COMM2386 - Interdisciplinary Communication Project

                   Lecturer: Landon Carnie

                     Due date: 2 July 2011




Romit.vn - Online magazine
Campaign proposal
Cao Thi Kim Thanh - s3259090
Huynh Hong Hai - s3255262
Tran Cam Anh - s3255253
Nguyen Doan Doan Uyen- s3246070
Nguyen Thi thao ly - s3210355
Mai Tran Tien Dat- s3245920
Nguyen Thi Uyen Chi - s3259128
Dinh Nguyen Thuy An- s3258109
CONTENTS

Executive summary ....................................................................................................................................................... 5

Situation analysis ........................................................................................................................................................... 6

SWOT analysis ............................................................................................................................................................... 7

Opportunity statement ................................................................................................................................................. 7

Target publics ................................................................................................................................................................ 8

   Primary target publics: RMIT students and lecturers. ............................................................................................... 8

   Secondary publics: RMIT alumni and potential students .......................................................................................... 8

Communication goals .................................................................................................................................................... 8

Objectives ...................................................................................................................................................................... 9

Key message .................................................................................................................................................................. 9

Action plan .................................................................................................................................................................... 9

   Events ........................................................................................................................................................................ 9

   Lecturer of the week ............................................................................................................................................... 10

   About my course ..................................................................................................................................................... 10

   Student Style ........................................................................................................................................................... 11

   Fun facts .................................................................................................................................................................. 11

   Newsflash ................................................................................................................................................................ 11

   Promotion using social media ................................................................................................................................. 11

       Promote the website by social network: Facebook & Twitter. ........................................................................... 11

   Launch event ........................................................................................................................................................... 12

       Freebies ............................................................................................................................................................... 12

       Event .................................................................................................................................................................... 12

Member roles .............................................................................................................................................................. 13

   Content group ......................................................................................................................................................... 13

   Design group............................................................................................................................................................ 13

   Finance group .......................................................................................................................................................... 13

Risk management and Social Media Policy ................................................................................................................. 14

   1.1 Lack of contribution from readers .................................................................................................................... 14

       Description .......................................................................................................................................................... 14

       Solution ............................................................................................................................................................... 14
1.2 Profanity ............................................................................................................................................................ 14

       Description .......................................................................................................................................................... 14

       Solution ............................................................................................................................................................... 15

   1.3 Lack of human resources ................................................................................................................................... 15

       Description .......................................................................................................................................................... 15

       Solution ............................................................................................................................................................... 15

   1.4 Decline to contribute from clubs, lecturers ....................................................................................................... 15

       Description .......................................................................................................................................................... 15

       Solution ............................................................................................................................................................... 16

   1.5 Credibility .......................................................................................................................................................... 16

       Description .......................................................................................................................................................... 16

       Solution ............................................................................................................................................................... 16

Social Media Policy ...................................................................................................................................................... 17

   For Editors (Romit.vn team) .................................................................................................................................... 17

       Be responsive ...................................................................................................................................................... 17

       Be nice ................................................................................................................................................................. 17

       Be grateful ........................................................................................................................................................... 17

       Be helpful............................................................................................................................................................. 17

       Be reliable ............................................................................................................................................................ 18

       Be romit.vn .......................................................................................................................................................... 18

   For Readers/Contributors ........................................................................................................................................ 18

Budget ......................................................................................................................................................................... 19

Milestones ................................................................................................................................................................... 19

Timeline ....................................................................................................................................................................... 20

Evaluation methods ..................................................................................................................................................... 21

   Survey: online and paper ......................................................................................................................................... 21

   Website hits. ............................................................................................................................................................ 21

Collaborative Contract................................................................................................................................................. 22

   Keep in touch ........................................................................................................................................................... 22

   Do your job .............................................................................................................................................................. 22

   Back up your work ................................................................................................................................................... 22
Show respect to your teammates ........................................................................................................................... 23

   Help each other ....................................................................................................................................................... 23

   Ask for help & Speak up! ......................................................................................................................................... 23

   Work hard! Learn hard! ........................................................................................................................................... 23

Reference: ................................................................................................................................................................... 24
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY




The purpose of this campaign is to provide information to students in RMIT University in an
informal way. It is due to the fact that RMIT students are lacking of awareness about university
news and most of them find the intranet is not informative and not interesting. Students
usually have to spend much time and efforts to ask their friends about study experiences to
decide which courses are suitable for them since the course information on the intranet only
provide general description, not the full insights, which makes it hard for the students to pick a
course. It is shown from our research that many students want to get closer to their lecturers,
but they do not know how to.




The romit.vn - Online magazine campaign will be run from 12nd July 2011 to 26th August 2011.
With a huge budget – 6million VND for the online social media marketing campaign, Smelly
Jackfruit team will have a chance to reach the wide target publics in RMIT easily. The main goal
of the online magazine campaign is to build up two- way communication among RMIT students
and lecturers. We need to achieve 60 percent of Professional Communications students, 30
percent of students in other programs and 10 percent of lecturers to make them be aware of
our website in the last 2 weeks. In order to achieve these objectives, other tactics such as
wearing costumes, giving freebies, creating online contest, and so on will focus on promoting
the website. Last but not least, we will use other prominent social networks such as Facebook
and Twitter to launch information widely and connect more people about it.
SITUATION ANALYSIS


When we were brainstorming a topic for our campaign, we reflected on our 5 semesters
studying at RMIT Vietnam (RMIT) to see what we should and could do to benefit RMIT students.
The first thing ocurred to us was that we had to take elective courses in our program and we all
struggled asking our friends’ study experiences to decide which course to take. The second
thing was that we did not know much about our lecturers even though we had been studying at
RMIT for 5 semesters. Those information are not clearly posted on RMIT Intranet
(online.rmit.edu.vn) which makes us feel that it is not very informative. As a result, we decided
to carry out a quick survey research on 100 RMIT students in Saigon South campus to see
whether other students also think the same. The survey covers different
aspects of the Intranet, what RMIT students want to read about RMIT, what kind of social
media networking sites they use and whether they want to get to know more about their
lecturers.


The statistics indicates that 70% of the respondents want to have better relationships with their
lecturers and know more about them besides academic aspect, such as their hobbies, interests,
etc. Only 23% of the respondents read news on the Intranet. Most of them think that RMIT’s
Intranet is not very informative and interesting. 79% is very much interested in reading news
about RMIT from students’ perspectives and they think that it is interesting to have an
online news website created by RMIT students.


