Businesses and large corporations are heading to online to reach their key stakeholders in order to not only get them to purchase their services and products, but also to implement strategic campaigns that are targeted to specific individuals. In my class here at the University of Tennessee, I have talked about how important it is to clearly and concisely define your target stakeholder groups in a very specific way. We never say in a strategic plan or campaign proposal that we want to target “the general public” – however if we want to target college students, ages 18-21 years of age, very active on social media (5 hours of more per day), which at least five years of public relations experience – we can do that.
Identifying specifically who you are key is crucial for a public relations campaign, even one implemented just on social media. Sara Lee Deli has recently launched a social media campaign directly targeting mothers. The title of the campaign is called “Mama Saga,” where it presents mothers in real-life situations that most mothers can relate to while using Sara Lee products. There are different scenarios that are presented in this particular campaign, and Sara Lee is optimizing on using various social media outlets to get recognition for this case such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Metacafe to name a couple.
The target audience that Sara Lee is specifically focusing this campaign on are moms who are really active in the online and social media space. It would be interesting to see what type of research they corporation has done to know the exact characteristics of these individuals, and if using all of these various social media outlets will eventually be the most effective. Paula Shikany, who is the senior brand manager for Sara Lee Deli, was quoted as saying:
“We understand the importance of creating new opportunities to speak with moms one-on-one, and we know the most immediate and engaging way to do this is online, where today’s moms are communicating. The ‘Mama Saga’ campaign is designed to first provide mom with a daily laugh and then engage her in ongoing dialogue so we can be a better resource. Overall, we want the ‘Mama Sagas’ to act as a conversation starter while building brand awareness to drive moms to Sara Lee Fresh Ideas pre-sliced deli meats which are located in the self-serve deli section of grocery stores.”
In my opinion, I can see reaching moms that are tech savy on the main social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter – but it really all comes down to where these individuals are at. This is where effective and strategic research comes into play – public relations professionals have to know where people are going for their information, who they are communicating with, and what key messages work best for them.
So, this goes to show that corporations are not only implementing multiple social mediums in their campaign, but they are focusing on more selective and specific stakeholder groups for their campaigns. In other words, quality is more important than the quantity of stakeholders in public relations cases, and this is a lesson for all corporations and public relations professionals to be aware of for their future campaigns and research studies.
Hope you all are having a great day. 🙂
Best Wishes,
Karen
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