Social Media Strategy:
2013 June through December
Situation Analysis
Johnny Cupcakes is a unique T-Shirt print and design company based out of Boston,
Mass. with four physical store locations; one in Boston, Las Angeles, Martha’s Vinyard,
and London. Johnny Cupcake products are exclusive to their stores and website and are
not sold to any other retailers. Our web page is used for online shopping, blogging,
giving information about upcoming events, and providers other fun and interesting
media. Founder Johnny Earle, created the company in 2001, selling his t-shirts out of
the back of his van while on tour with his hardcore band “On Broken Wings”. In 2005,
Johnny Earle left the band and opened his first physical location in Boston, MA. On top
of maintaining status of CEO and Founder of Johnny Cupcakes, Johnny tours the country
putting on speaking events for Colleges and other entrepreneurial and design events.
 Johnny Cupcakes uses several different social media platforms to post pictures of
available products, discuss up coming events, promotions, and other posts that
our target demographic might be interested in.
o We are on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. The following gives
an insight to the current status of each of the following social network
profiles
 Facebook – 145,280 currently “like” the page and 1,586 are
talking about it. Used to post pictures, Events, and Share other
posts we find interesting. Interactions with current posts.
 Pictures – Likes from 500 – 1000. Comments from 15 – 30.
Shares 0 - 50
 Events – Likes from 50 – 200. Comments 0 – 15. Shares
average 35
 Promotion – Likes 300 – 600. Comments 0 – 10. Shares 0 25
 Official Twitter – 75,861 followers. Following 361. Used to post
pictures, events, thoughts, and re-tweet fan posts. Interactions with
posts
 Pictures – 0-15 retweets. 10 – 30 favorites. 4 average
comments
 Thoughts – 40 – 60 retweets. 30 – 50 favorites. 5 average
comments
 Promotion – 0 – 10 retweets. 0 – 5 favorites. 1-2 comments
 Twitter: Boston location – 2,869 followers. Following 374. Used to
promote brand interact with customers in the Boston area
 Twitter: London location – 4,902 followers. Following 565. Used to
promote brand and interact with customers in London/UK.
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Twitter: Las Angeles Location – 2,752 followers. Following 457.
Used to promote brand and interact with customers in L.A.
Twitter: Martha’s Vinyard Location – 464 followers. Following 255.
Used to promote brand and interact with customers in in Martha’s
Vinyard.
YouTube Channel – 4,628 subscribers. Video views range from 600
– 2,000. Used to post videos for events that were put on.
Instgram – 66,865 followers. Following 164. Used for posting
pictures of products, events and promotions.
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Review current objectives, strategies, and performance metrics.
o The target market is interested in the brand and they want to know more
about it. It is extremely likely the first place they will look is the Internet.
Through marketing events and advertising the website receives a large
increase of traffic. There is also an increase of sales on the web and more
adds on Facebook and followers on Twitter. It is pretty easy to tell if an
event is a success or a failure by how many people attend. A large crowd
means that the brand is receiving more buzz and attention, which is
always a good thing. The more attention is brought to the website, the
more sales there will be. The new store in London will also create
international buzz and generate more sales globally.
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SWOT
o Strengths
 Recognizable and exclusive Brand/Design with copy righted Cupcake
and cross bones.
 Hold fan and customer events
 Create a “community” feel customers can be a part of. Creating
Loyal customer base
 Brand originated from Band following
o Weakness
 Inconsistency in posting across all social media platforms (Content
marketing/blogging, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
 No blog account outside of business webpage. No links to blog
through other social medial platforms.
 Customers are either not responded to, or responded to weeks
later.
 Little to no interactive or engaging posts
 Not nationally recognized
o Opportunities
 Creating consistent branding across all social media sites
 Create a Vine account to start video campaign
 Use Blogging website for Blogging or Vlogging as opposed to
business site. Link blog account to other social media accounts.
 Look into Pinterest to see if unique branding will see success on
“creative” site.
 Streamline the process for customers to buy from/interact with J/C
 Post more engaging topics
o Threats
 Finding compelling topics to post about
 Competitors are creating interactive posts. Encourage customers to
be more engaged.
