The+Record+Lounge+(Cara+Boyer)

 Cara Boyer & Anjana Schroeder  The Record Lounge 111 Division Street East Lansing, MI 48823

Heather Frarey Therecordlounge@gmail.com

Official website: @http://www.therecordlounge.net/ Facebook: @http://www.facebook.com/therecordlounge Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/therecordlounge

Cara's LinkedIn: @http://www.linkedin.com/pub/cara-boyer/39/11a/752 <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Cara's Flickr: @http://www.flickr.com/photos/47481035@N04/


 * Fantastic overview, Cara. It's great that Heather is such a responsive client. Not all students are having that luck! --Karl**


 * __Week 7__**

This Saturday is Record Store Day, the event that we've been gearing up for! This Thursday and Friday, I will be doing Facebook and Twitter giveaways in promotion of the event. The idea is to give away an item on Facebook and Twitter on those two days leading up to Record Store Day, and have the winners pick up their prizes at the Record Lounge between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. on Saturday. They get free prizes, and we lure them into the store for the event! Here's an outline of what I will be doing tomorrow and Friday:

__**Thursday at noon**__ **__Friday at noon__**
 * Post Facebook giveaway contest (a small item)
 * "Tag yourself in this Record Store Day photo by 5 p.m. today to be eligible to win a Record Lounge prize!"
 * The winner will be announced (chosen by us at random) that day on Facebook at 7 p.m.
 * Winner must claim their prize at the Record Lounge on Saturday
 * Post Twitter giveaway contest (a small item)
 * Post something along the lines of: "RT by 5 p.m. for a chance to win a Record Lounge prize! Winner will be announced later today."
 * Again, winner chosen out of a hat and announced by 7 p.m., winner must claim prize at the Record Lounge on Saturday
 * Post Facebook giveaway contest (big item since we're one day away from Record Store Day)
 * Again, tag yourself in the photograph by 5 p.m., winner announced at 7 p.m., must claim on Saturday
 * Post Twitter giveaway contest (big item!)
 * "RT by 5 p.m. today for a chance to win an AWESOME prize from the Record Lounge! Winner announced later today," announced at 7 p.m., claim on Saturday

I will be out of town on Record Store Day this Saturday, but Anjana will be at the Record Lounge to take pictures and document the event, as well as hand out the prizes to the winners of the Facebook and Twitter contests.

**Update:** Today we're meeting with Heather to find out which prizes she is willing to give away each day. I'm excited to see how many people enter, and I'm hoping my plan works out! Check back later this week to see how our meeting with Heather went, and visit the Record Lounge's Facebook page for a chance to win cool prizes!

**__Week 6__**

While Anjana and I had a meeting scheduled with Heather this past Wednesday (April 11), we were unable to meet. As we both mentioned before, Heather's father-in-law was very sick, and he and passed away this week. We decided to take a step back from the project this week out of respect for Heather, but are still planning our big hoorah for the semester--our promotion of Record Store Day.

The previous time we met with Heather (the first week of April), we gave her a list of homework items, which we were planning on checking up on this week to see what ideas Heather came up with. Anjana and I are working on revamping the Record Lounge's Tumblr by creating an entirely new one and shifting Heather's focus from lengthy, feature-y posts on Facebook to a blog. When we met the last time, we asked Heather to start writing posts that she can keep in a vault of sorts, so we can take one, edit it, and post it each week. That way if she's swamped at the store, we'll always have material to pick from. For now, we're asking Heather to write 2-3 blog posts per week, just to establish steady readership.

Last week we also asked Heather to create a master list of everything she's willing to give away, so we can start doing Twitter giveaways. I'm excited to get started on that project, and interested to see what items she's willing to part with for free!

All things considered, it was a bit of an uneventful week for us. Right now, Anjana and I are focusing on coming up with more ideas for Record Store Day to share with Heather when we're able to meet next.


 * __Week 5__ **

It’s been one thing after another with Heather lately! As Anjana and I mentioned last week, Heather was dealing with her father-in-law being incredibly ill. This week, a pipe burst at The Record Lounge, causing a large section of the store to flood, and resulted in some damage and lost merchandise.

On the bright side, Heather is still very motivated when it comes to working with us. Today, Anjana and I met up to discuss what we have planned for the next few weeks. Not to give too much away in advance, but our big hoorah for the semester is going to be centered around Record Store Day, which happens to be on April 21st. Tomorrow, we are sitting down with Heather to hammer out some of the details, including how we will be promoting the event the week leading up to it, as well as something special for the week of. (It involves FourSquare and free loot!)

At our meeting this evening, Anjana and I discussed exactly what we will be going over with Heather tomorrow (Wednesday, April 4th). First off, we’re going to see what items Heather has accomplished from the homework checklist we gave her during week 4 (see below).

