(from L-R): Jeremy Visser, Me, Karen Chen, Xana Mills, Mady Quadrini
(from L-R): Jeremy Visser, Me, Karen Chen, Xana Mills, Mady Quadrini
Caledon Business Innovation Zone (CBIZ)
(5 to 6 minute read, not including slide deck)
Through a semester-long project/competition in our social media class, teams worked to create full social media marketing plan for the Caledon Business Innovation Zone (CBIZ). In addition to creating the plan, deliverables needed to be provided to showcase the vision for each team.
This was a real-life client experience in which a panel (consisting of program faculty and members of the town of Caledon, including the mayor) would vote on which groups were the best. The top three teams received cash prizes.
My contributions to our team and the campaign included: helping to shoot the live action videos (as featured below), as well as coming up with SEO's, creating the budget, and doing audits on competitors.
Client/Project Background
The Caledon Business Innovation Zone (or CBIZ), is a section of the government dedicated to assisting current and aspiring entrepreneurs of the town through education, consulting, and financial backing, when possible.
CBIZ was looking to better promote their services and facilities, and one of the ways they wanted to achieve this was by branching away from the Town's main social accounts and launching their own. Our services were required in order to help them create and develop a Social Media Marketing Plan for the 2019-2020 calendar year.
The Process
One of the first orders of business was to conduct an audit on the Town of Caledon's social media accounts (at the time, CBIZ did not have their own individual accounts and relied on the Town's main accounts to help promote their services).
From there, we compared their performance on social media to some direct and indirect competitors that offered exact and similar services. Based on this, we were able to determine key areas of opportunity for CBIZ to promote themselves.
An excerpt from our social audits, this one was specifically for the Town of Caledon's accounts.
We decided the best course of action was to focus on ensuring CBIZ had a social presence on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn primarily. This was due to the overall demographics of the Town, as well as what best aligned with multi-medium (i.e. text, photo, and video) content.
We also proposed a potential logo change/rebrand, and concepted a separate website for CBIZ to further establish their independence from the Town of Caledon social profiles. The latter was something that only our team had come up with, and allowed us to distinguish ourselves from other groups.
Social posts, in addition to videos, blog posts and AdWords were then created based on all the information gathered. A variety of tools including: AdParlour, Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, Wix, and more were used to create our diverse range of deliverables.
Below are some samples of those pieces.
Longer-Form Intro Video
This second video was targeted at small businesses. It was noted to us that CBIZ really wanted to foster a community between budding and established entrepreneurs in Caledon. We felt that showing a simple way of starting and profiting off a business would entice people and be easy to digest on the social platforms. Keeping the concept short and simple would allow a larger audience to understand the message.
A shorter variation of a "cookie-themed" video is included in the edited version of our presentation later in this case study.
Instagram Story (Vertical Video)
The third video was a more "text-heavy" option that stayed true to CBIZ's current colour scheme and branding. While the cookies were a fun intro, we also wanted to have deliverables that showed something that was more traditional, to have balance.
Proposed Social Media Marketing Plan (Excerpts Only)
Due to how we placed in the competition, I am unable to share our entire document and deliverables. An edited version of the campaign shows parts of our objectives, strategy and theme, along with additional visuals.
An overview of our team's campaign objectives, based on what was mentioned by the client
An overview of our team's campaign strategy for the calendar year
An edited version of the presentation we gave to the panel. Some assets/slides have been redacted
because this was for a real-client.
Learning Outcomes
Our team placed second overall in the competition. It was a hard-fought and very close competition, as there were many talented teams in our program that created strong campaigns.
I was grateful to work with some of my incredibly talented peers in order to bring this campaign to life. We took many risks in this campaign, and even if we had not placed, I would still be so proud of the hard work and dedication we put into this project.
This campaign did not come without its challenges, but these were essential to the overall learning experience and expanding our knowledge as digital storytellers when it comes to content strategy. We were pleased that the client also felt that we had put out great work.
My experiences here were taken into account when working on other social campaigns, including the #MyDepop and Madhappy campaigns featured in this portfolio.