University of Wisconsin Green Bay
Department of Communication
Charlotte Tenebrini Steckart & Anna Hansen
Social Media Strategies - Group 3 The Willow Wisps
Professor Clampitt
November 6, 2023
Table of Contents
Background on e.l.f.
Our Proposal
The Five C’s of Communication
Social Media Strategy
SWOT Chart
SWOT Analysis
Creating the Perfect Hashtag
About our Event
Influencer Marketing
Social Media Strategy
Types of Promotional Content
Planning Our Event
Implementing our Strategy
Lessons Learned
References
Background on ELF
E.l.f. was founded in 2004 as a vegan and cruelty free makeup brand by Joseph Shamah and Scott Vincent Borba. In 2018 their revenue began to decrease rapidly and so they decided to close all of their brick and mortar stores and switch tactics to focus solely on digital marketing. The company is known for their affordable products and some of their original products are still between $3 and $5. Because they switched to digital marketing they were early adopters of TikTok and BeReal. They became widely known on TikTok and their company took off. Their business goals are value proposition, innovation, and community engagement.
Our Proposal
Collectively we decided as our final project we would create and promote an event hosted by one of our favorite makeup brands E.L.F. Our proposed project will be an in person makeup event held for makeup lovers, users and fans alike. This event will be similar to ComicCon but for makeup rather than comic books and other fictional characters. We will focus our social media efforts and main content on TikTok as this has been and continues to be E.L.F’s best performing platform in terms of audience engagement and follower count. Along with this we will create a catchy hashtag that will coincide with the brand image and the event as a whole. This hashtag will be displayed everywhere and will be one of the main links between the social media platforms, website and the event itself. Along with this, influencers will be used as a promoting strategy. We will hone in on the micro-influencers specifically as this is something
E.L.F not only already excels at but it will bolster engagement from a wider more diverse audience.
The Five C’s of Communication
Coordinates: Are you using your business goals as a guide for the campaign you create? Are you creating a campaign that meets your mission statement/brand values?
For the campaign we created we focused on what e.l.f.’s brand values are. We know that they like to promote a good cause when advertising a product because they have done this many times in the past. They are also a vegan and cruelty free brand. From this information we can deduce that one of their main brand values is the social issues and their consumers' stance on them. When creating our campaign we held this very high on our radar because we wanted to create something for those consumers.
Channels: Are the channels you are choosing effective in promoting your campaign? Is campaign information easily accessible via these channels?
We focused on using TikTok the most as the brand is already very successful on the app and have run social media campaigns before on it. Because of our #thegurugala hashtag users can repost our content or make their own using the tag. This will allow us to receive shared media and create more publicity around our campaign.
Content: Is your content specifically made for the platform you have chosen to promote on?
All of our content would be unique for the platform it would be posted on. For example a solo photo would not be posted on TikTok - it would be an engaging video.
Corrections: Have you thought about potential problems you may run into; if so do you have potential solutions so your campaign can make a quick recovery?
The main potential problem we thought of was that many people may not be able to come to the event because it is in L.A. Our solution for this is that we will live stream it on TikTok for anyone who would like to view it. Another one was if Covid or another virus was on the rise and we would not be able to host our event. Our solution was that we would move the event online and have it be something people can live stream.
Connections: Are influencers involved in promoting your campaign? Are you listening to your community?
When it comes to influencers we will be inviting multiple. We focus on inviting a mix of macro and micro influencers. Micro influencers have proven to be more involved in the communities they have created so this would entice consumers to come. We would partner with these influencers not only to invite them to our event but promote the event on their chosen platforms. The incentive for this would be some sort of monetary amount as well as us using their content on our social media pages so they would also be getting advertisement. Lastly this event listens to the community because the majority of our users are Gen Z and they care a lot about social issues and supporting a good cause.
Social Media Strategy
Our main strategy as previously stated will be to utilize the already large TikTok following that E.L.F. has amassed. The brand as a whole has been successful in many ways on the video app. Not only do they have a large following but they have previously started trends and created a hashtag that went viral. Harnessing this platform to promote our proposed event along with posting promotional content across all platforms is one of the main goals of our social media strategy. Influencer marketing will be another large part of our strategy as a whole. Influencers make up a good portion of the promotional content for E.L.F. already. The brand was an early player in the trend of using influencers for marketing purposes. E.LF. is also unique to other makeup brands not only do they partner with large macro-influencers, micro-influencers are also a large part of the current social media strategy for the brand. This fact will be incredibly useful when promoting the event as micro-influencers reach quite a wide and niche audience that is left untouched by the larger influencers working with E.L.F. Finally, we plan to use a wide variety of promotional media across all of the brands social media platforms and the website to promote the event. Content for the posts will include teasers, sneak peaks and other curated messages.
