Zorica Rajić

1. INTRODUCTION

This essay project is written as a requirement for E-Business class taught on the Master Study Managerial Informatics. The purpose of this project is to introduce innovative solutions for businesses, solutions are to be innovative technologies and model is innovative by itself. In essay project will be described in all relevant details in order to represent business model and to attract future and potential investors. Moreover, project in this sense will also attract new clients.

I.1. Data Sources and Collection Methods

Data sources for this project will be collected from internet and online publications i.e. competitiveness in this industry, number of clients by various online community management agencies. Moreover, to meet our customers preferences and provide full needed service we directly communicate their needs with a goal to create both online and offline communities around our clients brands or services.

I.2. Essay content and structure

The essay will be structured in way that follows usual contents and fields of business model. In other words, introduction will provide general idea of project essay, marketing plan will represent all potential and existing marketing and advertising models specific for B2B business models, financial part will represent business revenues and similar.In other words, structure will cover following field which will make final business model:Strategy, E-business Model, Clients, Innovation, Revenue Model, Competition, Partners, Distribution Channels, Marketing Plan, Cost Structure, Prototype, Web 2.0 Technologies and SWOT Analysis.

I.3. E-business Model Short Description

“SocialUP” is online community management agency for small and medium enterprises. “SocialUP” is B2B solution for building and creating communities around brands or services, built and created on social media platforms. The goal is to build or change brand image, brand awareness and create communities around same.

2. STRATEGIC BACKGROUND

2.1. Mission

SocialUP helps you build brand awareness and create unique brand image. To each customer – specialized, adjusted and 24/7.

2.2. Vision

SocialUp’s vision is to become recognized online community management agency offering services of building brand awareness in unique way of personalized social media pages and offline events.

2.3. Project Goals

Our goal is to build online community management agency under the guidance of our management team and implemented by fellow students recruited. Our goal is to build strong and unique communities around clients brands or services in order for them to gain revenues and new customers.

3. BUSINESS MODEL

3.1. E-business model detailed description

Management dashboard that is used by our management team consisting of all social media pages managed by both management and students running social media pages.

Clients are required to provide us with materials that are to be communicated on pages. All content run on social media pages is personalized and adjusted to target audience. Through online management dashboard students are able to follow, edit or create posts 24/7 as well as our clients.

Business process starts with choosing our clients, each student chooses SME by it’s own field of interest (education providers, catering, fashion or similar) we approach to our client with brief of our services and offer to our client with given schedule of content that is to be run for 2 weeks. After words, when business is set we make monthly schedule confirmed by client and set it into management dashboard.

Each post can be set in future dd/mm/yy hour plus additional text and photos on all social media platforms. Schedule can be edited by management team only and seen by all including clients that can for their given business make marks and events that they want to be included in schedule.

Our service covers also offline events, visual identity of pages, Google place creation, Google AdWords creation etc.

3.2. E-business model values

Model values of this business models are uniqueness, quality, custom made strategy, pricing, organization, high specialization and innovative approach. In my personal opinion all values of particular business model is best described by our business model process and situation analysis.

SocialUp is a startup company that is about to be established by two college students with experience in business journalism, PR and marketing. It is about to enter an emerging and developing market of online community management. There are many marketing and PR agencies engaged in such activities, but even on the global level there are only few agency specialized in providing it for SME’s. SocialUP plans to start primarily with smaller, medium sized and online SME’s situated in Croatia and the region and later on, once they have built their reputation, offer their services to more demanding clients. Naturally, we intend to start with the companies in the region that have no presence in the social media along with the ones that have poorly and insufficiently managed corporate profiles. We will approach them with a concrete custom-made online community management strategy and additional materials designed only for them. The first month will be free of

charge and after that the clients will be able to decide do they want to pursue using our services. It is necessary to stress that we intend to differentiate by the quality and features of our service but we will also be one of the cheapest considering the fact that the work will be performed by students paid via student contracts.