From the research results, we think that there should be an online platform where students can
read news about RMIT from other students’ perspectives. Furthermore, this platform will also
provide the students information about their lecturers as well as all the courses
in our university. This website will not be like RMIT’s Intranet. The content will be created
mainly by contribution from RMIT students. They will share their experiences, what they know,
what they hear to other students. From those concerns, we decided to create a website to
share RMIT updates.



However, the website will be useless if nobody knows about it. As a results, a communication
campaign using social networking sites is needed in order to promote and make RMIT students
know about the website.
SWOT ANALYSIS




                  Strengths                                       Weaknesses
                                                     The campaign’s workload requires large
   All team members are active on various
                                                      group of people, while the team has only 8
    social networking sites.
                                                      people → it might be overloaded.
   Team members experience the
                                                     All 8 team members are inexperienced in
    shortcomings of RMIT Intranet like other
                                                      running campaigns.
    students, therefore they know what to
    offer to to RMIT students
   The website is written in informal tone,
    hence students might find it interesting.

               Opportunities                                        Threats
                                                     Negative comments from students
   Many RMIT students use social
                                                     Website server might be down and none
    networking, such as Facebook, Youtube,
                                                      of team members has good knowledge
    Twitter, Zing.Me, etc. This is an advantage
                                                      about IT.
    because this campaign will only use social
                                                     Facebook is the most popular social
    media to promote the website.
                                                      networking site among RMIT students.
   RMIT students find RMIT’s Intranet not
                                                      However, Facebook is being loosely
    informative and interesting.
                                                      blocked which might prevent us from
   A lot of RMIT students are interested in a
                                                      reaching RMIT students.
    website made by students to read news
    about RMIT.




OPPORTUNITY STATEMENT


The opportunity that we have is that a large group of RMIT students are interested in having an
online website where they can share their learning experiences and read news written by RMIT
students, while RMIT intranet is not very informative and interesting.
TARGET PUBLICS


PRIMARY TARGET PUBLICS: RMIT STUDENTS AND LECTURERS.




As mentioned above, the website’s content will be created by RMIT students. This website will
contain information that are useful to RMIT students, such as full insight of courses’
information, lecturers' information, events happening on campus, etc. Therefore, RMIT
students are obviously this campaign’s main target public.

Furthermore, this website will play a role as a bridge between RMIT students and lecturers. We
will have some activities that will need contributions from lecturers. That is why RMIT lecturers
are also in this campaign’s main target public groups because if they are not aware of this
campaign and the purpose of the website, they will not contribute.

SECONDARY PUBLICS: RMIT ALUMNI AND POTENTIAL STUDENTS




RMIT alumni can use this website as a platform to reconnect with their lecturers as well as give
advice and experiences to current RMIT students. Additionally, they can use this website to stay
updated with what is happening to their old university, create a network with current talented
RMIT students which will be useful for their company.

This website will also give high school students - who are considering which university to go to,
a sneak peek of what RMIT students' life is like. Visiting the website, they will see an active
RMIT students community, which will be the plus point in their eyes. They can also join in to ask
current RMIT students’ advice and experiences when studying at RMIT so that they can
mentally prepare.

COMMUNICATION GOALS


      To generate 2-way communication among RMIT students


      To enhance the relationship between RMIT Vietnam lecturers and RMIT Vietnam
       students
      To provide useful information about the courses, events, and lecturers for students
OBJECTIVES


      To achieve 60% awareness of Professional Communication students about the website
       by week 10 (the end of the campaign).
      To achieve 30% awareness of students in other programs about the website by week 11.
      To achieve 10% awareness of lecturers about the website by week 11.
      To obtain 20% RMIT students and lecturers’ positive attitudes towards the website by
       week 11.
      To obtain at least 700 unique visitors to the website by week 11.
      To have at least 300 fans on Facebook page by week 11.


KEY MESSAGE




Romit.vn - RMIT's first online magazine created by students for students; get to know the news,
the courses, the lecturers, the hottest looks and more on our site.




ACTION PLAN


EVENTS




Although RMIT Intranet is attempting to provide information about the activities of the current
clubs in RMIT University, students still want to know more and experience those activities from
perspectives of students or clubs’ members. As a result, the project team decided to create the
“Event” column in Romit.vn in order to satisfy students’ demands. Generally, “Event” Column
will update full information about activities of different clubs as well as recent events of RMIT
for students on our website written in a friendly and informal style. We will also post some
‘Behind The Scene’ pictures and videos of those events and activities to entertain them.
LECTURER OF THE WEEK




In order to develop better relationships between lecturers and students, the project team will
provide more information about lecturers besides their academic aspect, such as their hobbies,
interests. Every week, one lecturer will be chosen by RMIT students to answer questions sent
from students via email addresses or on Facebook/Twitter. The questions can be about any
topics that students want to know. The chosen lecturers can send answers via email, or we will
interview and record a video which will be posted on the website.

Landon Carnie - Professional Communication lecturer will be the first one in this column. After
that, we will create a poll for RMIT students to vote which lecturer they want to interview next.



ABOUT MY COURSE


It can be seen that RMIT Intranet has provided sufficient details about programs as well as
courses for RMIT students. However, RMIT students are still having difficulties in choosing
elective courses from other programs to study due to lack of real experience. That’s why ‘About
My Course’ column is created to help them solve this problem.

Initially, ‘About My Course’ column will only provide information about undergraduate
programs of RMIT University; each program will include ‘course tab’ showing essential courses
that students have to study to graduate and they will be designed like the Wikipedia entry
platform. Basically, these tabs will provide information such as: which lecturers teach that
course, what that course is about, or how to do the assessments well. Besides, it also has a
unique box where RMIT potential students can raise questions or concerns, and former
students will be able to share their opinions and experience. In order to avoid repetitive
questions or hateful answers about lecturers, we will moderate all the information sent by
students. RMIT students can share their concerns or experience via e-mail; we will consider,
modify and upload them.
STUDENT STYLE


One thing that we observe about RMIT students is that they concern a lot about their looks
when they come to school. They are interested in fashion and styles. Therefore, we will take
photos of stylish students, interview them, ask them to give fashion tips and upload on our
website.

