ADPR 4300 Final Project: Milwaukee Pedal Tavern Social Media Strategy

Executive Summary & Goals

Currently, the client’s goals are to expand the Pedal Tavern’s customer base to include

more corporate clients, boost weekday traffic, improve social media presence, and maintain its

positive ratings on sites like TripAdvisor. Right now, 75 percent of the Pedal Tavern’s customers

are 24-45 year old women from the Milwaukee area, but we aim to use social media as a tool to

introduce corporate clients, tourists, and a younger audience to the Pedal Tavern. To help realize

our client’s goals, we aim to raise awareness of the Pedal Tavern by developing strong corporate

relationship within the Milwaukee area and continuing to develop the Pedal Tavern’s social

media channels, particularly its LinkedIn and Instagram accounts, and content to connect with

these three core audiences.

Situational Analysis

Strengths: The Pedal Tavern is currently achieving high ratings on TripAdvisor (5 stars),

Yelp (4.5 stars), Groupon (100%). They have a successfully developed website that is

easy to navigate with clear information on how to book a tour and acquire additional

information. Their website also has links to their Facebook page, which seems to be their

main social media presence. They also share the photos from each party’s event on their

Pedal Tavern social sites and in a photo gallery on the website. This is a nice feature that

continues engagement and a more long-term relationship.

Weakness: The Pedal Tavern operates on a weather permitting bases, leading most of

their posts, tweets or reviews being from the summer months. While user-generated

content is great, the Twitter account relies too much on this platform. The Pedal Tavern

needs to use social to develop the company as a brand in Milwaukee. On Facebook there

is very little engagement, for as much name recognition that the Pedal Tavern has in

Milwaukee, its posts do not capitalize on this.

Opportunities: The Pedal Tavern is the only one its kind in the city of Milwaukee and it

should really embrace that uniqueness. Although re-tweeting is great, too much of it is

not. Instead, Pedal Tavern should create its own content on Twitter and Facebook to

develop its brand personality. The brand personality should be something that matches or

embraces the fact that Pedal Tavern is one of a kind in Milwaukee. The Pedal Tavern

should maintain an active presence on social media during the winter months (when The

Pedal Tavern is not running) so that customers remain engaged. They also have the

opportunity at increasing business during the weekdays through targeting more specific

groups such as, corporate clients, young adults and tourists. Through increasing brand

awareness they can consequentially increase business.

Threats: The fact that The Pedal Tavern is weather dependent does pose as a threat to the

success of the company. Should the winter season begin early and end late, could result

in a dead period that can’t be compensated by the summer season. There is also the

threat of potential competitors of the same business practice entering the market. Their

current competitors could include other leisure/ celebration activities such as, golf

courses, limos, and bar crawls. There needs to be a strategic differentiation that separates

them from those competitors. The lack of tours during the weekdays also places a

stressed importance and reliance on weekend business that may prove incapable of

sustaining profits. They need to increase business during the weekdays in order to

maximize their opportunities.

Audience Profile

After discussing goals and audiences to reach out to with the client, we decided to focus our

strategies toward connecting with corporate clients, younger audiences, and tourists. By profiling

these three audiences, we determined what they are interested in, how they use social media sites,

and what they are most concerned about when spending money or planning outings and events.

From this information, we created personas, or fictional characters who represent these different

audiences.

Personas

The Corporate Client: Colin

Colin is a HR Manager at a mid-sized Milwaukee company. Part of his job is organizing

sales team incentives and team building events and outings for employees, sometimes

outside of work. He is most concerned with maintaining a successful and positive work

environment and likes to incorporate getting to know the city into work events, when

possible. When planning events, he looks at what other similar companies in the industry

are doing with their employees. He primarily uses LinkedIn, for professional

development and networking, and Facebook, in his personal life. The best opportunity to

reach him is through business groups, online newsletters, and connections on LinkedIn,

such as the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC) and

NEWaukee, as well as coordinated social media posts on those channels, for greater

exposure to audiences like Colin.

The Recent Graduate: Jason

Jason just graduated from UWM and is living and working in Milwaukee. He and his

friends are always looking for fun things to do on the weekends that are both active,

social, memorable, and affordable. He and his friends sometimes get ideas for where to

go on weekends from both word of mouth and suggested events on social media. He is

connected into the UWM alumni network and enjoys keeping up with friends from

college. He and his friends are mostly active on Snapchat and Instagram, as well as

Facebook, so having an improved presence on these social platforms would help connect

the Pedal Tavern to Jason, and others like him.

The Out-of-Towner: Kate

Kate is a thirty-two year old speech pathologist from Pittsburgh and is in Milwaukee for a

conference downtown. She and her coworkers have some free time while in Milwaukee

and want to have some fun in the city after the conference sessions are over for the day.

She wants to get to know the city, make the most of her money, and find something that

everyone will enjoy; she gets most of her ideas for activities from tourist websites, Yelp,

and Tripadvisor. The Pedal Tavern has great ratings on these websites but could continue

to increase its visibility as a unique Milwaukee experience; the Pedal Tavern is not

something that can be found in other places.

