the famous parts of the island, the working class – who have a dinner to attend or a business meeting to rush to and don’t have the leisure of owning a personal car or rather want to pull at that dinner in style with a sleek new ride, or even the aged who go camping, swimming at the beach, visiting relatives every once in a while and do not want to put their personal car through the paces or maybe even need more space than their personal cars have to convey more people, the newlywed – who need that flamboyant car for the wedding ceremony complimenting their dashing attires, looking the part and rolling down in the part with an array of exotic cars to choose from, the couple – who want to get away from the hassles of everyday life and just take a long drive someplace far to bask in the islands sun whilst getting their feet a bit wet.
Swift express car rental has everyone covered from the university student to the top executive of a company, leaving out only minors who are yet to be of age or yet to possess a driver’s license. But the general idea is that as long as you need it (a car) we (Swift express rental) would service you with a car that suits your lifestyle.
Tools of Social Media

Social media sites have over the years grown from a regular social networking site where people meet people or friends connecting with lost friends but has become an advertisement hub for organizations and enterprises to showcase their goods and services to the world at large. This 21st century medium of advertising has gained vast popularity through social networking sites such as; Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Myspace, Bebo, hi5, Youtube, Napster, e.t.c. As it has helped multinational companies and even small medium enterprises enlarge their customer base by constantly airing, mentioning or displaying their products on the internet which is viewed either actively or passively by a customer or potential customer. That is to say that an internet user can either directly look up the company in search of a service/product or the user might chance upon an advert by the company whilst surfing the internet and become enthralled in it.
Swift express rental have decided to employ social networking sites to ensure that their company is only but a click away when in need of service or to inform potential clients of their service. The implementation of this decision would garner them with lots of customers and highly improve communication between customers and company giving room for suggestions and complaints. This social media plan includes the use of Facebook, Twitter, Wordpress and Youtube to promote services.
Facebook

It was noted recently in a research conducted by Smith (2013) that 1.06 billion people actively use Facebook every month and with 618 million daily active users. Earth’s population is known to be a little over 7 billion human beings, this is to say that about 15.2% of the world’s population visit this social networking site every month, setting the perfect platform for swift express rental to launch its bid for online presence. Facebook as an SNS has quite of number of features such as; profile, like, post, comment, share, picture, cover page, email etc. And all these features give swift express rental the right tools to display the company and its service.
A Facebook profile would be opened, where adverts, pictures and general information about swift express rental would be constantly updated. This profile would have a cover page, with the logo of the company as the banner as well as pictures of various cars in service, head office/outlets, staff etc. It would also be made engaging by giving out gifts through the amount of shares, likes and post users make on the page, giving users some sort of enjoyment just being a part of the network. This will help get users to inform friends, family and also indulge them to add more fans to the circle.
Strategy
• A group/fan page would be created and friends and families of staff would be invited
• Active participation in other groups and random comments would increase awareness to other users
• Constant periodical updates and posts will create a means interaction between group members
Key Metrics
• Number of ‘shares’ the posts gets
• Number of ‘likes’ the page achieves
• Number of ‘Tags’ the pictures acquires
Twitter

Launched in 2006, Twitter is another brand of SNS similar to Facebook in some ways but for the most part differs with regards to functionality. Unlike Facebook, Twitter can boast of a little over 500 million total users and just above over 200 million active users. Unlike Facebook’s; like, share, poke etc. here there are terms such as tweet, retweet, follow, mentions etc. The concept revolves around a user profile having followers I.e. other users being linked to your profile and every time you post ‘tweet’ a comment the followers get the message and more often than not, ‘retweet’ your post to their followers.
Creating a Twitter account would hugely improve the analytics of swift rental express because, the more times a tweet is retweeted or swift rentals is mentioned it is recorded using google analytics. Thus improving search engine optimization on the web, making it almost a given that when a car rental is being searched for via the internet swift express rental is bound to pop up. Placing the company above its competitors and improving promotion and recognition worldwide.
Strategy
• Create a corporate profile
• Constantly tweet about company and services
• Advertise the other SNSs accounts owned and indulge likes and followers
Key Metrics
• Followers
• Mentions, tweets and retweets
• Referrals about profile to other users
Wordpress

