This document provides an overview of brand activation and integrated marketing communications strategies. It discusses how brands can create identities that people want to engage with through content, relationships, influencers, experiences, promotion, and retail. Effective brand activation involves empowering audiences and telling truthful stories that are reinforced across marketing channels. Social media is a major part of integrated strategies, and while platforms constantly change, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest remain important channels. Budgets can be used for both organic social media efforts and paid advertising, with options on each platform depending on the goals and characteristics of the target audience.

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Bringing Your Audience
Integrated Marketing Communications 101&
Beyond

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“Add this to the endangered species
list: blank spaces.
Advertisers seem determined to fill
every last one of them.”
 Source: Anywhere the Eye Can See, It’s Likely to See an Ad, Louise Story, New York Times, Jan. 15,
2007

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3500+ Daily Exposures

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Brand Activation – creating a true
identity that people want to talk about
Content
Relationships
Influencers
Experience
Promotion
Retail

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Brand Activation Toolkit
 Dawn Barraclough - Springs
Preserve
 Content Creation
 Partnerships
 Brenda Hengel – The Mob
Museum
 Advertising
 Events
 Ashleigh Matview - Springs
Preserve
 Marketing to key
demographics
 Organic Tools
 Misha Ray – The Mob Museum
 Promoted Content
Traditional Tools Social Media Tools

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Content and Partnerships
Dawn Barraclough
Springs Preserve
The Story
and
Storytellers

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Content and Credibility in the Age of
Empowerment Brand Activation
 Inadequacy Marketing experiencing a slow but steady death
 The tactics of instilling or inferring anxiety through greed, fear
and lust cured by magic “happy” pill of consumption are no
longer working
 Today’s audiences want to engage with brands that have core
values that are empowering, lead to growth and maturation into
citizenship
 This new form of storytelling through Empowerment Brand
Activation levels the playing field for cultural institutions

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Brand
Activation
through
Empowerment
Marketing
Be interesting
Tell the truth
Live the truth
Source: Jonas Sachs, Winning the Story Wars,
2013

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The story of your brand
 The Core – Moral of your brand
 First Layer - Values
 Second Layer – Specific
attributes and themes of your
story that reinforce the core
 Third Layer – Integrated
Marketing Communications
tools to best tell your story
 Skin – Brand identity – story,
logo, voice

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Empowerment Brand Activation
Superhero Weekend

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National Museum of African
American History & Culture

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Influencer Relationships – Media
and PR
 Annual strategic public relations plan outlining every media
opportunity - events, exhibits, live shows, sustainability
initiatives, gardens activities, summer camps, educational
partnerships
 Formats that are succinct and provide all essential details have
the best results – calendar listings and media alerts
 Get to know the writers who are interested in your specific
content and pitch them accordingly
 News coverage makes good social media content
 It is a relationship, respect them and they will respect you

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Partnerships help you live the truth
of your brand
 Engage the creativity of staff and volunteers
 Partner with like organizations to better tell your story, their
story and model strength in cooperative efforts
 Other museums and cultural associations
 Non-profits
 Corporate Sponsors
 Your audiences will spread the story of their experience with
your brand on social media
 It takes a village to run a museum and motivate our future
heros

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“And the only myth that is going to be worth
thinking about in the immediate future is one
that is talking about the planet, not the city, not
these people, but the planet, and everybody
on it. That's my main thought for what the
future myth is going to be. ...”
 Source: Joseph Campbell, with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, Doubleday New York, 1988

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Advertising and Events
Brenda Hengel
Mob Museum
The Story
and
Storytellers

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TRACK, TRACK, TRACK

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LINK, LINK, LINK

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SURVEY, SURVEY, SURVEY

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PARTNERHIPS &
SPONSORSHIPS

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MAKE YOUR ADVERTISING
WORK FOR YOU

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ASK NICELY, BUT ASK!
You get a lot more from a
kind word and a gun
than from a kind word alone.
May or may not have actually been said by Al Capone*
But we’re claiming it for this slide

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EMPTY SPACE – FILL IT WITH
ADVERTISING

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EBLAST FOLLOW-UP

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Organic Social Media
Ashleigh Matview
Springs Preserve
The Story
and
Storytellers

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Why Social Media?
 It’s free to use
 It gives your museum a
friendly face
 It drives traffic
 It increases shareability of your content
 It allows you to respond to issues immediately
 It builds relationships and visitor loyalty
 It’s where the people are

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Social media is too big to ignore
 World Population: 7.4 billion
 World Internet Users: 3.4 billion
 World Active Social Media Users: 2.3 billion
Source: http://www.slideshare.net/wearesocialsg/digital-in-2016

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What works on social media?
 People have short attention spans online. The information you present needs
to grab them and make them want to learn more.
 You can’t just post a link to a press release.
 Multimedia is king.

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Leverage trends
 When there is a plausible
connection, tie your organization
into trends.
 The Springs Preserve saw
success in promoting ourselves as
a great place to play Pokémon Go.

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Social media is rapidly changing
 For many organizations, one of the scariest things about social
media is that it’s ever-changing.
 “I’ve heard people aren’t on Twitter anymore.” “What is Snapchat?”
“Are people even SEEING our Facebook posts? I heard there’s
some new algorithm.”
 Friendster, Myspace, Meerkat, Google+, etc.
 It can be difficult to keep up.
 So who exactly is ON social media?
Is your customer/visitor there?
Where should you be
spending most of your time and
energy?