 Competitors are much more active on social media that J/C
 Not responding to customers on social media sites can hurt
customer loyalty
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Brand Guidelines
o Cupcake and crossbones logo: Every product contains the Cupcake and
crossbones Logo. This is consistent across their website and social media
sites
o Johnny Earle: He remains a recognizable face to the brand; posts videos,
pictures and attends in all events.
o A great name: A name like Johnny Cupcakes has soul. It has comedy. It
has attitude. It's a great illustration of why a company name is so
important.
o Great web marketing: The company's website/blog which is personally
managed by Earle. The depth of content goes way beyond what you'd
expect from most t-shirt companies.
Budget
o Johnny Cupcake’s revenue in 2008 was 3.8 million dollars and has been
increasing steadily. Marketing typically costs around 10% of one year’s
revenue so based off this information the budget for the year will be
$400,000. The social media portion of this is about $100,000
Social Media Budget
Admin budget 30%
Promotion 25%
Metric budget 5%
Event 40%
Audience Identification
The target markets for this category are young adults who want to stand out in
the crowd. They are the savvy, urban, trendsetters who have their own original style.
They trust their friend’s opinions and tend to make decisions bases on those opinions.
Johnny Cupcakes audience can be influenced by “underground” artists, musicians, and
other creative types also influence them. They enjoy pop culture and have a sense of
humor. Often they are very involved in the music scene and enjoy many different
genres, especially artists that are up and coming. They are the cult followers of this
luxury item. Anything that is different from the norm and looks at pop culture in a
different light is often accepted. The cult following is apparent in different movies,
books, music, clothing, accessories, cartoons, etc. They are the risk takers, the
adventure seekers, and they love to go out and explore new things.
This information is based off of current fans and followers as well as “Family”
members on www.johnnycupcakes.com. The audience can also be identified through
targeting tools on www.alexa.com.
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Target Market
o Men and Woman
o Age 18-30
o Education: High school or higher
o Income Level: Less thank 50K
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Single or young couples with no children
Urbanites/Hipsters
Trendsetters
Have tattoos and piercings/Gauges
In bands
T-shirt, Jeans, Hoodies, and Hats
Live “downtown”
Creative and laidback individuals
Likes cartoons
Independent films
marketing.
Although Johnny Cupcakes is, in a way, based on Niche Marketing, they
will occasionally do partnerships with other major companies to build a
stronger brand and following. For example, Johnny Cupcakes did a
partnership campaign with Hello Kitty. They designed several shirts in
their traditional style to include the iconic Hello Kitty figure. This allowed
them to identify a specific demographic that they do not typically target.
Product Differentiation:
o Johnny Cupcake as a trademarked “cupcake and crossbones” design that
allows them to maintain unique and identifiable.
o Only offering their products through channels that Johnny Cupcakes
manages allows them to remain exclusive and keeps the value of their
product high.
o At this point in the business’s life, remaining as a “smaller” company,
allows them to have extremely personalized customer service. If there are
any problems, you can occasionally talk with Johnny Earle, himself, to get
any problems resolved.
o Scarcity Marketing: All shirts are limited editions, and there are only a
few select boutique style locations.
o Alternative advertising and promotions: "random contests". For example,
this post to the company's Facebook page: "I'm going to put together a
Valentines Day video filled with interviews of couples who have met
through Johnny Cupcakes. If you and your loved one live in or around
Massachusetts, please hit me up with details."
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
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Niche
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Identifying Competitors
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In order to identify the competition of Johnny Cupcakes competitors, I
used www.Alexa.com, which provides traffic stats, analytics and helps identify
the audience of any given company. Another website that helped us identify
competitors is www.Moreofit.com. This website allows you to identify several
different competitors by personalizing your search to factors that you specify.
www.Spyfu.com gives us key information that our competitors are using to drive
traffic as well as gives a breakdown to their traffic, customer involvement,
“clicks” etc.
OBEY:
o Obey is very connected into social media. The brand has a Twitter,
Facebook, Myspace, and a blog that contains photos and stories of what
goes on at OBEY behind the scenes and around the world. There is a video
on the OBEY website that shows behind the scene work and travels. These
videos also give followers a look into how certain products were created.
All of these factors connect consumers to the brand and make them feel
like they are a part of what is going on at OBEY. Most of OBEY’s publicity
and advertising is in magazines. Their clothing is featured in fashion
magazines such as Nylon, Foam, Antenna, Clark Magazine, and Complex.
OBEY also has an awareness program to as they say “inform the posse.”
