Lansing+First+Fridays+Twitter+Marketing

Anjana Schroeder & Cara Boyer 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


 * Good client. I'm curious how you'll find a way to promote Record Store Day/ Can Heather do giveaways, contests, or the like? Get a 50s singer into the place?**

** __Week 3__ ** This week, we decided we would start by tackling “Twitter etiquette.” 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.

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.

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.

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.

**__Week 2__ **

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. 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; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; 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; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; 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; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; 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; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; 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; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; 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; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; 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; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; 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; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; 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; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; 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; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; 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; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; 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; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; 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; color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; vertical-align: baseline;">__Week 1__ ** <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; 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; display: block; 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; display: block; 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; display: block; 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; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">953 Tweets 1,707 Following 1,165 Followers

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; display: block; 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.


 * 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**