3.3. Project organization

SocialUP is managed by founder and co-founder of business and students engaged and working with clients and management team of SocialUP. So far SocialUP is consisting of management team Zorica Rajić (founder) and Maja Marić (co-founder), and students managing existing clients Maja Bogavčić (Online Community Manager) and Ivana Zadro (Online Community Manager). We outsource one part of our service to other startup company Glasoglas which are running Googleplaces and Google AdWords.

Rest of the team is composed of student colleagues from our faculty that are seeking to find job opportunities related to their field of study i.e. marketing. As previously explained the members will be recruited on the faculty with the assistance of student associations and later on will pass through a short education program. The recruitment process will occur directly on social media, using primarily the Facebook official pages of student organizations connected to the Faculty of Business and Economics in Zagreb (eSTUDENT, HSA, AIESC, etc.).

4. INNOVATIONS

4.1. Innovation List

Social media management dashboard Synchronization of social media pages with other advertising channels (AdWords etc.) 24/7 communication Custom made posts

4.2. Detailed description

Social media management dashboard Each post can be set in future dd/mm/yy hour plus additional text and photos on all social media platforms. Schedule can be edited by management team only and seen by all including clients that can for their given business make marks and events that they want to be included in schedule.

Synchronization of social media pages with other advertising channels (AdWords etc.) Fan pages are covered by both Google ads and Facebook ads followed by one can not work without other.

24/7 communication Students are naturally 24/7 online present plus all pages applications alert on all activities on pages and in that sense communication on pages are fully monitored.

Custom made posts Our diversity from our competitors is for sure custom made posts which also come naturally by students as they choose their clients by the field of interest in thah sense they provide ending customers with interesting content and activities, reaching clients goal – revenues and new customers.

5. REVENUE MODELS

5.1. Revenue model list

i) Building and running pagesii) Offline promosiii) Visual identityiv) Google AdWordsv) Consulting

5.2. Detailed description of revenue model list

5.2.1. Building and running pages

We take into consideration size and complexity of clients business model as well past online presence on social media.

5.5.2 Offline promos

Organizing offline events in purpose of additional promotion and advertising.

5.2.3. Visual identity

It refers to fan page visual identity, creation of logo’s, photos etc.

5.2.4. Google AdWords

we outsource this service and take percentage of providing new client to other business.

5.2.5. Consulting

Since students choose their clients by their field of interest we offer service of consulting in improving physical business model, suppliers, new brand image creation etc.

6. CLIENTS

6.1. Main clients

Hotels and hostels Tourist agencies Hair and beauty salons All shops Bars and clubs

6.2. Detailed Description of clients

6.2.1. Hotels and hostels

High demand for online community management in this field. All hotels and hostels in Zagreb and coast region.

6.2.2.Tourist agencies

Demand for online presence, but for us they bring high healthy competition.

6.2.3.Hair and beauty salons and shops

The biggest demand for OCM is in this segment and in shops since people mostly talk about same “offline”. And it follows rule: if conversation about your brand is happening on street it is happening online as well.

6.2.4.Bars and clubs

Interesting content since fun and moments are 90% of content happening on social media.

6.2.5. Others

All in demand for online community management.

7. COMPETITION

As previously mentioned, both on the national and global level CommunicART d.o.o. have no known competitors yet. By establishing our startup we have offered to fulfill a niche market and hopefully become temporary monopolists.

We are planning to differentiate ourselves by an entirely different approach using exclusively students and by that decreasing the price as much as possible. The most important advantages and perks that go along with our agency are depicted in the chart below. Along with the differentiated service we will offer our clients low price, high adaptability and in the end 2 students to whom this will be the first job opportunity.

7.1. COMPETITION ANALYSIS

MAJOR COMPETITORS ON CROATIAN MARKET:

7.1.1. “iSTUDIO” – the largest specialized full serviced social media company in south eastern Europe.

7.1.2. “MANJGURA” – full service public relations management agency for all areas of communication management including media relations, crisis communication, media training.

7.1.3. “GINGER”- works as a one stop shop company and provides integrated, media neutral, user centric, measurable, relationship driven, and interactive services to the various clients in the Adriatic and SEE region.

7.1.4. Social Wizard” – marketing agency specialized for online community management for small and medium enterprises. The agency is specialized for Facebook, Twitter and Youtube pages.