In addition, the website will have a ‘Like’ button like Facebook for visitors to vote for their
favourite outfits. Who gets the highest votes per week will have a small gift. On Facebook, we
will also upload photos and tag these students to attract not only those people but also their
friends.

FUN FACTS


This tab will provide some ‘underground’ fun facts that RMIT students might not know yet on
campus. This is expected to help students discover more about their university as well as give
information in a fun way to prospective students.

For example: With the same Pepsi can, Global sells at 10.000VND and Bistro sells at 12.000VND.




NEWSFLASH


This content will be created in flash format and will be placed at the top of website. It is about
hot news written in only one sentence, which will help students to keep updated more easily




PROMOTION USING SOCIAL MEDIA


PROMOTE THE WEBSITE BY SOCIAL NETWORK: FACEBOOK & TWITTER.

In order to attract traffic towards Romit.vn, social networking is the most important tactic in
this campaign. According to the survey, Facebook, Zing.me and Twitter are three social
networking sites which are used mostly by RMIT students (88% of students uses Facebook, 28%
uses Zing.me and 22% uses Twitter); however, because of the lack of human resource in team,
we will only focus on Facebook and Twitter.
We will create a fan page on Facebook and an account on Twitter, and then we will add or
invite friends who are current students of RMIT University Vietnam to ”like" our page. After
that, we will update daily news on these pages with the attached link of our website. By this
way, we will quickly get the attention from the target public to Romit.vn.

LAUNCH EVENT


FREEBIES

Dried jackfruit is used as the main freebie in launching event. According to Bruneel (2009), food
is the most effective thing to get people’s involvement because they love food so much.
Moreover, Bruneel (2009) also indicates that people tend to bring and eat little foods with good
taste whenever they want. That’s why we choose dried jackfruit in order to reach popular habit
of most people. Dried jackfruit will be divided into small bags, which include a colorful piece of
paper with our website name on it.




EVENT

The event will be launched in the first day of week 4. We will create some interesting activities
by wearing social network costumes such as Facebook, Twitter, our websites columns, and a
jackfruit costume which represents for our group’s symbol. Each member will wear these
costumes and then go around the canteen at noon. It is due to the fact that most of students
and lecturers will have lunch at that time, thus we are going to attract their attention easily.
Besides, in order to raise people’s awareness about the campaign and raise page views, we can
create best moments by taking funny pictures, recording videos and posting them on the social
networks and our official website later on.
MEMBER ROLES


Our team is divided into 3 small groups:

CONTENT GROUP


Editor

Secretary

Reporter

·      Lecturer of the week

·      Fashion

Social media controller

    DESIGN GROUP


Web contributor

Web designer

FINANCE GROUP


Accountancy
RISK MANAGEMENT AND SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY




1.1 LACK OF CONTRIBUTION FROM READERS


DESCRIPTION

It is concerned that there are many contents on romit.vn that are wholly or partly user-
generated (About my course, Lecturer of the week…). This means the engagement of the
readers of romit.vn is crucial to the success of the website. If the readers not only view but
comment on the articles, submit questions and course information to romit.vn, the website will
have a rich content and editors can generate helpful conversations. Otherwise, it can face a
great lack of information, which lead to either one-way communication situation or shortage of
human resources (see 1.3) when only editors provide the information.


SOLUTION

To encourage RMIT students to contribute to our website, we will give incentives such as
featuring their photos on Romit.vn’s lookbook, giving gifts for the best contributors on the
website... The website will also be designed to be as much user-friendly as possible with
comment box and “Submit” buttons so the readers can easily submit their opinions. Showing
certain phrases such as “Find this helpful? We think your ideas are helpful too. Help us now!” or
“You don’t think so? Then tell us what you think” on the website may also increase submissions
from the readers.




1.2 PROFANITY


DESCRIPTION

Profane language is the use of hateful, offensive, insulting words and foul or adult language.
Although the website content does not touch on any sensitive topic, it is still necessary to
consider the risk of profane language when we are open for submissions from the readers.
SOLUTION

Editors are in charge of moderating the content to put on romit.vn, thus this kind of language
will be removed beforehand by our team. The sender will get a notification via email by the
team to notice that the message has violated our policy. However, it is necessary to ensure that
neither the identity of the sender nor the message will not be disclosed publicly since this may
cause defamation. If the situation gets severe over time, we might consult our lecturer for
further actions.




1.3 LACK OF HUMAN RESOURCES


DESCRIPTION

As romit.vn aims to give detailed insights about different aspects of the campus, the workload
might get too heavy at some points. Although the team has allocated tasks for different editors,
it is still necessary to think of some alternatives to ensure romit.vn is operated efficiently.




SOLUTION

The team may recruit some volunteers as junior members to help us with collecting the
information or writing stories. As romit.vn aims to be a long-term project for RMIT students, it
is necessary to have these voluntary students so we can suggest them to take over the project
after we finish this course. Another solution is to adjust the website content accordingly to
what we can do at best, i.e. minimize the scale of the website into fewer sections to provide
richer content. This solution might be discussed during the campaign within our team.




1.4 DECLINE TO CONTRIBUTE FROM CLUBS, LECTURERS


DESCRIPTION

It is very likely that at the beginning of this campaign, the team might find denial to participate
from certain lecturers and students when we approach for interviews and information. This is
due to the fact that romit.vn has just opened and it does not belong officially to the university.
SOLUTION

Reporters of romit.vn need to expand their network inside the campus at any time as possible
in order to contact with the right and available people when we need the information. The
team also needs to prepare alternatives under any situation in order to have the content ready
by the deadline.




1.5 CREDIBILITY


DESCRIPTION

Due to the nature of the user-generated content on romit.vn, credibility may become a matter
to question about the website, especially under “About my course” section. False information
may lead to defamation of the website, the team and even the university.




SOLUTION

It is crucial for us to state clearly on the website under certain sections that the information
might not be accurate due to users’ contribution of which we are not able to verify. However,
other users may correct the information by submitting corrections to us. We will also give
credits whenever we can to increase the credibility of the content. It will be also stated that
romit.vn does not represent RMIT Vietnam university in order to ensure the readers not to
relate false information about RMIT Vietnam and lead us into troublesome situation.
SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY




FOR EDITORS (ROMIT.VN TEAM)




BE RESPONSIVE

Respond quickly - within 24 hours - if we are mentioned on social networks (i.e. Facebook,
Twitter) or messaged via email. If the issue cannot be solved within 24 hours, it is still necessary
to inform the sender(s) that we have received their message(s) and are being in the process of
finding the answers. In case users’ submission are not approved or user’s posts (i.e. on social
networks) are deleted due to irrelevancy or violation of content policies, we need to inform
them via email that the content will not be published and also state clearly our reasons.