The largest self-hosted blogging tool on the web today, since the inception ten years ago (2003) it presently holds the most amount of blogs on the web today with 74 billion different blogs and posts. These numerous posts are viewed by millions of people around the world daily, it provides the luxury of owning a blog at no cost at all and also has provision for a CMS (Content management system).
Swift express chose wordpress as a social media medium due to the fact that the CMS can personally be edited, managed and designed by the account holder effortlessly. This would be used to post services, information about the company and give subscribers the opportunity to personally reach out to the company and air their views or even launch complaints, not to mention the fact that it gives them an insight on what kind of vehicles are available at the request of the client.
Strategy
• Make aware services and ongoing discounts/promotions
• Post corporate profile
• Gathering information about bloggers preferences
Key Metrics
• Number of ‘likes’ posted on the blog
• Number of ‘posts/comments’ left on the blog
Youtube

This amazing video sharing and viewing social network has a whopping 1 billion registered users and boasts of views of up to 4 billion per day. This first of its built primarily to post videos, either by recording live videos or uploading videos prerecorded for the benefit of others to see. Youtube allows registered members and nonmembers alike to upload a video, live stream a video, post comments and like.
This is the perfect way for swift express to show advertisement videos to the world and in so doing creating awareness of the services rendered, having 4 billion viewers a day means that the more video commercials done by swift express rental means the higher the chances are that an advert would be seen by either a promising tourist planning on visiting Mauritius, a tourist already in Mauritius, or even a Mauritian living in Mauritius. This gesture would tactically improve awareness of the brand swift express rental worldwide.
Strategy
• Post video commercials
• Post audio commercials
Key Metrics
• Number of ‘views’
• Number of ‘likes’
Action Plan

For this strategic plan to use social networking sites successful, by improving customer base and making swift express rental’s online presence massive and indelible in sands of time. Periodical updates and management rules must be put in place to ensure progress, durability and continuity, because without guidelines on how to manage your social media strategy, it will end up defeating the purpose.
Guideline for effective social media strategy success
1. Constant bihourly updates on all platforms except for Youtube
2. Monthly or biweekly updates on Youtube
3. Updates on Facebook, Twitter and wordpress should be coherent but approached from different angles
4. Employers and employees should invite family and friends to the group and follow profile
5. Employers and employees should constantly crave the indulgence of family and friends to like, share, post, tweet and also invite their own friends and family to the group
6. Employers and employees should every once in a while post, tweet, mention, like, share or even tag a post, comment, or picture about the company on their wall
7. Always respond to comments and posts by followers
8. Celebrate their most constant follower every once in a while
9. Never post false or fake news about company in a bid to get customers
10. Leave your profile open to everyone to view or add you to their circle
Conclusion

Implementing a social media strategy does not guarantees you neither competitive advantage over your competitors nor does it give you sole monopoly over the sort of business you run. What a good social media strategy gives you is the ability to be heard and seen by billions of people and if your service is enticing and is lives up to expectation you make the viewer’s believe? Then you are sure to see increase in your fan base, customer base and significant improvement on your google analytics because with the more mentions, tweets, retweets, like, share or even tag you get on a social networking site, every time someone searches for your type of business online you are bound to get hits (suggestions) i.e. google or the search engine used would refer your company to the user.
Names for proposed social media strategy
Facebook: www.facebook.com/swiftexpressrental
Twitter: www.twitter.com/swiftexpressrental
WordPress Blog: www.swiftexpressrental.wordpress.com
Youtube: ………………………….

NOTE: Not all these sites are up yet and not all of them have contents in them yet