Objectives

Our objective focuses on boosting customer interest in the Pedal Tavern through specifically

targeting corporate clients, young adults and tourists. To increase awareness of corporate clients

we want to connect the Pedal Tavern with professional groups on social media. These

professional groups could include, NEWaukee, Metro Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce or

career conventions held within the city. This will help develop relationships with professional

groups who can further expand our reach and connect us with companies in Milwaukee. Through

a developed relationship, the Pedal Tavern can advertise to individuals through featured email

blasts and newsletters within the professional groups.

To further develop interest from tourists we want to capitalize on the unique experience

the Pedal Tavern provides in sharing the Milwaukee experience. A major focus is to maintain its

#1 TripAdvisor rating, and further attract Milwaukee Tourists and visitors through a visually

enticing Instagram presence. This social media platform can further engage tourist through the

encouragement of photo sharing after a customer's Pedal Tavern experience. Engagement

through retweets, sharing customer content and commenting on posts, will additionally improve

customer service and increase customer satisfaction.

Lastly, to connect with the younger audience of college students and new graduates, we

aim to increase awareness. This will be achieved through increasing brand visibility on

campuses, including Marquette University, MOSE, UWM, MIAD, and other Milwaukee area

schools. This can be done through pop up booths, informational fliers or directly connecting with

specific groups/ events on campus.

Strategies & Tactics

For the Pedal Tavern we believe there are two key strategies; raise awareness of the Pedal Tavern

brand by cultivating strong partnerships with corporate Milwaukee and further develop social

channels and overall content. We believe that while these are two somewhat broad strategies they

can together help the Pedal Tavern’s need for social media direction and then our tactics will

support these strategies and the overall objectives for the Pedal Tavern.

Strategy 1: Cultivate strong partnerships with corporate Milwaukee to reach the target

audience of out-of-towners, corporate clients and young people living in Milwaukee.

By using the development of our four social media platform (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,

LinkedIn) to create new Pedal Tavern content to initiate a conversation with the target:

• Highlight using Pedal Tavern as a corporate event idea • Directly message/tweet at Milwaukee area companies using our own

context to get Pedal Tavern in its minds To develop strategic content that targets corporate clients, the Pedal Tavern can utilize Linkedin

as a way to directly connect with professionals at companies, as well as professional groups and

organizations. Pedal Tavern should coordinate with companies and organizations who have been

on the Pedal Tavern for an event and ask them to share their experience, by word of mouth, on

social media, or preferably both, to continue building awareness for the Pedal Tavern within the

Milwaukee corporate community. While utilizing LinkedIn as a way to share content and build

Pedal Tavern’s brand presence, Pedal Tavern can write blog posts and update it monthly to

cultivate a more professional following. Pedal Tavern can:

• Form a blog and create a strong presence on this platform o Monthly blogs featuring examples opportunities to use Pedal Tavern for event,

Pedal Tavern in business or how the Pedal Tavern as affected Milwaukee. o LinkedIn is a quick and fast tool to connect with professionals in the Milwaukee

area. If the Pedal Tavern wants to slowly emerge into the corporate scene then this is a way to “get its foot in the door”.

o Blogs can also be a way to fill the gap between work and fun, two areas that Pedal Tavern straddles. As some companies may not be interested in being featured in drinking activities on social media, they may respond better to blog posts encouraging activities outside of work (like the Pedal Tavern) that can help bond employees and increase workplace happiness.

Additionally, Pedal Tavern can focus on building awareness for alumni/parents of the four larger

Milwaukee area colleges, such as Marquette University, UW-Milwaukee, MSOE, and MIAD.

• Work with schools to become a sponsor of Alumni or Parent events. o Many parents or alumni are now out-of-towners and they can create a

buzz when they go back home. o Pedal Tavern representatives can travel to the campuses and use these

experiences with parents and alums for material for new content and social media posts.

Strategy 2: Further develop the social channels and the content posted to Facebook,

Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn

We want to have a creative, consistent, and constant presence on these social platforms,

regardless of the season to cultivate a larger following and allow that to help grow our audience.

To do this, Pedal Tavern can create a hashtag to use in all of their posts, which can be something

as simple as #MKEPedalTavern. Pedal Tavern employees should encourage everyone who

posts/tweets about the Pedal Tavern to use this, that way we can monitor how often content

regarding the Pedal Tavern is posted/mentioned, across various platforms. Additionally, we

recommend changing the name on all social media accounts to something a little more specific

than the current name, @pedaltavern, such as @MKE_PedalTavern or @PedalTavernMKE.

There are other pedal taverns across the United States and we wouldn’t want to get lumped in

with anyone else.

Pedal Tavern can create a social calendar to plan postings and use every month. The

Pedal Tavern is a business and our social media work needs to reflect this. If the Pedal Tavern

wants to continue to grow dedicating time and effort into social media planning will pay off.

