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The Title of my individual research report is –More than just an ice-cream parlour: Building an entire ice-cream community on Facebook

My Research Question is: How can Udders, a home-grown ice-cream parlour of 9 years, utilize Facebook to revitalize their brand and build up their brand community by increasing their current engagement levels?

Analysis of Social media platform: Facebook

Facebook is the chosen platform to be examined across 3 organizations namely, Udders, Sunday Folks and Milkcow. Facebook is more suitable for the target group of Udders, comprising both the young crowd and adults because Facebook has a great API and higher following from both groups of target audience as opposed to Instagram which caters more to the younger crowd.

Data Collection Across Udders, Sunday Folks and Milkcow

Tracking will be done for the 3 organizations’ use of Facebook for a period of 4 weeks starting 1^st March- 28^th March 2016.

Practical Value of this Research

The purpose of this research is to analyze the organizations’ efforts in engaging their customers on Facebook and if their level of interactivity directly translates to a level of engagement which will contribute to having more involved customers and to building brand loyalty and a brand community. Recommendations will be put in place for the chosen organization (Udders) based on the analysis of its own Facebook usage and that of two other competitors (Sunday Folks and Milkcow).

The summarized findings are found in the table below:

Feel free to contact me if you are interested in the full version of the data analysis and findings.

Other Significant Findings

Although Milkcow has a low frequency of posting at once every 3 weeks, their visually appealing professional post of the debut of waffles and ice cream garnered 1100 likes and 164 shares. I think that this may be influenced by fans’ prior perceived positive image and brand anticipation of them as they originate from Korea and the photographs of their ice cream looks fun, visually appetizing and are worthy of being shared on social media platforms.

Additionally, it can be observed that Milkcow reposted an article from hypequiva.com on “Top 26 places to have desserts under $9.90” where they were featured as #12. As a result, the article went viral and gained 89 likes and 260 shares. On the other hand, Udders had missed out on the same opportunity to garner more brand awareness by being unaware that they too were being featured in the same article. One should always be on the lookout for reviews about their brand and monitor the social media space for information and reviews.

Proposed Strategy 1-#theUddersStory campaign

#theUddersStory campaign will take place over a period of 4 weeks whereby Udders will publish one video each week with the hashtag #theUddersStory.  Each video will be showing behind the scenes unique stories of how selected Udders ice cream flavours were derived.

To kick-start the campaign, the first video will also reveal the campaign details- in which in order for fans to participate, they have to post an interesting/creative perspective of their Udders’ experience along with the hashtag #theUddersStory on Udders Facebook page under Visitor Posts segment.  Additionally, anyone is allowed to go onto the Visitor Post segment and vote for their favourite #theUddersStory contributed by other fans.

Each week, the top 3 most creative posts/ stories will be selected and winners will gain the privilege of being the first fans to win a special edition Udders Ice cream membership card. The official launch of a non special-edition Udders membership cards for all other fans will commence once the period of 4 weeks of campaign has ended.

An example of a fan’s contribution could be “Just the udder day, my friends and I did not know where to go. We walked around and suddenly found ourselves in Udders. Just about the most “udderly” awesome decision ever. We will not have it any other way but #theUddersStory way from now on.”

Proposed Strategy 2- Employees-generated content- #UddersWhiz

In line with Udders’ aim to be a fun and quirky brand, coupled with their emphasis on employees as brand ambassadors, the second proposed strategy is to encourage employees to generate simple and fun quizzes that can be easily shared on Facebook.

The chosen ones will be published and full credit will be given to the employees who created it.  This will allow employees will feel a sense of satisfaction and empowerment in their jobs. In addition, bonus pay can be given to winning entries to encourage employees to participate. A new entry/ quiz with the hashtag #UddersWhiz can be published once every month for 3 months.

The use of visually appealing photos can be used along with the quizzes to increase fans’ desires to tag their friends and share the post. Moreover, and the sharing of relatable and fun quizzes will go viral easily and help Udders gain brand awareness.

An example of quizzes could be “What ice cream flavour are you?” It could contain 5 short personality questions such as:

1. Your favourite time of the day
2. A list of hobbies to choose from
3. Your favourite colours
4. Your favourite country in the world
5. Your bad habits

After fans have done in the quiz, results would be generated allowing them to share their results on Facebook. On the last Sunday of each month, the first 100 fans who have done the quiz and achieved a minimum of 50 likes for their quiz results post will get a free cone of choice from one selected Udders outlet. The Udders outlet will vary each month and will be announced 2 days before the last Sunday of each month.

Thank you for your kind attention. I have provided a brief background of Udders Ice cream company below for reference. Don’t wait any longer, Get your Udders Ice cream today! 

Background of Udders Ice cream company (Udders)

Udders was founded in 2007 by co-founders David Yim with his wife Wong Peck Li and there are a total of 6 Udders ice cream outlets in Singapore (Udders, 2016). Udders have branded themselves as a fun, innovative and energetic ice cream parlour with a cheeky personality that aim to make customers have a fun, relaxed and happy atmosphere at their parlours (The Columnist, 2013). This can be witnessed in their mission posted on their Facebook page which is “To make people high with our liqueur ice cream :)”. Udders’ specialty is ‘adult-rated’ liqueur ice cream, with names such as Cherry Bomb, Lychee Martini and Rum Rum Raisin.

Written by Yang Shuzhen from G2.