Social Media Marketing Plan for Café Neuhaus

Abstract

In this commissioned thesis a social media marketing plan is created for the case company. Essentially, social media provides an outlet for the case company to pursue new marketing opportunities. As a result, it is important to establish a strategically planned online presence that helps the case company to differentiate itself and to gain a competitive advantage in the market. To achieve this, the case company needs to leverage its vision, mission, purpose, and values statements to establish a strong brand identity online. The objective of the thesis is to determine the type of social media marketing plan that supports the case company in this process. The case company is Café Neuhaus, a confectionery, coffee shop and online store that is specialised in Belgian luxury chocolate and aims to be the leader in providing a high-quality chocolate experience in Helsinki. The café is heavily reliant on tourists and holiday gift shoppers and is determined to reach new customer segments on and off-season through social media. The café holds business accounts on Facebook and Instagram that are demarcated as the social media channels researched in this thesis. Both accounts are inactive and under development at the time of writing. This thesis is a practise-oriented case study and follows a zipper structure. This includes the theoretical background, empirical research, practical implementation of the data and a feedback discussion. The definition of social media and its key concepts, including networking services, inbound marketing, brand identity and brand awareness are introduced in the theoretical chapter of the thesis. Researching these topics builds a comprehensive knowledge base for the thesis process and gives an in-depth overview of social media marketing. The social media marketing plan is created utilising the SOSTAC® framework in the empirical part of the thesis. Empirical data were collected through a semi-structured interview, benchmarking, a SWOT analysis, 5S and SMART criteria, 7Ps marketing mix and the AIDA model. Key performance indicators and web analytics are examined as control options for social media management. The finished product includes customer personas, a social media guide, content ideas and an annual wheel that were created as practical applications based on the empirical data. The project took three months to complete, from September to November 2021. The finished product will be used as a basis for Café Neuhaus’ new launches on both Facebook and Instagram.