SWOT Chart & Analysis
During our research we decided to fill out a SWOT chart to ensure we were thinking deeply about the potential challenges and weaknesses of our social media strategy.
Strengths : E.L.F. is already popular on TikTok with over 1.2 million followers, beyond TikTok the brand has always had an incredibly loyal fan base, along with this we can predict that a good cause will entice E.L.F. users to attend the event.
Weaknesses : An in person event may not appeal to everyone if they live outside of our chosen city for the event (L.A. is our proposed city).
Opportunities : E.L.F. has the opportunity to create a campaign consumers can be proud of, this campaign also gives the brand the opportunity to work with more influencers.
Threats : We perceive one potential threat as E.L.F. getting negative comments on consumerism, as a lot of the brand's users and fans find the vegan and cruelty free products to be one of the most important factors when they purchase makeup.
Creating the Perfect Hashtag
Creating a catchy hashtag was an important part of our social media strategy. E.L.F. has already been successful in creating a viral hashtag in the past and we wanted to mimic those past successes with creating our own specific to this proposed event. Before coming up with the hashtag used for the event we had to research the best tools in creating the perfect hashtag. From this research we found the following points the most useful.
Pushing past early ideas was the first rule we made for our hashtag. We worked through multiple different potential hashtags before deciding on our chosen one. These included #beautysquadbash and #eldmainevent were a few early ideas passed around. However these did not fit the vibe of the event and were not as attention catching as we had hoped. We made sure to analyze our target audience to better interpret what a popular hashtag should be. Our audience is of course those who love makeup, love to dress up, environmentally conscious and very community driven. It was important to keep these analysis in the back of our minds while we continued to brainstorm for the hashtag. Once you do create a proposed hashtag however there are still some steps you will have to take to ensure that it is indeed the perfect one. Make a list of any and all potential problems with the hashtag. Is there any way that it could be misinterpreted? Are there any hidden innuendos within the hashtag that you may not have noticed at first? Does the spelling make sense via word of mouth and written? These are all incredibly important and will save headaches later on in the promotion process. Finally, once we had come up with the perfect hashtag for this event, the last step is to just promote, promote and promote! This hashtag as we previously stated will be the main center of all of the social media posts and will be posted on all platforms including the website.
About Our Event
#TheGuruGala was the result of our thorough research and analysis. This catchily titled event will be an in person makeup event held in Los Angeles for all E.L.F. consumers, philanthropists and influencers. We decided #TheGuruGala would be the perfect hashtag as it follows all of the rules stated previously. It was not the first hashtag we came up with, but it was definitely the most catchy and it rolls off the tongue with ease. Guru is a term popular amongst the beauty community ie; beauty gurus, so this was an easy word to implement into our hashtag. Gala was a little more difficult to come up with but once we found the word we knew it was perfect for this event. A gala traditionally is a formal event held to raise funds for a nonprofit. And this is something that E.L.F. as a brand already participates in, they donate to many different charities and nonprofits. Our proposed event will be no exception as we decided all of the profit from ticket sales would go directly to a non-profit in LA. #TheGuruGala includes all of the interests and important features of our audience, this fact along with the catchiness made it our chosen hashtag for the event.
The event will have many different components, including and not limited to : Beauty booths, guest speakers, photo booths , a big #TheGuruGala sign for attendees to pose with, best dressed with different categories and meeting the influencers + Q&A. We envisioned this event being similar to ComicCon but for makeup lovers. Other than the location restrictions this event would be open to any and all makeup and beauty lovers. Going along with the brands already stable image of being inclusive not only in price but for sexuality and individuality.