BE NICE

Any form of profane language would be prohibited on romit.vn as well as its social networks;
editors are also asked to follow this policy. Comments given by romit.vn team should use
friendly language except for announcement to create a daily conversation with its readers.




BE GRATEFUL

Send “Thank you” email for the contributors who send their opinions and experience to our
website. This act will show our respect to the contributors and encourage them to keep sending
us the information.




BE HELPFUL

If you can answer the questions from the readers about the campus, or if you can help find that
information for them, do not hesitate. It is our job to be informative and also helpful for RMIT
students.
BE RELIABLE

Do not disclose any identity if the senders wish to keep it anonymous. If some sensitive
contents sent from the contributors are moderated and unapproved to be posted by the team,
do not talk in public about them.




BE ROMIT.VN

As a member of romit.vn, you are speaking on behalf of the team when posting on the website
and its social networks. However, under any circumstances, romit.vn does not represent or
speak for RMIT Vietnam University.




FOR READERS/CONTRIBUTORS


 No profanity
 All forms of swearing are forbidden.
 No disruptive, discriminatory or offensive comments:
      Derogatory contents, bashing and trolling.
      Sexually or violently explicit materials.
      Content endorsing illegal activities.




 No political & religious related comments
 No disinformation
 No Spamming
 Comments violating those rules will be deleted (on Facebook fan page and Twitter) or will
   not be published (on website).
BUDGET




   MILESTONES




                             Task                 Start      End       Who’s in charge

Web Design      Build, design & maintain the   2/7/2011   28/8/2011   Dat
                website

                Editor-in-chief                9/7/2011   28/8/2011   Thanh

                Events/News Flash              4/7/2011   28/8/2011   Uyen, Hai, Ly, Dat

                About my Course                4/7/2011   28/8/2011   Uyen Chi, An
Web Content         Lecturer of the Week              4/7/2011      28/8/2011   Ly, Cam Anh

                    Style (Look Book)                 4/7/2011      28/8/2011   Chi, Hai

                    Funfacts                          4/7/2011      28/8/2011   Uyen (main) & all

Social networks     Facebook                          7/7/2011      28/8/2011   Cam Anh, An

                    Twitter                           7/7/2011      28/8/2011   Cam Anh

Finance             Manage the budget                 28/6/2011     28/8/2011   Ly

                    Materials for costumes            3/7/2011      4/7/2011    Ly, Cam Anh

Launch Event        Sewing the costumes               5/7/2011      11/7/2011   All

                    Preparing the freebies            11/7/2011     11/7/2011   Ly, Cam Anh

                    Launch day                        12/7/2011     12/7/2011   All




   TIMELINE


   Campaign: begins on 12th July 2011(launch day), Tuesday of week 4 and ends on Friday of week
   10.

   Specific activities will be carry out according to its nature:

   -      News Updating on website, Facebook, Twitter: daily

   -      Lecturer of the Week: Weekly

   -      About My Course: Daily

   -      Look Book: Weekly

   -      Funfacts: daily

   Evaluation: week 11

   Report submission: beginning of week 12.
EVALUATION METHODS


The campain will be evaluated according to the objectives in three levels: awareness, attitude
and behaviour. We will evaluate the campaign basing on below categories:

SURVEY: ONLINE AND PAPER




Surveys will be conducted in the middle of the campaign (week 7) and at the end of the
campaign (beginning of week 11). The survey on week 7 is to check whether the campaign is
running according to plan or there is a need for changes to help acquire desired outcomes. The
survey on week 11 will help us determine the success of the whole campaign and reflect on
what we have done.

WEBSITE HITS.


      The number of unique members on website - those who are truly interested in the
       website so they regularly participate in the website’s activities.
      The number of fans on Facebook fan page, the number of followers on Twitter account.
      The nummber of comments sent to us via email, replies on Facebook and Twitter.
      The nummber of participants in each activities.
      The number of links to our website, Facebook fan page and Twitter account shared on
       Facebook, Y!M and Twitter.

Website hits and the number of fans on Facebook fan page and Twitter followers are less
important because they don’t imply real engagement of the target public to the campaign.
Meanwhile, the amount of comments, participants and shared links reflects the activeness and
involvement of the public.
COLLABORATIVE CONTRACT




KEEP IN TOUCH


We agree to use Gmail and cell phones to contact with each other so please check your inbox
and cell phone regularly to get updates from the team. Please pick up the phone (unless you're
having class or at work) when we call and reply SMS texts within 1-2 hours. Please call us back if
you have missed calls from us. It is very likely that it is an urgent situation when we have to call
you, i.e. we really need your help!

If you are busy at certain times with reasonable reasons, please inform in advance with our
leader.




DO YOUR JOB


Please finish your tasks on time following the deadlines and priorities that have been agreed by
the whole team. Please also update your progress within your sub-team as well as leader so
they can keep track of your work.

If you are busy at certain times and cannot finish your tasks due to reasonable reasons, please
inform in advance with our leader.




BACK UP YOUR WORK


Although we decided to use Google Docs in order to save our work automatically, it is still
necessary for everyone of us to have at least one copy of it so we can access if technical
problems happen.
SHOW RESPECT TO YOUR TEAMMATES


Please be on time at both face-to-face and Skype meetings. If you are busy at certain times with
reasonable reasons, please inform in advance with our leader.

During meetings, please be patient to listen to each other. The leader will make sure that
everyone has their chance to raise their opinions and questions. The ideas, however, will be
decided by the whole group with voting method if necessary.

We will try to reduce gossip and time-consuming chats as well as harsh comments about each
other. Meetings and comments should be constructive, not negative.




HELP EACH OTHER


We will depend on the abiility of each memebr to assign the tasks fairly. However, it is
necessary for us as teammates to support each other if we have any problem.




ASK FOR HELP & SPEAK UP!


Don't hesitate to ask if you have any problem. And don't even be afraid to tell us your opinions.
We believe each member is equally important and we would love to hear what you might come
up with.