Social calendars are a great way to stay effective, organized and consistent and work toward

social media goals, such as:

• 2-3 tweets/posts a week on Facebook and Twitter • 1-2 posts/week on Instagram • 1 longer post of original content/ month on LinkedIn

While it is impressive that Pedal Tavern has such great reviews and feedback on social

platforms, they cannot rely too much on user-generated content and only retweeting. Although

retweeting/reposting some content can boost engagement and show off the customers who use the

Pedal Tavern, as well as showing that the community cares about the brand, user-generated

content should be limited. To create a more professional feel on social media, Pedal Tavern must

post content in one consistent “social voice”, a tone to stick to when producing social media

content, which is more of a challenge with someone else’s content. The Pedal Tavern is a fun,

energetic and upbeat experience we want to transition this into the overall tone and style that the

Pedal Tavern will have on its social media platforms. All platforms need to have a consistent

voice that represents the brand as a whole.

The Pedal Tavern could embrace campaigns during the one and off seasons. During the

on season, we want to continue to be in our audience’s mind to continue building awareness, To

encourage consumers to book tours on the Pedal Tavern on the off days of Monday, Tuesday,

Wednesday, we believe having campaigns that tie into the happenings of pop-culture and

embracing the city itself could be the path to do so. For example:

• Bachelor/Bachelorette Monday, tour's only stop at wine bars/places that air the show.

o Get people interested about coming to on tours with things they are interested in and combining the two. As social media has emerged pop culture as grown as well, utilize this.

• Top Spots of MKE Scavenger Hunt o Create new tours and offerings that allows the pedal tavern to pedal

around the city to some of Milwaukee’s most well-known locations and create incentives for visiting those spots. Want this pedal tavern to embrace spirit of the city.

During the off season, we still want Pedal Tavern to be in customers’ consciousness and on their

newsfeeds so Pedal Tavern can create campaigns that are timely and relevant to the season, such

as holiday posts that include opportunities to win a free tour for the following season.

Measurement

Pedal Tavern has four main social channels: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and

TripAdvisor. The least active of the the bunch is Instagram, although we believe that engaging

customers through this channel is crucial to building brand awareness. We think MKE should be

added to the Instagram account name, to distinguish it from the Nashville Pedal Tavern. We want

to minimize any confusion. Currently, the account has 772 followers, a total of 24 posts, and an

average of 20 likes per photo. Twitter and Facebook are the most active channels of the four. On

Facebook, Pedal Tavern has a 4.7 rating out of a possible 5. A total of 122 reviews are cited, of

which 108 are 5 star ratings. The majority of Twitter posts are retweets. In fact, for every 20

tweets for Pedal Tavern, an average of 18 of those are retweets. The Twitter page has not been

active since September 25, which we find is a problem. The social media activity needs to be

consistent across all channels. On TripAdvisor, Pedal Tavern has great reviews. It has the #1 spot

out of 30 outdoor activities in Milwaukee. Of the reviews, a total of 326, the majority are 10 out

of 10. Only 10 reviews are poor or average.

Summary & Conclusion

Pedal Tavern needs to gather more corporate clients, boost weekday traffic, improve

social media presence, and maintain their superb ratings on websites such as TripAdvisor. Pedal

Tavern’s customer base contains 75 percent 24-45 year old women from the surrounding

Milwaukee area. With our suggested social media efforts, the target groups of corporate clients,

tourists, and a younger audience will become more accustomed to Pedal Tavern as customers and

therefore investors for the business. Developing the Pedal Tavern’s social media channels by

being more consistent with content and creating a voice is one of our main priorities. Also,

focusing on LinkedIn and Instagram accounts will satisfy the needs of professional businesses

and corporate clientele. Crafting relatable content to connect with these three core audiences

according to our research of each group will produce more livelihood for Pedal Tavern on social

media.

Appendices A-D: Sample Social Media Content

These sample Instagram posts are examples of types of content that the Pedal Tavern can post to revamp their Instagram account and connect with our three audiences, especially young adults and recent grads living in Milwaukee. The Pedal Tavern’s Instagram is rarely used but, in line with our strategy and tactical recommendations, they could post a variety of content on Instagram, from reposting customer images with a witty/funny captions and their hashtag (Appendices A and B), to posting original content in line with holidays (Appendix C or online trends like #mondaymotivation (Appendix D). All of these examples aim to have a relaxed, fun, and young look and feel, created through filtering the photos and striking the right tone in the captions. See online at https://www.instagram.com/mkepedaltavern/ Note: These samples are examples only, with Appendices A-D created with pictures from Pedal Tavern’s Instagram, website, or photos posted by customers.

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C Posting original content for a holiday/event, with a reference or pun relating to the Pedal Tavern in the caption (see: “hoppiness” instead of happiness to connect July 4th and the Pedal Tavern)

Appendix D Hop on to online trends with your original content (like #mondaymotivation)