Influencer Marketing
Selecting the most relevant beauty influencers for our brand is key for this event. We would have to collect data on who our users follow and interact with the most and then reach out to those influencers. We would ask them to review our makeup and then give our event a shoutout. While working with macro influencers is important, the brand would focus on working with micro influencers instead. Having a couple big names would be nice but we do not want their popularity to overtake our brand's event. We want e.l.f. lovers to attend the most because they are our most loyal customers. That is why working with micro influencers is highly important when it comes to the advertising of our event. Followers of micro influencers are proven to be more engaged on platforms and invested in the happenings of the micro influencers community they are fostered.
Types of Promotional Content
Event Countdown
On instagram and TikTok we would have an event countdown. This would build the anticipation of the event and make sure we keep it at the forefront of our audience's mind.
First 75 People
When we start selling tickets we will make it widely known on our relevant platforms that the first 75 people to purchase tickets will get a free glam bag with our most popular products.
Encourage User Generated Content
The beauty of TikTok is that users can make what are called duets. It is like a response to another users post. Users would be able to repost our content and create their own content under our tag #TheGruruGala.
Conduct a Post Event Survey
We would post this on our social media stories on Instagram. This would provide users a space to give us feedback so that if we were to hold an event like this in the future we would be able to make corrections based on our attendees opinions.
Posting the Events’ Agenda
In order to create hype around our event we would create and post the events’ agenda so attendees can know what they are signing up for and get more excited about the specifics.
Interest Poll
Creating an interest poll on the type of activities and seminars/guest speakers the event would have is important because then we would know if our consumers would enjoy it or not. If the event does not have things that interest our consumers then the event itself would be a waste of money, time, and create bad press.
Information on Chosen Charity
We would post information about the charity the ticket sales revenue would go to in order to create more incentive for our socially conscious audience which is the majority of our consumers.
TikTok Live
Lastly we would livestream the event on TikTok so people who can either not afford to go to the event, or have the ability to travel to L.A can still be a part of it.
Implementing Our Strategy:
When it comes to planning the event itself we know that we will have to work heavily with an event planner in order to make this successful. We would be focusing on the promotion of the event as well as the details that the event planner decides on. We would be in charge of relaying data we collect from users to our event planner based on our user feedback from polls. This would help the event planner know what interests the consumers most.
We would start promoting our event 6 months ahead in order to give us an ample amount of time to get the word out and build excitement. This would also give us time to gain feedback from our consumers in our interest polls. Focusing on TikTok for our initial promotional content is an integral part of our strategy as the majority, and most active e.l.f. users interact with us on this platform. When opening our website for the 6 months before the event it would take you straight to the event landing page. This would make it so that anyone who purchases products from the website would know about the event. We would use our #TheGuruGala for any post about the event so that users can go to the tag and find information there as well as post their own content using the hashtag. After the event we would keep promoting the tag and use the posts for promotional content for future e.l.f. advertisements. If the company choose to hold this event again in different location in the future a variation of the tag could be #TheGuruGala2024 or #TheGuruGalaNYC.
Lessons Learned
This final project of the semester gave us a lot of creative freedom, and as a team we learned a lot about each other and how to work together on difficult social media strategy topics. Our first lesson learned : successful social media strategies have a great hashtag. This was a portion of our project that we didn't initially think to include, it wasn't until after we had created and run through the rest of our strategy that we decided the event and its promotional posts would not be as successful without a title and corresponding hashtag to go with it. While the task seemed simple at first it quickly turned out to be one of the more time consuming portions of the project.
Second : Sticking to your brand values when taking risks will take your campaign to a whole new level. Creating an event of this magnitude has never truly been done before by a brand such as E.L.F. so this proposed event is most definitely a risk. But after working through our strategy and staying true to what we consider the most important parts of E.L.F. brand goals and image we were able to create an event that we think would be incredibly successful and enjoyed by everyone attending.
Our final lesson learned : a good social media strategy team has a balance of artistically inclined individuals and scholarly ones. Thankfully even as a group of two we were able to cover both the artistic and writing portions of these projects over the course of the semester. While one of us is good with creating aesthetically pleasing presentations and has a great attention to detail, the other puts a lot of focus on the language and diction used throughout the presentations and the papers. Both of these skills are invaluable in the world of social media as looks are just as important as the words used to describe them. We made a great team and made use of both of our strengths to come together and create well thought out projects to present to the class.
Sources
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Previous Relevant Sources From Project 2 Used:
Previous Relevant Sources From Project 1 Used:
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