A social media strategy for the Miami Dolphins Hannah Colson- PUR3622

1. HannahColson
September28,2016

2. Tableofcontents
1. Executive Summary
2. Social Media Audit
3. Social Media Objectives
4. Online Brand Persona and Voice
5. Strategies and Tools
6. Timing and Key Dates
7. Social Media Roles and Responsibilities
8. Social Media Policy
9. Critical Response Plan
10. Measurement and Reporting Results

3. ExecutiveSummary
Our major social media priorities for the 2016/2017 football season will be growing our online
following and community. The primary focus will be to support revenue goals through driving
fans to buy tickets and attend more Miami Dolphins games. We plan to accomplish this by
sharing more engaging, relevant content and building deeper relationships with our
customers.
Two major social strategies will support this objective:
1. A plan to increase the creativity of content we publish to our social profiles
2. Encourage conversations between fans

4. SocialMediaAudit-Socialmediaassessment
Social Network URL Follower
Count
Average Weekly Activity Average Engagement Rate
Twitter https://twitter.com/MiamiDol
phins
666K 100 posts/week 5%
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/
MiamiDolphins
2,174,743 80 posts/week 7%
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/
miamidolphins/
605K 40 posts/week Ave. 8,000 Likes/post

5. SocialMediaAudit-websitetrafficsourcesassessment
Source Volume Percentage of Overall Traffic Conversion Rate
Twitter 100,000 Unique Visits 15% 3%
Facebook 200,000 Unique Visits 20% 2.5%
Instagram No Data No Data No Data

6. SocialMediaAudit-audiencedemographicsassessment
Age
Distribution
Gender
Distribution
Primary Social
Network
Secondary
Social Network
Primary
Need
Secondary
Need
35% 18-30
20% 31-40
35% 41-55
10% 56-80
65% Male
35% Female
35% Male
60% Female
50% Facebook
30% Twitter
15% Instagram
40% Instagram
20% Facebook
20% Twitter
Dolphins Fan Friends with
people who
are Dolphins
fans

7. SocialMediaAudit-competitorassessment
Competitor Name Social Media Profile Strengths Weaknesses
Miami Marlins https://www.facebook.com/Marli
ns
They interact with their
audience and fans and
create a good connection
They don’t have a much of
a following with less than a
million “likes.”
Miami Heat https://www.facebook.com/Marli
ns
They have a much larger
following with over 12
million “likes.”
They don’t post as much in
the off season

8. SocialMediaObjectives
Overall Business Goals:
For the ‘16/’17 season, the primary focus of our social media strategy will be to gain more attendance to games and
purchase of tickets as well as more of a support base from our fans. In order to do so, our social media priorities will be
growing online following + community by delivering great content to fans.
SM Objectives to Support Business Goals:
❖ Increase attendance to games by 5% by the end of the ‘16/’17 football season
❖ Increase Instagram followers to 700,000 by the end of the ‘16/’17 football season
❖ Increase volume of visual content published on social channels by 20% the end of the ‘16/’17 football season
KPIs
❖ Number of unique visitors from Facebook and Twitter
❖ Number of Instagram followers
❖ Number of weekly photo and video posts to Facebook
and Instagram
❖ Sentiment analysis
Key Supporting Messages
❖ A Fun Game Day in the Heart of South Florida
❖ An Unforgettable Time with Family and Friends

9. Onlinebrandpersonaandvoice
Adjectives that describe our brand:
❖ Athletic
❖ Talented
❖ Winners
❖ Confident
Examples of Brand Voice in Social
Media Interactions:
❖ Friendly
❖ Supportive
❖ Informative
❖ Helpful

10. Strategiesandtools
Paid:
Everyday boost most popular organic Facebook posts. Posts need a minimum of 1,000 likes or 50 comments.
Owned:
Introduce the use of #FinsFriday on Twitter. Encourage adoption by fans to get pumped for the weekend
game. Minimum of 5 pieces of user-generated content per week to retweet/shout out. Promote hashtag
across all social properties, email newsletters as well as printed promotional material.
Earned:
Monitor Twitter for keywords and terms: football, nfl, dolphins, Miami Dolphins, Miami football. Extend 50 free
game tickets to warm leads/prospects to a game of choice during football season.
Tools:
Approved
❖ Hootsuite
❖ Buffer
❖ Google Analytics
Rejected
❖ N/A
Existing Subscriptions/
Licenses
● Adobe Creative Cloud