As listed above this tree agencies are experienced marketing/PR agencies specialized in all areas of communication especially in Online Community Management. In Croatia there is 20 PR agencies doing all previous mentioned activities including online community management. Even though we take in consideration all previously mentioned agencies could be potential competition CommunicART have no competitors yet.

Picture 2 : Comparison between our student agency and professional ones.

POTENTIAL COMPETITORS WITH CROATIAN ENTRANCE IN EU:

With Croatian entrance on large market such as EU every business is faced with new or potential competitors. Even though CommunicART will face PR agencies with experience in field of Social Media on much larger markets, we find our advantage in “know how” manage Croatian target audience in Online Communities i.e. their habits, preferences etc. Moreover, we find our strength firstly in students that have grown up with social media. Secondly, performance and pricing compared to European or any other PR agencies are cheapest.

8. WEB HOSTING AND DOMAINIn this part of this essay more details will be provided about web hosting and related issues. This is just the proposed solution and is not fixed so further changes could be implemented

8.1. Project web domain

8.1.1.At this point the project web domain is strictly chosen for the experimental purpose and could later be changed if needed and appropriate. At this point I chose socialup.com following domains are available:

8.2. .hr domain

For the .hr domain I checked if socialup.hr is available through www.dns.hr and it is available for registration.

9. CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Since the project requires specific contents to be added, edited i.e. managed SocialUP will assign content management system to adequate person.

9.1. Best CMS for project

Joomla offers middle ground between the developer-oriented, extensive capabilities of Drupal and user-friendly but more complex site development options than Wordpress offers.Regarding previously argumented CMS to be used for this project would be Joomla.

10. MARKETING PLAN

10.1. Project marketing plan

Marketing as the project itself B2B marketing will be communicated through social media marketing, but mostly through Linkedin and word of mouth marketing, which is hard to manage but from client to client and references gained we will (are) gain most of our customers. Ofcourse, Google AdWords and sponsored stories are part of our marketing plan.

10.2. Project key words

Following project key words will be used:

Social media Social media for sme’s Cheapest ocm Social media croatia

10.3.Google AdWords ad

Figure 1.

Figure 2:

10.4.Social Media advertising

Project is advertising on social media as well, including Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook.

11. MOBILE TECHNOLOGIES

11.1. Mobile e-business

Since our clients want to track their business performance and our service currently in this purpose we use Pages manager application. In near future we are planning to develop our mobile application SocialUP in which integrated with management dashboard our clients will be able to track activities on their pages and all statistical analytics regarding their page (increase of follower, likes etc.)

11.2.Mobile application description

Mobile application will be available on iOS Apple, Android and Windows Phone 8 platforms. Application will include previously mentioned features and it will be adjusted continuously for new features and trends.

11.3.Mobile application functionality

Application will offer to users to track past and future activities, statistical data and option to contact community manager. But as I previously mentioned mobile application is not that necessary in near future but we are developing it’s features any how.

11.4.Graphic of Mobile Application Functionality

13.2. Project Linkedin profile

13.3. Project Twitter account

On twitter communication is constant and fast. As one of channels twitter is as Facebook used for companies.

14. SWOT ANALYSIS

SocialUP has much powerful strength such as high specialization, unique service and innovative approach but it obviously lacks of experience and will struggle with lack of awareness among potential customers. Their major opportunity is the growing and developing online community market and new business education providers who are yet to come. Also, one of our key competences is pricing.

The SWOT analysis is depicted in the picture below.

Picture 3: SWOT analysis

14.1. Strengths:

1. High specialization: SocialUP is currently the only provider of such highly specialized service of managing online community pages and providing additional material which in the end provides an unique experience for the end consumers. Although there are other agencies that have positioned themselves as leaders in providing online community managers, there are currently none positioned as leaders in this specific niche.

2. Pricing: Due to the fact that we are a startup with modest experience we plan to outperform our potential competition in performance and pricing as well offering the best and the same time the cheapest possibility. The first month will be always offered as a free trial, also that month will not be paid to the student employee. After that, depending on the requirements and size of the client the prices will range from 500 to 2000 HRK per month. Such prices are considered affordable, even in times of economic slowdowns.