This week, we’re tackling Tumblr. One of Heather’s main goals is to make a name for her business and be the first record store that comes to mind, but she also wants to create a relationship with her clients. Because of this, sometimes Heather’s posts on The Record Lounge’s Facebook page can be a little long and narrative—something much more appropriate for a blog post than a quick Facebook update. She loves sharing, which we don’t want to stifle at all, Anjana and I just want to make sure Heather is going about it the right way and using appropriate social media sites to do so. Starting this week, we will be asking Heather to write 2-3 blog posts per week, which she will send to Anjana and myself first so we can edit for grammar, clarity, etc., before being posted on the Tumblr.

I mentioned last week that we were working on a promotional coupon, but Anjana and I have decided to put that idea on the backburner for the time being. Heather seems much more interested in a FourSquare check-in that will give customers some free swag, so we’re working on implementing that for Record Store Day/week.

Our biggest goal for this week is getting Heather started with Tumblr and polishing up her Facebook and Twitter posts. We’re meeting with Heather tomorrow to discuss all of the above, so be sure to check back soon for an update!

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">** __Week 4__ **

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This week was a bit of a challenge. From what I’ve (Anju) been told, Heather’s father-in-law is on his death bed and her and her husband have been back and forth from Saginaw for the majority of the week and weekend. So we haven’t been able to have a set time to sit down with her. However, we have been able to exchange emails and communicate the social media strategy in terms of the Twitter etiquette, but now it is just a matter of sitting down with her and “training” her on how to use Twitter. I will be stopping in on Thursday to discuss the to-do list (homework, if you will) below for her to complete by the following week.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I was also able to stop by yesterday afternoon before class and I was mentioning “check-in” deals through Foursquare and Heather seems hesitant to offer many discounts and/or incentives for customers to come into the store. It seems as though this will be a challenge but we are determined to come up with creative solutions and tactics that Heather will be comfortable with.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The top five social media sites we’ll focus on is Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Foursquare and Yelp.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; vertical-align: baseline;">__To Do List/Homework for Week of March 29, 2012:__ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1. Direct Message at least 10 of your latest followers (especially if you don’t know who they are) and thank them for following. Ask them something about their taste in music or the latest record they bought.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">2. Give your followers an incentive to come into the store on Mondays (your slow days) - maybe a 10% off coupon for the first five people to retweet you on Sunday?

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">3. Start to be aware of grammatical errors and start to shorten your posts on Facebook.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">4. To re-direct your longer messages, we will set up a Tumblr! We will need a jpeg of The Record Lounge’s logo and any other “branding” pictures. Next week we can always have a mini photo shoot also.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">5. Follow 10 new people/businesses that you think will be of benefit for the future of your business. This could be other record stores, musicians, etc. Plan to promote, retweet and start conversations with them on Twitter.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Twitter is all about interaction, not just regurgitating random facts and marketing your business - interacting with the community will by default be marketing! Although we have some initial teaching to do, once Heather is social media equipped, the easier the marketing strategy will be and with less hiccups. By the end of our time working with her, we will have an electronic PDF (not of the content on the wiki - more details!) of everything she can and should do to continue strong with social media marketing.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Another idea stems from the video about the Twitter location-based campaign at a sporting event where a tweet was sent out to all followers to meet at a street intersection to win prizes. This is definitely something that would promote interaction and action to The Record Lounge’s local followers. This could also give the business an idea of the influence they have on their followers, and quite frankly move Heather to swifter action.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**What’s coming next:** Once we’re able to sit down with Heather, in addition to completing the above “homework” items, we’re going to have her select a coupon she would like to begin offering. I (Cara) have sketched out a few ideas, but once Heather makes her decision on the amount and whether she wants to give it out through Twitter or FourSquare, I (Cara) will be creating the coupon for her and helping her distribute it via social media.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">*NOTE: This is the last week where Anjana and I will be doing a write-up together. Next week, be on the look out for double the updates from The Record Lounge's social media/marketing campaign! Also, be sure to check out my Flickr link (at the top) for some exclusive photos of The Record Lounge.

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">** __Week 3__ **

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This week, we decided we would start by tackling “Twitter etiquette.”

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Heather mentioned that she receives emails sporadically telling her she has new Twitter followers, but there is no action after reading the email. She has every intention to use social media to expand her business and reach her goals, but it is only a matter of implementing a plan. While The Record Lounge has a steady number of followers on Twitter, one of the goals we discussed with Heather this week was improving personal communication.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">To accomplish this, we are having Heather personally message new followers with a simple “Thanks for following!” message, just to make things more personal. When we spoke with her, she showed great concern for maintaining an intimate relationship with her clients, and she loved the idea of reaching out with a simple “hello!” We’ve also discussed the option of offering a discount or promotion for new following; this would also be included in the direct message.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Currently, Heather has a student working on The Record Lounge’s social media, but by the end of this month he will no longer be doing so. This will be a great opportunity for Heather to step it up a notch in social media marketing. We want to create and implement a strategy that she will be able to understand and perform herself.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">With Record Store Day coming up on April 21st, we’re starting to talk about the best ways to promote the event. Heather not only wants to bring people into her store, but she also wants to know what exclusive items her customers will be looking for, so she can stock up on them beforehand. She expressed interest in doing this with Twitter.