11. Timingandkeydates
Holiday Dates:
❖ Columbus Day, Halloween, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day,
Hanukkah, New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Internal Events
❖ One Million Meal Packing Event, Dolphins Cancer Challenge, Community Service
Academy
Reporting Dates
❖ N/A

12. Socialmediarolesandresponsibilities
Senior Director, Digital and Print Media: Scott Stone
Social Media Manager: Vince Pannozzo
Multimedia Host: John Congemi
Marketing Director: Patrick Arthur

13. Socialmediapolicy
Our number one goal is to deliver great content to our fans. We are always looking for new and creative ways
to expand and reach our fans across all platforms. As an employee and representative of the Miami Dolphins,
you are expected to demonstrate best practices and a sense of etiquette in your use of social by following some
simple guidelines:
❖ Be respectful to all
❖ Use common sense
❖ Be polite, not rude or insensitive
❖ Be the solution, not the problem
❖ Act helpful to fans
Violation of the Miami Dolphins social policy may result in corrective action, up to, and including, termination.
You may also be subject to legal action, including criminal prosecution. Should you have any questions or
concerns please speak to the Social Media Manager or the Marketing Director.

14. Criticalresponseplan-Scenario1
Action Steps
1. Alert Patrick (Marketing Director)
2. Patrick to meet with Vince (Social Media Manager) to come up with a plan of action
3. Patrick to handle all Media contact
4. Monitor spread of the news and post on necessary social channels
5. Evaluate if a press conference/statement needs to be made
6. Patrick and Vince to continue to monitor the situation until it is blown over
Pre-approved Messaging
Facebook: Release statement as Facebook Status
Twitter: A statement has been released in regards to (NAME). We are extremely
disappointment in (NAME) choice of actions as they do not reflect our team as a whole.
Miami Dolphins Player Arrested

15. Criticalresponseplan-Scenario2
Action Steps
1. When tweet is detected
❖ Take screenshot
❖ Delete the tweet/status
❖ Alert Vince (Social Media Manager)
2. Vince discusses impact & reach with social team
3. Vince to develop an appropriate follow-up tweet, Scott approves
4. If need be, direct media contact to Scott
5. Vince & Scott meet with employee responsible to discuss the situation and if further
action needs to be taken
Pre-approved Messaging
There is no pre-approved message in this scenario.
Inappropriate Tweet/Status From a Miami Dolphins Social
Account

16. Measurementandreportingresults
Website Traffic Sources Assessment
Timeframe: as of December 2016
Source Volume Percentage of
Overall Traffic
Conversion Rate
Twitter 110,000 Unique
Visits
17% 3%
Facebook 220,000 Unique
Visits
30% 2.5

17. Measurementandreportingresults
Social Network Data
Timeframe: as of December 2016
Social Network URL Follower
Count
Average Weekly Activity Average Engagement Rate
Twitter https://twitter.com/MiamiDol
phins
700K 120 posts/week 7%
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/
MiamiDolphins
2.5M 90 posts/week 10%
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/
miamidolphins/
700K 45 posts/week Ave. 9,000 Likes/post
All of our social media following has improved. Our team has been working hard to produce quality visual content that
engages well with our fans and is creating a strong bond among them. We have been posting more, which has improved
our engagement rate with likes, comments, retweets, etc. on all three popular platforms.

18. Measurementandreportingresults
Sentiment Analysis
An analysis of the interactions on 500 Facebook posts, 500 Instagram posts and 500 Tweets
revealed the following:
❖ An abundance of positive sentiment from customers following the Dolphins games. This
includes tagging us on social media and sharing photos and stories of their game day.
❖ The biggest driver of negative sentiment is buying expensive tickets only for our team to
play badly

19. Measurementandreportingresults
#FinsFriday Hashtag Performance
Between August 1, 2016 and September 28, 2016 the hashtag was mentioned 20,000 times
on Twitter and 3,000 times on Instagram among our fans.
500 Instagram posts published with the hashtag yielded higher than average numbers of
comment interactions, typically involving users tagging their friends in the comments.
The hashtags was typically used similar to #TBT, as fans would share old photos from
previous game days with our hashtag.

20. Measurementandreportingresults
Proposed Action Items
❖ Continue #FinsFridayCampaign
❖ Continue building a better relationship with our fans to make up for the lack of winning
games
❖ Put together a video at the end of the season, thanking our fans. Include photos and
videos that were shared on social media throughout the season