3. From the students, for the students: All of the moderation will be performed under the instructions of the management team but by the students of the Faculty of Business and Economics in Zagreb. In that way our clients will provide an opportunity for the students to receive their firs part time job, and the student will finally have a chance to use their accumulated knowledge practically.

4. No relevant experts: Social media is a new market phenomenon. There is no relevant education nor experts for this marketing field since it exist only for a couple of years. The students we are planning to employ have grown up with social media, they know everything about it intuitively and most importantly they love doing it. In that case nobody can claim that they are the experts since students nowadays know everything they need to know intuitively.

14.2. Weaknesses1. Lack of experience: The main problem of this company is lack of experience because the founders

are still college students. This will certainly be a problem once we start negotiating with clients that are currently considering experienced agencies for this service.

2. Lack of awareness and knowledge: SocialUP has not managed to acquaint their potential customers with the service they offer and benefits of engaging of this company for the job.

14.3. Opportunities1. Increasing demand: It is a fact that demand for online community management in general is

growing at a high speed. Also, the number of providers of business education is also growing and is constantly in need for a competitive advantage like the service we offer. There is an important trend going on in the media world – the users want to have all or at least the majority of the total consumed Internet content on one platform, and in the CEE region this is Facebook.

2. Developing market: SocialUP company also expects the market to further evolve in the sense that there will be more and more of social media platforms that will diversity in the future

3. Extension of offer: After establishing the initial wants and needs of our customers,SocialUP plans on expanding the initial offer by providing other PR and CRM services for their clients, all depending on the development of the market.

14.4. Threats1. Increased competition: Currently SocialUP does not have any real competition due to their highly

specialized offer, but over time we are expecting more and more of specialized agencies that could jeopardize our company.

2. Burst of the bubble: Some analysts argue that social media platforms is experiencing a bubble. Such high demand and prices may not be sustainable in the long run which would drive SocialUP out of business.

15. PROJECT STARTING COST

Concerning the matter of fixed costs our only currently identified cost is the initial capital requirement of 20 000 HRK for the establishment of the limited liability company form in Croatia – Društvo ograničene odgovornosti, d.o.o.

Considering the fact that we have almost no fixed costs because all of the tasks will be preformed from our homes and using the services, tools and materials available on the internet we have no financial costs. However, we have the opportunity cost of possibly not generating any income to pay our tuition fee. To achieve our goal of 10 000 HRK in first six months we would have to find, as mentioned, 2 national and 2 international clients who would pay at least the minimum fee for 5 months and receive the additional free month.

We are planning to use penetration pricing; setting the price low in order to attract customers and gain market share. Also we are planning tight control to monitor the quality of service and satisfaction of customers.

AssumptionsWe assume that since the implementation of all our operations will be done from student’s homes that there are no capital requirements other then the legal ones for establishing a legal identity.

16. WEBSITE PROTOTYPE

As we find web sites in comparison to social media profiles static and passive all our content, our communication up to date is better to followed on our social media profiles.

We are wix.com. web site and you can find it on:

http://rajiczorica.wix.com/socialup

Link: http://rajiczorica.wix.com/socialup

17. CONCLUSION

To conclude I will pitch and sum up “SocialUP” idea.

There are two main reasons why the quality of our service will be superior to those offered by our competition; firstly students will be assigned to each client and by that they will cover all community management tasks 24/7 and secondly due to the fact that there will be students helping other students the communication will be significantly improved. Each of the employed students will pass a brief education conducted by the two founders of SocialUP that will enable them to perform this task in the adequate manner. Secondly; we plan to offer our clients additional materials that would increase the value of their educational curriculum and educational experience in general.

Now is the ideal time for tapping into such a branch due to the fact that the social media market is booming and the needs for online community management are constantly growing.

It is important to stress that this business venture requires virtually no initial investment besides the registration of the limited liability company form.

18. LITERATURE

All this project is written as the appendix to our business plan. If needed I will submit it.

19. LIST OF WEB SITES

a) www.wix.com

b) www.joomla.org

c) www.facebook.com

d) www.linkedin.com

e) www.twitter.com