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">** __Week 2__ **

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">After initially planning on working with Lansing First Fridays, Anjana and I found that we needed to find a different business to work with. While they seemed 100 percent on board at first, it turned out they did not have the intention of following through with the project in its entirety. This proved to be a bit of a challenge, but we rolled with the punches. After a few days, we found a great new client to work with.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Heather Frarey is the owner of The Record Lounge, a quaint vinyl shop on Division Street. An avid music lover since high school, Heather began the process of opening her business in October 2007. She began by selling records on eBay, but disliked it because of how impersonal it felt; she wanted to be able to interact with her clients. It was several months later, in January 2008, when Heather officially opened for business in a physical store. Housed in a location that did not bring in many customers, Heather considered packing up and heading back to eBay in the summer of 2009. It was then that a friend asked her to share his business space, so she moved to a new location for several years. On April 8, 2011, Heather moved into her current location at 111 Division Street.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Heather shared that while business is usually fairly steady, the past few months have been particularly slow. On a weekly basis, she said that she sees the fewest customers on Mondays and the store is the most packed on Sundays.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">According to Heather, “The student population in general, they’re hard to gauge. I don’t know why.”

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Heather’s biggest goal within the next five years is to make a name for herself and her business.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“I want to be that record shop that when people hear ‘The Record Lounge,’ (they say), ‘Oh yeah, I’ve been there!’” she said.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">She plans to reach her five-year goal by promoting her business as much as possible, which will require a thorough and effective marketing strategy.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“I’ve advertised on TV, I’ve advertised on radio, and honestly, I don’t think those forms of media (are what) people really pay attention to that much anymore,” Heather said.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Word of mouth and social media are the forms of marketing Heather would like to focus on, which is where Anjana and I come in.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Currently, The Record Lounge has both a Facebook and Twitter. Heather is in charge of running the Facebook, while the Twitter account is handled by Joel, an employee who is leaving at the end of the month.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Heather is very excited to have us on board, telling us that she is willing to do whatever it takes to reach her five-year goal, and she thinks a killer social media and marketing campaign will help her to do so. She said that while she is not well versed in social media, she is fully willing to embrace whatever we have to teach her.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">At the same time, Heather said she is worried about bombarding her customers with too much information via social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. She said she is unsure of which area of her business’ social media could use the most improvement, but is open to thinking of “goofy things to bring people in.”

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Record Lounge has two major social media aspects already established, but with her social media guru leaving in mere weeks, Heather is looking for someone to take his place, and Anjana and I plan to do just that. She is very enthusiastic about using social media and other marketing tactics, but is unsure about how to use many of them. Heather has a lot of great ideas, but is not entirely sure how to execute them.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">To learn about some of these particular marketing ideas we discussed, please see our attached chart.

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">** __Week 1__ **

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Lansing First Fridays (LFF) is a campaign to promote the Greater Lansing area. Participating businesses, like restaurants, salons, bars and art galleries offer products and services at a discount on the first Friday of every month. This campaign started in April of 2011 and continues to show visitors and citizens what Lansing has to offer.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">LFF does have a social media-marketing plan and there is one individual who works for an advertising agency who is in charge. Her name is Emily. However, we have not been able to meet with her yet. Jan Pfeiffer is the Membership Manager at the Greater Lansing Convention and Visitors Bureau and has been our contact. She is making an effort to connect Cara and I to Emily to discuss LFF's social media strategy and future.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Currently, Lansing First Fridays has a website, Twitter, Facebook and Flickr, and they are all connected.

<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Focusing on Twitter <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, the following are their stats:

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">953 Tweets

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">1,707 Following <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">1,165 Followers

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">LFF seems to tweet once a day and multiple times a day on the first Friday of every month. This is good that they keep their audience up to date. Hopefully we will learn what their future goals are and how their social media strategy is helping them get closer to that goal, one tweet at a time.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Hey Anjana and Cara. This is terrible. You've done nothing. You should a second posting (they're supposed to be a detailed 250 words explanation of your efforts) and have a mind map outlining your strategy. LFF seems to be doing pretty well with social media and I you need to find another company that could actually use you, and based on your effort here, I doubt you'd be much help, anyway. Very disappointing. -Karl**