The+Record+Lounge

Anjana's page

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__] Tumblr: @http://recordlounge.tumblr.com/ Yelp: [|__http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-record-lounge-east-lansing__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Anjana LinkedIn: []

Wednesday April 25, 2012 Record Store Day was a hit! Heather said there were so many people there the lines were out the door. We really hope our social media marketing had a part in that. Leading up to Record Store Day we changed our profile pictures to the poster/advertisement and encouraged followers to do the same. We also conducted a variety of social media giveaways two days leading up to RSD and then the following Tuesday...just in case anyone missed the others.

The giveaways on Thursday and Friday were a success...except the Facebook share giveaway. Not many people seemed to latch on...retweeting and liking is a much easier alternative. This is something Cara suggested it may not work, but I convinced her to go ahead with it. Although it didn't work, at least now we know for sure...right? haha

Anyway, Heather was very grateful, as she has always been for our help. All she had to do was pick out the prizes and ensure the winners got them. We do want to equip her with tips and tools for after we are gone. We plan to create an electronic packet with some helpful tips, articles, goals, etc. I guess you could call it a brainstorm of future "weekly homework assignments."

Overall, it was great to work with Heather. Check out my final blog piece for more details!

Tuesday April 17, 2012 This is the week leading up to Record Store Day and things are in full swing. I was able to clean up and polish the Tumblr and post Heather's very first post the other day! We are also asking Facebook fans to change their profile pictures to the logo/flyer for Record Store Day. Both mine and The Record Lounge's profile pictures are changed and Cara's is as well.

Heather has a lot a lot to do this week and she has been a bit stressed but after a slightly frustrated email, I assured her that we weren't going to push more than we should but also that since we only have 2-3 more weeks (depending on when we are to stop) left to work with her, we really want to do all that we can. So we will be meeting with Heather tomorrow afternoon to discuss and gather the items (vinyl, magazines, posters, buttons, etc) for giveaways on Saturday.

On Saturday, Cara will not be with me but I will still implement the Facebook and Twitter giveaways. Since Heather will be very busy shuffling around and making sure things are moving along smoothly, I will be in charge of the giveaways. From my evaluation of Twitter v. Facebook interaction, there is much more FB interaction. Regardless, we will be using both social media channels for this big giveaway.

From the Twitter giveaway video that I remember seeing (I'm pretty sure in this class), we will be picking three locations for people to "find" us and claim their prize! Depending on how many items Heather allows me to give away, will depend on how many winners there will be and quite possibly, how many locations there will be. I don't want to go too far...the two locations of the main events for Record Store Day are Espresso Royale on Grand River and The Record Lounge on Division.

Wednesday April 11, 2012 We could not meet with Heather this week. As I mentioned before, her father-in-law was very sick and earlier this week he passed away. Needless to say, Heather has had to take some time off to be with her family. We plan to reach out by Monday, as it is the start of the week leading up to our big social media marketing push - World Record Day! So, this week I worked on The Record Lounge's Tumblr. Heather remembered she had started one a while back but never did anything with it. I signed in and I could see that! She had random links to her Facebook and Twitter instead of added it as a widget and there were very unnecessary posts without much substance. So I cleaned that up and also changed the main photo to start making her brand consistent. I also cleaned up her blog description under the title. Before meeting with Heather, I emailed her to send a blog post my way to edit and then post. I also asked which Record Store Day flyer she would like to use to ask her followers to use as their profile picture to promote Record Store Day which is on Saturday, April 21.

This week has been a slow week in terms of meeting and getting Heather's next set of tasks down. However, we are able to get some time to really plan out the push for next week. We mentioned the push earlier - the Twitter location based giveaway. Heather is willing to give away a handful of pretty good quality merchandise...so that should also be incentive. Until next week, we'll be rocking out The Record Lounge!


 * Awesome job, Anjana! I feel like I was with you in that meeting!! You're doing great! --Karl**