This is helping people in need and is also good Public Relations.
 Homepage - http://obeyclothing.com
Kidrobot:
o Kidrobot is also very connected into social media. The brand has Twitter,
Facebook, Myspace, flickr, and a YouTube channel. The YouTube channel
contains behind the scenes videos of what goes on at Kidrobot and
cartoons of characters featured in Kidrobot products. Followers can be
constantly updated on what is going on with the brand. The company has
event signings of favorite characters that are featured. Consumers are
able to meet the artists behind the products. The Kidrobot website
features a discussion board that lets fans talk about their favorite
Kidrobot products, artists, and events that are happening. This is a good
way to get to know consumers thoughts about the brand and changes
being made. There are contests that followers can participate in and are
able to win prizes. All of them involve the characters from Kidrobot in
different ways. Kidrobot has an online magazine called KRonikle that
features culture, KR press, events, contests, and of course toys. There are
also planned sketch sessions so that fans can sketch with their favorite
artists.
 Homepage - http://www.kidrobot.com
Threadless:
o Following suit, Threadless also has a strong social media presence. The
brand uses Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr, Flickr, and of course
Facebook. They website has a Live Twitter feed on their website as well as
other recently posted updates on the other social media outlets they
participate in. They post videos of “random awesomeness” and videos
promoting contests. Threadless, easily, has the largest following on social
media of all the competitors identified with 2.1 million followers. The
website they have designed is more than just a place to purchase clothing.
They have a place to design shirts that can be voted on by everyday
consumers such as you and I. their website also has a section called “Play”
which allows to to read some of the artists stories, participate in their
online forum, as well as many other things to keep you involved in their
website.
 Homepage - http://www.threadless.com
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Competitive Analysis
o Understanding that our competition is very well established, we can learn
a lot from their actions and habits. To start off, Johnny cupcakes website
has a great design, it is simple and intuitive, but lacks some components
that could help drive traffic to the site. I would recommend including a
design forum that allows individuals to discuss, create, and share designs
they have created. I believe this can help grow the bond in the J/C
community as well as attract individuals that may not have otherwise
spent more time then necessary on the Johnny Cupcakes website.
o We could also retain and build value for our customers by participating
more in social media after an initial posting. Our competition does a great
job in replying to comments that are posted directly to their social media
pages and replies to post that you have made. By replying to customers
directly on these public forums, it helps establish ourselves as a company
that truly cares about what our customers are doing and talking about.
o The current posting structure that is used by J/C is mostly used as
advertising and informational, but is not used to interact with our
customer. This is not to say that we completely ignore our followers, but
we lack engaging posts. We could benefit by simply posting open-ended
questions. This will tell our customers that we are interested in hearing
what they have to say.
o Having quality posts over quantity can also be helpful to increase and
maintain brand loyalty. By posting too much, you can become a nuisance
to your followers because you are flooding their “timeline” or “feed” with
information that may not be important to them. This can lead to people
un-following you. We also need to ensure we are maintaining a consistent
posting schedule across all platforms. But should not link posts from one
account to another. Currently, Twitter is the obvious social media site of
choice. By choosing one media site over another as our priority, we are
risking the neglect of other customers and significantly reducing our
reach to new and potential customers.
Objectives and Goals
There are a few major goals we hope to achieve within this Social Media Strategy. We
will implement this plan as of 06/01/13 and will re-evaluate at the plan monthly, but
expect to see the numerical increases of these goals by the end of the year.
 Maintain and increase social media presence through same social sites that we
are currently using.
 Increase Facebook likes from 145 thousand to 165 thousand
 Increase Twitter Followers from 85 thousand to 100 thousand
o Combine multiple twitter accounts into one central account to funnel
questions, comments, and concerns through. Breaking the Twitter accounts
down based on location, separates discussion and fan following. It allows
breaks down the community feel.
 Increase Likes, Shares, and Comments on Facebook posts and overall participation
by 15 - 20 percent
 Increase Re-tweets, Comments, and Favorites on Twitter posts, and overall
participation, by 10-15 percent.
 Promote blog that is currently housed on brands homepage through Facebook
and Twitter.
 Put on series of events in selected cities to record to spark interest for blog post
and to increase brand awareness. Begin Small Tour on 7/1/13 – 8/1/13. Events will
be video recorded and edited to allow post through YouTube Channel.