WORK HARD! LEARN HARD!


Although we understand the intense of which this campaign can bring up, please try your best
and take this chance to learn new things about online marketing, social media, teamwork and
leadership. Less whining and more complimenting your teammates will help!
REFERENCE:

Bruneel, J 2009, ‘People like food’, The Onion, Finest new sources, 7 January, viewed 30 June
2011, < http://www.theonion.com/articles/people-like-food,11439/>.

Tran Cam Anh - Romitvn - Proposal

  • 1.
    COMM2386 - InterdisciplinaryCommunication Project Lecturer: Landon Carnie Due date: 2 July 2011 Romit.vn - Online magazine Campaign proposal Cao Thi Kim Thanh - s3259090 Huynh Hong Hai - s3255262 Tran Cam Anh - s3255253 Nguyen Doan Doan Uyen- s3246070 Nguyen Thi thao ly - s3210355 Mai Tran Tien Dat- s3245920 Nguyen Thi Uyen Chi - s3259128 Dinh Nguyen Thuy An- s3258109
  • 2.
    CONTENTS Executive summary .......................................................................................................................................................5 Situation analysis ........................................................................................................................................................... 6 SWOT analysis ............................................................................................................................................................... 7 Opportunity statement ................................................................................................................................................. 7 Target publics ................................................................................................................................................................ 8 Primary target publics: RMIT students and lecturers. ............................................................................................... 8 Secondary publics: RMIT alumni and potential students .......................................................................................... 8 Communication goals .................................................................................................................................................... 8 Objectives ...................................................................................................................................................................... 9 Key message .................................................................................................................................................................. 9 Action plan .................................................................................................................................................................... 9 Events ........................................................................................................................................................................ 9 Lecturer of the week ............................................................................................................................................... 10 About my course ..................................................................................................................................................... 10 Student Style ........................................................................................................................................................... 11 Fun facts .................................................................................................................................................................. 11 Newsflash ................................................................................................................................................................ 11 Promotion using social media ................................................................................................................................. 11 Promote the website by social network: Facebook & Twitter. ........................................................................... 11 Launch event ........................................................................................................................................................... 12 Freebies ............................................................................................................................................................... 12 Event .................................................................................................................................................................... 12 Member roles .............................................................................................................................................................. 13 Content group ......................................................................................................................................................... 13 Design group............................................................................................................................................................ 13 Finance group .......................................................................................................................................................... 13 Risk management and Social Media Policy ................................................................................................................. 14 1.1 Lack of contribution from readers .................................................................................................................... 14 Description .......................................................................................................................................................... 14 Solution ............................................................................................................................................................... 14
  • 3.
    1.2 Profanity ............................................................................................................................................................14 Description .......................................................................................................................................................... 14 Solution ............................................................................................................................................................... 15 1.3 Lack of human resources ................................................................................................................................... 15 Description .......................................................................................................................................................... 15 Solution ............................................................................................................................................................... 15 1.4 Decline to contribute from clubs, lecturers ....................................................................................................... 15 Description .......................................................................................................................................................... 15 Solution ............................................................................................................................................................... 16 1.5 Credibility .......................................................................................................................................................... 16 Description .......................................................................................................................................................... 16 Solution ............................................................................................................................................................... 16 Social Media Policy ...................................................................................................................................................... 17 For Editors (Romit.vn team) .................................................................................................................................... 17 Be responsive ...................................................................................................................................................... 17 Be nice ................................................................................................................................................................. 17 Be grateful ........................................................................................................................................................... 17 Be helpful............................................................................................................................................................. 17 Be reliable ............................................................................................................................................................ 18 Be romit.vn .......................................................................................................................................................... 18 For Readers/Contributors ........................................................................................................................................ 