Thursday, March 29, 2012 Met with Heather and Tiffany from 2:40pm-3:40pm. Heather is going through even more after a hot water pipe burst in The Record Lounge’s bathroom. The employee working at the time didn’t realize what had happened until he knelt down to look at something and the carpet was soaking wet. Needless to say, the past couple of days have been very hectic for Heather. Now that the scene of the atmosphere is set, I walked in and Heather immediately blurted out “I totally forgot you were coming…” She began to explain what happened and she was very visibily distraught. I was a bit nervous about whether or not she wanted to even continue with our meeting. I did what anyone would do, and listened to her vent for a few minutes, offered my sympathy and encouraged her that the worst is over and that it can only get better. The Record Lounge lost some pretty irreplaceable records and CDs that she will ask the distributers to offer again after sharing what happened. The worst part of it all is that the building is connected and rented out by The State News and it was technically their pipe that burst into Heather’s back room. Regardless of what was happening, I began to talk about social media and the many ideas we have and the ones I had specifically brainstormed before meeting with her. She was ready to talk and hear what her plan of action was. I was a little nervous about giving her the week’s “To Do List/Homework,” but she was more than willing to tackle her tasks! I was very thankful for her cooperation. We talked about more of the items on the checklists we were referred to a few weeks back. We focused a lot on listening to her audience and showing them there is a person behind a tweet or a Facebook message. I printed out the article, 10 Powerful Tips to Increase Fan Engagement on Facebook by Jeff Bullas. I went over each step and incorporated some of the strategies, including: a discount for new Twitter followers during her slow hours/days. Although the article is talking about Facebook, the tip of what time during the day and what day during the week to post updates is an overarching tip. One last thing we talked about is something I am really excited about! We talked about having a location based twitter giveaway. It would happen three times a year; this can ensure that the giveaways are “better” than “bench warmer inventory.” The three times are: Middle of the Mitten, National Record Day and Welcome Week. Heather will begin to connect with people who run AOP, and student housing to find out their hashtags in order to reach the large student population right across from the store! I’m pretty sure I explained the campaign but basically what we’ll do is pick a location and have an amount of giveways and then tweet saying, “first amount of people to find us at the Wells Hall Starbucks will get….free records, tshirts, etc.” This could even be a way to “test” their social media impact, depending on how many people respond and come running! <span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14.6667px;">Overall, this meeting with her went very well. She is 100% on board and although we will have to teach her some basics, she does have a daughter (who is currently looking for work – she studied art history at MSU) who knows a bit more about social media than her. Tiffany will actually be joining us at our next meeting, next Wednesday.
 * 1) Heather gave me the user name and password to The Record Lounge’s Twitter and Yelp and she will be making Cara and I both administrators on the Facebook page. This week I will be working on Twitter while Cara is working on Facebook. We’ll cleaning up and polishing the edges. I will begin helping Heather with her first task – to begin direct messaging recent followers on Twitter. She actually has no idea how to use Twitter and her former social media guy never bothered to transfer his strategy or skills to her in any way. So, this might be a challenge but she agrees with me that once she gains an understanding of the social media networks we are focusing on, she can transfer that to future workers.
 * 2) We also talked about her reluctance to offer coupons left and right. We talked about controlling the discounts by day of the week and times of the day. I also told her that it didn’t need to be a percentage off but perhaps items, that I call “bench warmer inventory” that she can use as giveaways. Everyone likes free stuff! She was on board with that idea more so than the coupon, but once I explained how she can control coupons from getting out of control (like coupon stacking) she was more keen on the idea.
 * 3) We also talked about grammatical errors. She is well aware that she has a problem in this area. She will be much more careful; especially after I mentioned how quickly one can lose their credibility from one typo. (I really hope I proofread this post thoroughly enough. Haha)
 * 4) We are going to start a Tumblr for The Record Lounge and Heather is very excited about this! She likes to share a longer than average post on Facebook and now she will have an opportunity to share even more and develop a new following. We talked about branding and she will get a jpeg of The Record Lounge logo and we will be sitting down next week to make sure everything is consistent across all platforms. Heather’s son is a photographer so I suggested she get him to take some pictures of the shop, her and anything else pertinent to use for posts, updates, etc.
 * 5) Finally, we topped off the theme of the week, “listening,” with following 10 people and/or businesses as a way to start listening to the conversations going on around her. I suggested following contributors, collaborators, competitors, companies that are successfully where she wants to be in five years, and Impact 89FM. She has mentioned that The Impact has a very similar fan/customer base as she does and many of the workers (including myself) come into the store.

Flickr link: @http://flic.kr/s/aHsjyKbQAm

Flickr Photo 1: <span class="wiki_link_ext"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/76615141@N04/7024405669/" title="Heather (owner) and her daughter, Tiffany by Anj Schroeder, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7276/7024405669_eedf7c6d5b.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt="Heather (owner) and her daughter, Tiffany"></a>

Flickr Photo 2: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/76615141@N04/7024390269/" title="Magazines by Anj Schroeder, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6226/7024390269_974a493e03.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="Magazines"></a>

Flickr Photo 3: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/76615141@N04/7024502939/" title="The Record Lounge by Anj Schroeder, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7122/7024502939_071e108635.jpg" width="500" height="500" alt="The Record Lounge"></a>

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Week 4

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: Georgia; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;">__To Do List/Homework for Week of March 29, 2012:__ <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: Georgia; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Week 3

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This week, we decided we would start by tackling “Twitter etiquette.” <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Heather mentioned that she receives emails sporadically telling her she has new Twitter followers, but no action is taken 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: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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. We want to equip her with an effective, efficient and simple social media strategy that she can perform herself. This might look like, her interacting with customers via social media during down times in the store and then as social media fills in those gaps, she can give the reins to an employee.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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 and possibly FourSquare, with check in promotions.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Week 2

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: Georgia; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Week 1 <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Focusing on <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__Twitter__] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, the following are their stats:

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">953 Tweets <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1,707 Following <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1,165 Followers

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; 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**