 Create Vine account on 6/1/13- Create a story using 6 second video clips that run
subsequently into a short film
 Run a design contest to get followers more engaged.
 Create consistent posting schedule across all social sites with breakdown of posts
daily, promotional, etc. (See attached posting schedule)
Strategy/Tactics
Based on our audience/followers we have decided on two major ways we can increase
our reach and engagement on our social sites.
 The first is too create a video campaign based around a traveling event, where
Johnny Earle will discuss being an entrepreneur, how he got started, and what he
had to do in order to become successful. Johnny, will also be promoting a design
contest, which we will discuss as our second tactic.
For this campaign, we will start off by creating a Vine account so
employees can post quick videos promoting and inviting followers to the
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tour/event. However, the Vine account will also be used to post quick clips or sets
of clips called “a day in the life” where employees will be allowed to show you
what they do at Johnny cupcakes.
The build-up/preparation to the tour, traveling, and the speeches will all
be recorded and edited so they can be loaded onto the J/C blog. This blog will
then be shared through all of the social media platforms currently used by J/C.
The second tactic I’m using is to put on a design contests that will only be
promoted through J/C’s social media outlets. Teasers of the design contest will be
released during the “tour”. Followers will be encouraged to create a design and
submit it to J/C’s via direct messaging through any given social media site that
we are currently a part of. The winner of the contest will have their design used
to influence an actual produced t-shirt. I believe that this will encourage
individuals to become more engaged with Johnny Cupcakes.
We will also add a “Spotted” section where you can take pictures of or with
people you see on the street wearing Johnny cupcakes gear.
Implementation Plan and Schedule
I’ve created a general promotion and
implementation timeline to include major
actions being taken to increase both
customer engagement and reach.
Based on information provided by Tweriod I
have found out that our followers are most
active in the morning from 9 - 10 am and
in the evening from 4-6 pm during the
weekdays (eastern time). Because of this,
we have decided to post during these times
to increase engagement with our posts. On
Saturdays we post in the mornings from 9–
11 am and later in the evening, around 610 pm. We are less likely to post on Sunday
because people are less likely to use social
media on that day. However, if we feel
there is something that is crucial for our
followers to see, we are not opposed to
posting.
The content being posted is dependent on
what events are coming up. For example
when the event is getting close I would post
“Be sure the check out Johnny Cupcakes at
the University of Utah. Be sure to wear
your J/C gear”. If there are not any events
or anything to announce posts will typically
be along the lines of “Love magic? Check
out our Magician inspired line. Once there
gone we can’t pull more out of a hat.” Or
“Tell me where your favorite vacation spot
is.”
I have also attached a sample of the
monthly posting schedule for the month of
June.
June-Create Vine
account
July - Begin month
long event/tour
August - Blog and
Vlog about event/tour
September - Promote
design contest
October - Implement
design contest
Novermber announce design
winner and have shirts
available for purchase
December - Recap
last few months and
promote plans for
2014
ROI, Metrics, and Measurement
I plan on evaluating how engaging my posts are on a weekly and Monthly basis to
determine if I need to change when I’m posting, where I’m posting, and the content of
the posts. Specifically we will analyze how responsive our customers are to promotional
posts, sales posts, and Photo/video posts. This will be measured through built in metric
tools on all social media sites J/C is using. By using the built in metrics program, we
hope to recognize what our most popular posts are, by breaking down into what times
and content are best for engaging our followers, for specific sites.
For measuring submissions and reach for the new “Spotted” section of the
webpage, we will post unique URL’s within our posts to see if people are linking to the
website. This is measurable by using www.Salesforcemarketingcloud.com to analyze
traffic. Unique URL’s measure audience data (demographics), unique visitors, and
obviously traffic.
To measure how many individuals visit the Johnny Cupcakes Blog we are using
www.statcounter.com. This program puts an invisible code on your website, or in the
case Blog, that measures the following information.
 How many people visited the blog on a given day.
 Who links to my blog (through social and other sites).
 If our blog show up in search engines.
Since the design contest is being promoted through the social media sites
specifically, we will be able to evaluate participation by submissions through posts and
direct messaging. Measuring the success of the event will be as simple as keeping track
of attendance. Since the event is only being promoted online, the attendance will
directly relate to the success of our social media campaign.