18 Budget ......................................................................................................................................................................... 19 Milestones ................................................................................................................................................................... 19 Timeline ....................................................................................................................................................................... 20 Evaluation methods ..................................................................................................................................................... 21 Survey: online and paper ......................................................................................................................................... 21 Website hits. ............................................................................................................................................................ 21 Collaborative Contract................................................................................................................................................. 22 Keep in touch ........................................................................................................................................................... 22 Do your job .............................................................................................................................................................. 22 Back up your work ................................................................................................................................................... 22
  • 4.
    Show respect toyour teammates ........................................................................................................................... 23 Help each other ....................................................................................................................................................... 23 Ask for help & Speak up! ......................................................................................................................................... 23 Work hard! Learn hard! ........................................................................................................................................... 23 Reference: ................................................................................................................................................................... 24
  • 5.
    EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The purposeof this campaign is to provide information to students in RMIT University in an informal way. It is due to the fact that RMIT students are lacking of awareness about university news and most of them find the intranet is not informative and not interesting. Students usually have to spend much time and efforts to ask their friends about study experiences to decide which courses are suitable for them since the course information on the intranet only provide general description, not the full insights, which makes it hard for the students to pick a course. It is shown from our research that many students want to get closer to their lecturers, but they do not know how to. The romit.vn - Online magazine campaign will be run from 12nd July 2011 to 26th August 2011. With a huge budget – 6million VND for the online social media marketing campaign, Smelly Jackfruit team will have a chance to reach the wide target publics in RMIT easily. The main goal of the online magazine campaign is to build up two- way communication among RMIT students and lecturers. We need to achieve 60 percent of Professional Communications students, 30 percent of students in other programs and 10 percent of lecturers to make them be aware of our website in the last 2 weeks. In order to achieve these objectives, other tactics such as wearing costumes, giving freebies, creating online contest, and so on will focus on promoting the website. Last but not least, we will use other prominent social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to launch information widely and connect more people about it.
  • 6.
    SITUATION ANALYSIS When wewere brainstorming a topic for our campaign, we reflected on our 5 semesters studying at RMIT Vietnam (RMIT) to see what we should and could do to benefit RMIT students. The first thing ocurred to us was that we had to take elective courses in our program and we all struggled asking our friends’ study experiences to decide which course to take. The second thing was that we did not know much about our lecturers even though we had been studying at RMIT for 5 semesters. Those information are not clearly posted on RMIT Intranet (online.rmit.edu.vn) which makes us feel that it is not very informative. As a result, we decided to carry out a quick survey research on 100 RMIT students in Saigon South campus to see whether other students also think the same. The survey covers different aspects of the Intranet, what RMIT students want to read about RMIT, what kind of social media networking sites they use and whether they want to get to know more about their lecturers. The statistics indicates that 70% of the respondents want to have better relationships with their lecturers and know more about them besides academic aspect, such as their hobbies, interests, etc. Only 23% of the respondents read news on the Intranet. Most of them think that RMIT’s Intranet is not very informative and interesting. 79% is very much interested in reading news about RMIT from students’ perspectives and they think that it is interesting to have an online news website created by RMIT students. From the research results, we think that there should be an online platform where students can read news about RMIT from other students’ perspectives. Furthermore, this platform will also provide the students information about their lecturers as well as all the courses in our university. This website will not be like RMIT’s Intranet. The content will be created mainly by contribution from RMIT students. They will share their experiences, what they know, what they hear to other students. From those concerns, we decided to create a website to share RMIT updates. However, the website will be useless if nobody knows about it. As a results, a communication campaign using social networking sites is needed in order to promote and make RMIT students know about the website.
  • 7.
    SWOT ANALYSIS Strengths Weaknesses  The campaign’s workload requires large  All team members are active on various group of people, while the team has only 8 social networking sites. people → it might be overloaded.  Team members experience the  All 8 team members are inexperienced in shortcomings of RMIT Intranet like other running campaigns. students, therefore they know what to offer to to RMIT students  The website is written in informal tone, hence students might find it interesting. Opportunities Threats  Negative comments from students  Many RMIT students use social  Website server might be down and none networking, such as Facebook, Youtube, of team members has good knowledge Twitter, Zing.Me, etc. This is an advantage about IT. because this campaign will only use social  Facebook is the most popular social media to promote the website. networking site among RMIT students.  RMIT students find RMIT’s Intranet not However, Facebook is being loosely informative and interesting. blocked which might prevent us from  A lot of RMIT students are interested in a reaching RMIT students. website made by students to read news about RMIT. OPPORTUNITY STATEMENT The opportunity that we have is that a large group of RMIT students are interested in having an online website where they can share their learning experiences and read news written by RMIT students, while RMIT intranet is not very informative and interesting.
  • 8.
    TARGET PUBLICS PRIMARY TARGETPUBLICS: RMIT STUDENTS AND LECTURERS. As mentioned above, the website’s content will be created by RMIT students. This website will contain information that are useful to RMIT students, such as full insight of courses’ information, lecturers' information, events happening on campus, etc. Therefore, RMIT students are obviously this campaign’s main target public. Furthermore, this website will play a role as a bridge between RMIT students and lecturers. We will have some activities that will need contributions from lecturers. That is why RMIT lecturers are also in this campaign’s main target public groups because if they are not aware of this campaign and the purpose of the website, they will not contribute. SECONDARY PUBLICS: RMIT ALUMNI AND POTENTIAL STUDENTS RMIT alumni can use this website as a platform to reconnect with their lecturers as well as give advice and experiences to current RMIT students. Additionally, they can use this website to stay updated with what is happening to their old university, create a network with current talented RMIT students which will be useful for their company. This website will also give high school students - who are considering which university to go to, a sneak peek of what RMIT students' life is like. Visiting the website, they will see an active RMIT students community, which will be the plus point in their eyes. They can also join in to ask current RMIT students’ advice and experiences when studying at RMIT so that they can mentally prepare. COMMUNICATION GOALS  To generate 2-way communication among RMIT students  To enhance the relationship between RMIT Vietnam lecturers and RMIT Vietnam students  To provide useful information about the courses, events, and lecturers for students