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Facebook – 1.71 billion users
71% of all American internet users are on Facebook. That’s 58%
of the entire adult American population.

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But are people even seeing my
posts on Facebook?
 Business pages organically reach about 16% of their fans on
average – that’s according to Facebook.
 So how do you make sure your fans are seeing your posts?
 $

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Instagram – 400 million users
Does your product/organization lend itself to visual
interest? At 28% of American internet users, Instagram actually has
more users than Twitter does, and they’re on it more frequently.

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Twitter - 320 million users
23% of all American internet users, which is 20% of the entire
adult population

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YouTube – Over 1 billion users
 Video is king on social media.
 63% of adult American internet users use YouTube.
 According to YouTube, they reach more 18-49 year-olds than any cable network in the U.S.
According to PEW Research Center, 82% of 18- to 29-year-olds used YouTube in 2014,
with 34% of those 65 and older using the site.
 It’s the second largest search engine behind Google.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/statistics.html

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Pinterest – 100 million users
31% of all American adult internet users, which is 26%
of the entire adult population.

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Snapchat – 100 million+ users
 Snapchat usage skews very young, but the user base is growing very, very rapidly.
 On any given day, Snapchat reaches 41% of all 18 to 34 year olds in the United States.
 Lenses & Geofilters are very popular, and provide great advertising opportunities
Source: https://www.snapchat.com/ads

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How do I manage all of this?
Overwhelmed? Don’t worry. There are tools for all this.
 Develop a content calendar/plan for
your social media account(s) for the
upcoming month. What do you want
to post about and when?
 Stay flexible. Things will come up and
the calendar will need to change – but
it’s good to have a baseline
 There’s a variety of social media
scheduling platforms out there that
can help you schedule, monitor and
manage responses across your
accounts.
 The most popular ones include
HootSuite and Sprout Social.
 The majority of the big social media
platforms provide native analytics
that will be very helpful in
determining which posts your
audience most enjoys.
 If you purchase a service such as
Sprout Social, they should also
provide you with analytical reports.
Social Media Scheduling Measuring Success

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Should I be spending ad money on
social media?

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Paid Social Media
Presented by: Misha Ray, Digital Marketing
Manager for The Mob Museum in Las Vegas

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Takeaways from this portion of the
presentation
 What I hope you will take away from this portion of the presentation:
 What are my options for advertising on
Facebook?
 How much budget do I need to start out with?
 When should I advertise on Twitter?
 What are best practices for advertising on
Instagram?
 How do my organic social media efforts tie
into my paid efforts?

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Putting budget toward your social
media efforts
 When it comes to where to spend your money, there are a few avenues
to choose from.
 Facebook
 This option gives you great targeting ability and a relatively low expense.
 Twitter
 If there is a specific hashtag that you would like to get involved with, Twitter
ads can be a good option.
 Instagram
 With outstanding imagery on Instagram, you ad has potential for great
results.
 Others
 Snapchat, Pinterest, etc
 These platforms offer advertising, but I will not cover them directly in this
presentation for time’s sake.

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How The Mob Museum uses paid
advertising on social

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Putting budget toward social media
efforts: Facebook
 Boosted post:
VS
 Ad:

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Putting budget toward social media
efforts: Facebook
 Increase reach on a post that is
visible on your page
 Increase clicks to your website
 Increase attendance at an
event
 Increase awareness
 Quick and easy to set up
 Control when and where people see
your content
 Editorial control over the copy, edit
any time
 Appears differently than an organic
post
 Increase clicks to your website
 Increase attendance at an event
 More advanced targeting capabilities
 Note: This post/ad is not visible on
your Facebook page
Boosted Posts Ads

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Putting budget toward social media
efforts: Facebook
 We’ve talked a little about content for your paid ads, now the question remains:
How much budget will this require?
 Facebook goes through ebbs and flows. There have been times when they
have implemented a $5 daily minimum spend for an ad—though, as of today,
that is not the case.
 Test your ad: For one month, run your ad at a $3 daily spend or $100 lifetime
spend.
 Ahead of time, decide what your objective is and what results you’ll be happy
with.
 As the ad performs throughout the month, keep track of it and see if it is on
track to meet your objective.
 To start, be generic with your ad. Choose a high-quality image and your best,
most compelling brand language.
 If you’ve been doing Facebook ads for a while and are looking for a “next
step,” try targeting a new audience.

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Putting budget toward social media
efforts: Twitter
 Do you know that your audience is actively on Twitter? If so,
this may be the platform for you.
 Twitter very recently made a great change: Images and links no
longer count toward the 140 character limit.
 If your audience is already on Twitter and there are specific
hashtags or audiences you want to get in front of, go for it.
 If you want to advertise on Twitter, be sure you have an active
Twitter presence.

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Putting budget toward social media
efforts: Instagram
 Key tip: You imagery has to be outstanding. It has to tell a story.
It has to stand out. If you don’t have stellar imagery, it’s best to
steer clear of Instagram.
 Your ad should somewhat match your Instagram presence.
 Find your Instagram “voice” before you begin advertising.

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Tying it all together
 When you combine what Ashleigh and I have told you, your
social media presence will grow and be something you can
depend on as a reliable source of sharing information.
 Organic or advertising—your content is interesting! You have
eager audiences! Harness that intrigue and you will be set for
social media success.

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Bringing Your Audience
Questions?