  • 9.
    OBJECTIVES  To achieve 60% awareness of Professional Communication students about the website by week 10 (the end of the campaign).  To achieve 30% awareness of students in other programs about the website by week 11.  To achieve 10% awareness of lecturers about the website by week 11.  To obtain 20% RMIT students and lecturers’ positive attitudes towards the website by week 11.  To obtain at least 700 unique visitors to the website by week 11.  To have at least 300 fans on Facebook page by week 11. KEY MESSAGE Romit.vn - RMIT's first online magazine created by students for students; get to know the news, the courses, the lecturers, the hottest looks and more on our site. ACTION PLAN EVENTS Although RMIT Intranet is attempting to provide information about the activities of the current clubs in RMIT University, students still want to know more and experience those activities from perspectives of students or clubs’ members. As a result, the project team decided to create the “Event” column in Romit.vn in order to satisfy students’ demands. Generally, “Event” Column will update full information about activities of different clubs as well as recent events of RMIT for students on our website written in a friendly and informal style. We will also post some ‘Behind The Scene’ pictures and videos of those events and activities to entertain them.
  • 10.
    LECTURER OF THEWEEK In order to develop better relationships between lecturers and students, the project team will provide more information about lecturers besides their academic aspect, such as their hobbies, interests. Every week, one lecturer will be chosen by RMIT students to answer questions sent from students via email addresses or on Facebook/Twitter. The questions can be about any topics that students want to know. The chosen lecturers can send answers via email, or we will interview and record a video which will be posted on the website. Landon Carnie - Professional Communication lecturer will be the first one in this column. After that, we will create a poll for RMIT students to vote which lecturer they want to interview next. ABOUT MY COURSE It can be seen that RMIT Intranet has provided sufficient details about programs as well as courses for RMIT students. However, RMIT students are still having difficulties in choosing elective courses from other programs to study due to lack of real experience. That’s why ‘About My Course’ column is created to help them solve this problem. Initially, ‘About My Course’ column will only provide information about undergraduate programs of RMIT University; each program will include ‘course tab’ showing essential courses that students have to study to graduate and they will be designed like the Wikipedia entry platform. Basically, these tabs will provide information such as: which lecturers teach that course, what that course is about, or how to do the assessments well. Besides, it also has a unique box where RMIT potential students can raise questions or concerns, and former students will be able to share their opinions and experience. In order to avoid repetitive questions or hateful answers about lecturers, we will moderate all the information sent by students. RMIT students can share their concerns or experience via e-mail; we will consider, modify and upload them.
  • 11.
    STUDENT STYLE One thingthat we observe about RMIT students is that they concern a lot about their looks when they come to school. They are interested in fashion and styles. Therefore, we will take photos of stylish students, interview them, ask them to give fashion tips and upload on our website. In addition, the website will have a ‘Like’ button like Facebook for visitors to vote for their favourite outfits. Who gets the highest votes per week will have a small gift. On Facebook, we will also upload photos and tag these students to attract not only those people but also their friends. FUN FACTS This tab will provide some ‘underground’ fun facts that RMIT students might not know yet on campus. This is expected to help students discover more about their university as well as give information in a fun way to prospective students. For example: With the same Pepsi can, Global sells at 10.000VND and Bistro sells at 12.000VND. NEWSFLASH This content will be created in flash format and will be placed at the top of website. It is about hot news written in only one sentence, which will help students to keep updated more easily PROMOTION USING SOCIAL MEDIA PROMOTE THE WEBSITE BY SOCIAL NETWORK: FACEBOOK & TWITTER. In order to attract traffic towards Romit.vn, social networking is the most important tactic in this campaign. According to the survey, Facebook, Zing.me and Twitter are three social networking sites which are used mostly by RMIT students (88% of students uses Facebook, 28% uses Zing.me and 22% uses Twitter); however, because of the lack of human resource in team, we will only focus on Facebook and Twitter.
  • 12.
    We will createa fan page on Facebook and an account on Twitter, and then we will add or invite friends who are current students of RMIT University Vietnam to ”like" our page. After that, we will update daily news on these pages with the attached link of our website. By this way, we will quickly get the attention from the target public to Romit.vn. LAUNCH EVENT FREEBIES Dried jackfruit is used as the main freebie in launching event. According to Bruneel (2009), food is the most effective thing to get people’s involvement because they love food so much. Moreover, Bruneel (2009) also indicates that people tend to bring and eat little foods with good taste whenever they want. That’s why we choose dried jackfruit in order to reach popular habit of most people. Dried jackfruit will be divided into small bags, which include a colorful piece of paper with our website name on it. EVENT The event will be launched in the first day of week 4. We will create some interesting activities by wearing social network costumes such as Facebook, Twitter, our websites columns, and a jackfruit costume which represents for our group’s symbol. Each member will wear these costumes and then go around the canteen at noon. It is due to the fact that most of students and lecturers will have lunch at that time, thus we are going to attract their attention easily. Besides, in order to raise people’s awareness about the campaign and raise page views, we can create best moments by taking funny pictures, recording videos and posting them on the social networks and our official website later on.
  • 13.
    MEMBER ROLES Our teamis divided into 3 small groups: CONTENT GROUP Editor Secretary Reporter · Lecturer of the week · Fashion Social media controller DESIGN GROUP Web contributor Web designer FINANCE GROUP Accountancy
  • 14.
    RISK MANAGEMENT ANDSOCIAL MEDIA POLICY 1.1 LACK OF CONTRIBUTION FROM READERS DESCRIPTION It is concerned that there are many contents on romit.vn that are wholly or partly user- generated (About my course, Lecturer of the week…). This means the engagement of the readers of romit.vn is crucial to the success of the website. If the readers not only view but comment on the articles, submit questions and course information to romit.vn, the website will have a rich content and editors can generate helpful conversations. Otherwise, it can face a great lack of information, which lead to either one-way communication situation or shortage of human resources (see 1.3) when only editors provide the information. SOLUTION To encourage RMIT students to contribute to our website, we will give incentives such as featuring their photos on Romit.vn’s lookbook, giving gifts for the best contributors on the website... The website will also be designed to be as much user-friendly as possible with comment box and “Submit” buttons so the readers can easily submit their opinions. Showing certain phrases such as “Find this helpful? We think your ideas are helpful too. Help us now!” or “You don’t think so? Then tell us what you think” on the website may also increase submissions from the readers. 1.2 PROFANITY DESCRIPTION Profane language is the use of hateful, offensive, insulting words and foul or adult language. Although the website content does not touch on any sensitive topic, it is still necessary to consider the risk of profane language when we are open for submissions from the readers.
  • 15.
    SOLUTION Editors are incharge of moderating the content to put on romit.vn, thus this kind of language will be removed beforehand by our team. The sender will get a notification via email by the team to notice that the message has violated our policy. However, it is necessary to ensure that neither the identity of the sender nor the message will not be disclosed publicly since this may cause defamation. If the situation gets severe over time, we might consult our lecturer for further actions. 1.3 LACK OF HUMAN RESOURCES DESCRIPTION As romit.vn aims to give detailed insights about different aspects of the campus, the workload might get too heavy at some points. Although the team has allocated tasks for different editors, it is still necessary to think of some alternatives to ensure romit.vn is operated efficiently. SOLUTION The team may recruit some volunteers as junior members to help us with collecting the information or writing stories. As romit.vn aims to be a long-term project for RMIT students, it is necessary to have these voluntary students so we can suggest them to take over the project after we finish this course. Another solution is to adjust the website content accordingly to what we can do at best, i.e. minimize the scale of the website into fewer sections to provide richer content. This solution might be discussed during the campaign within our team. 1.4 DECLINE TO CONTRIBUTE FROM CLUBS, LECTURERS DESCRIPTION It is very likely that at the beginning of this campaign, the team might find denial to participate from certain lecturers and students when we approach for interviews and information. This is due to the fact that romit.vn has just opened and it does not belong officially to the university.
  • 16.
    SOLUTION Reporters of romit.vnneed to expand their network inside the campus at any time as possible in order to contact with the right and available people when we need the information. The team also needs to prepare alternatives under any situation in order to have the content ready by the deadline. 1.5 CREDIBILITY DESCRIPTION Due to the nature of the user-generated content on romit.vn, credibility may become a matter to question about the website, especially under “About my course” section. False information may lead to defamation of the website, the team and even the university. SOLUTION It is crucial for us to state clearly on the website under certain sections that the information might not be accurate due to users’ contribution of which we are not able to verify. However, other users may correct the information by submitting corrections to us. We will also give credits whenever we can to increase the credibility of the content. It will be also stated that romit.vn does not represent RMIT Vietnam university in order to ensure the readers not to relate false information about RMIT Vietnam and lead us into troublesome situation.
  • 17.
    SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY FOREDITORS (ROMIT.VN TEAM) BE RESPONSIVE Respond quickly - within 24 hours - if we are mentioned on social networks (i.e. Facebook, Twitter) or messaged via email. If the issue cannot be solved within 24 hours, it is still necessary to inform the sender(s) that we have received their message(s) and are being in the process of finding the answers. In case users’ submission are not approved or user’s posts (i.e. on social networks) are deleted due to irrelevancy or violation of content policies, we need to inform them via email that the content will not be published and also state clearly our reasons. BE NICE Any form of profane language would be prohibited on romit.vn as well as its social networks; editors are also asked to follow this policy. Comments given by romit.vn team should use friendly language except for announcement to create a daily conversation with its readers. BE GRATEFUL Send “Thank you” email for the contributors who send their opinions and experience to our website. This act will show our respect to the contributors and encourage them to keep sending us the information. BE HELPFUL If you can answer the questions from the readers about the campus, or if you can help find that information for them, do not hesitate. It is our job to be informative and also helpful for RMIT students.
  • 18.
    BE RELIABLE Do notdisclose any identity if the senders wish to keep it anonymous. If some sensitive contents sent from the contributors are moderated and unapproved to be posted by the team, do not talk in public about them. BE ROMIT.VN As a member of romit.vn, you are speaking on behalf of the team when posting on the website and its social networks. However, under any circumstances, romit.vn does not represent or speak for RMIT Vietnam University. FOR READERS/CONTRIBUTORS  No profanity  All forms of swearing are forbidden.  No disruptive, discriminatory or offensive comments:  Derogatory contents, bashing and trolling.  Sexually or violently explicit materials.  Content endorsing illegal activities.  No political & religious related comments  No disinformation  No Spamming  Comments violating those rules will be deleted (on Facebook fan page and Twitter) or will not be published (on website).
  • 19.
    BUDGET MILESTONES Task Start End Who’s in charge Web Design Build, design & maintain the 2/7/2011 28/8/2011 Dat website Editor-in-chief 9/7/2011 28/8/2011 Thanh Events/News Flash 4/7/2011 28/8/2011 Uyen, Hai, Ly, Dat About my Course 4/7/2011 28/8/2011 Uyen Chi, An
  • 20.
    Web Content Lecturer of the Week 4/7/2011 28/8/2011 Ly, Cam Anh Style (Look Book) 4/7/2011 28/8/2011 Chi, Hai Funfacts 4/7/2011 28/8/2011 Uyen (main) & all Social networks Facebook 7/7/2011 28/8/2011 Cam Anh, An Twitter 7/7/2011 28/8/2011 Cam Anh Finance Manage the budget 28/6/2011 28/8/2011 Ly Materials for costumes 3/7/2011 4/7/2011 Ly, Cam Anh Launch Event Sewing the costumes 5/7/2011 11/7/2011 All Preparing the freebies 11/7/2011 11/7/2011 Ly, Cam Anh Launch day 12/7/2011 12/7/2011 All TIMELINE Campaign: begins on 12th July 2011(launch day), Tuesday of week 4 and ends on Friday of week 10. Specific activities will be carry out according to its nature: - News Updating on website, Facebook, Twitter: daily - Lecturer of the Week: Weekly - About My Course: Daily - Look Book: Weekly - Funfacts: daily Evaluation: week 11 Report submission: beginning of week 12.
  • 21.
    EVALUATION METHODS The campainwill be evaluated according to the objectives in three levels: awareness, attitude and behaviour. We will evaluate the campaign basing on below categories: SURVEY: ONLINE AND PAPER Surveys will be conducted in the middle of the campaign (week 7) and at the end of the campaign (beginning of week 11). The survey on week 7 is to check whether the campaign is running according to plan or there is a need for changes to help acquire desired outcomes. The survey on week 11 will help us determine the success of the whole campaign and reflect on what we have done. WEBSITE HITS.  The number of unique members on website - those who are truly interested in the website so they regularly participate in the website’s activities.  The number of fans on Facebook fan page, the number of followers on Twitter account.  The nummber of comments sent to us via email, replies on Facebook and Twitter.  The nummber of participants in each activities.  The number of links to our website, Facebook fan page and Twitter account shared on Facebook, Y!M and Twitter. Website hits and the number of fans on Facebook fan page and Twitter followers are less important because they don’t imply real engagement of the target public to the campaign. Meanwhile, the amount of comments, participants and shared links reflects the activeness and involvement of the public.
  • 22.
    COLLABORATIVE CONTRACT KEEP INTOUCH We agree to use Gmail and cell phones to contact with each other so please check your inbox and cell phone regularly to get updates from the team. Please pick up the phone (unless you're having class or at work) when we call and reply SMS texts within 1-2 hours. Please call us back if you have missed calls from us. It is very likely that it is an urgent situation when we have to call you, i.e. we really need your help! If you are busy at certain times with reasonable reasons, please inform in advance with our leader. DO YOUR JOB Please finish your tasks on time following the deadlines and priorities that have been agreed by the whole team. Please also update your progress within your sub-team as well as leader so they can keep track of your work. If you are busy at certain times and cannot finish your tasks due to reasonable reasons, please inform in advance with our leader. BACK UP YOUR WORK Although we decided to use Google Docs in order to save our work automatically, it is still necessary for everyone of us to have at least one copy of it so we can access if technical problems happen.
  • 23.
    SHOW RESPECT TOYOUR TEAMMATES Please be on time at both face-to-face and Skype meetings. If you are busy at certain times with reasonable reasons, please inform in advance with our leader. During meetings, please be patient to listen to each other. The leader will make sure that everyone has their chance to raise their opinions and questions. The ideas, however, will be decided by the whole group with voting method if necessary. We will try to reduce gossip and time-consuming chats as well as harsh comments about each other. Meetings and comments should be constructive, not negative. HELP EACH OTHER We will depend on the abiility of each memebr to assign the tasks fairly. However, it is necessary for us as teammates to support each other if we have any problem. ASK FOR HELP & SPEAK UP! Don't hesitate to ask if you have any problem. And don't even be afraid to tell us your opinions. We believe each member is equally important and we would love to hear what you might come up with. WORK HARD! LEARN HARD! Although we understand the intense of which this campaign can bring up, please try your best and take this chance to learn new things about online marketing, social media, teamwork and leadership. Less whining and more complimenting your teammates will help!
  • 24.
    REFERENCE: Bruneel, J 2009,‘People like food’, The Onion, Finest new sources, 7 January, viewed 30 June 2011, < http://www.theonion.com/articles/people-like-food,11439/>.