Wednesday, October 28, 2015

KAPLAN. Kaplan University. Social Media monitoring 2

In this blog post, I continue my research of Kaplan International and analysis of a Kaplan University's 2015 campaign, culminating in several recommendations for the brand in order to further leverage its social media presence.
Kaplan University is a department of  Kaplan International ,Inc
Kaplan University is an institution of higher learning dedicated to providing innovative undergraduate, graduate, and continuing professional education. The goal of campaign is to attract people to attend university's programs.

Let's have a look.

Presence in Social media

In the first part I have examined the presence of Kaplan International in social media in detail. Here is the short review of company's social media presence in general and Kaplan University in particular.


Kaplan International








Kaplan University










It is obvious that Kaplan's management pays great attention to brand promotion in social media.

Kaplan University
Social media
Website










In comparison with Kaplan International page on Google+,  Kaplan University is a much more popular resource.

Kaplan University
       Kaplan International




   Instagram











Tapping the Groundswell

Examples
Social Searcher




                                                                                  FB



Feedback
Complaints
Kaplan University always answer on its main social media such as FB


but it doesn't` pay much attention to other ones.
Example
Consumeraffairs








Analitycs
Social Searcher
Statistics  29Sept -27Oct .2015
According to statistics, the time between at 1 p.m - 4 p.m. is the best time to  post on FB. We can see here that the  highest activity occurs between 2p.m - 6p.m.






Most attractive content are pictures

Audience geography
Google Trends
Comparing to previous metrics, Kaplan International focuses more on foreigners,
and we can see that Kaplan University is more oriented on Americans.




The analysys the company, maid on Alexa.com gives us the same picture
.








Target audience



Kaplan University vs. EF Education


In the first part I have already compared Kaplan International with one of the competitor, EF educational, using IceRocket. The result for EF educational was 0.17 posts per day and 5 posts total.
For Kaplan University - 0.37 posts per day and 11 posts total.

Let`s have a look on Google Trend now to compare Academic Study campaign of EF Education and Kaplan University campaign of Kaplan













Recommendations

The stuff of Kaplan is able to explain the services that they offer to everybody in their social media. They feel that there is a personal connection with the customers.
They are prepared to respond to consumers on social media. They understand that consumers use all of the social media platforms to ask questions and complain.
May be I can only recommend them to monitor  the social media space and pay more attention to the reviews on the other resources besides ordinary social pages like Facebook and Instagram In General I think that it's very clear for management of Kaplan how to use social media and tap this kind of engagement.



Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Zappos. Ubiquitous groundswell



The authors of the Groundswell,  Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff , told us that among the benefits  gained from working with the groundswell, there are changes in corporate thinking - you start to pay more attention to the needs and requirements of  your customers (215 Groundswell).

The future of Groundswell.... Ubiquitous Groundswell. 

 
 Social networks will connect people with those they care about. But "tapping the groundswell inside your company" (234 Groundswell)   means not only how organization can master the elements of  the groundswell thinking to transform how their company work with customers. (217 Groundswell).  The authors of the book wrote about the success of various company.
 
 
 
 
 


And I want to dedicate this blog to a well - known company "Zappos" . Firstly, because  this company is famous for its unique culture   
 
 
 
 
 Secondly, it is constantly cooperating with the customers in social networks,
 




it even  went ahead and created its own social network for potencial employees. I really think that it is the part of  future groundswell

 Zappos created a special social network called Zappos Insiders. People  who wants to work in the company are required to join the network.


There they will  communicate with current Zappos professionals in order to demonstrate their loyalty to the company and willingness to work there- in some cases publicly. And, perhaps, recruiters will notice potential employees'  zeal and invite them for an interview.
And even if they're not hired immediately, this social network gives them a way to continue to openly communicate with  chosen Zappos "ambassador."
Besides that, the website still has some common  elements, like a "Life at Zappos" section boasting about the company's mission and campus perks like parades, ice cream trucks, and live animals. 

The company also claims that it's mindful of privacy, giving people the choice to engage publicly or privately as they look to get a foot in the door. Ditching the cover letter and resume for a social network seems a bit surreal; not even Facebook does things this way. And it certainly requires  to jump through extra hoops, but Zappos seems to believe that social networks are the way to hire employees in the future. "We're hoping a lot of other companies jump on board. Zappos brings happiness not only customers, but also its own employees" said Michael Bailen, who heads talent acquisition for the company.
 

 
In addition, with the help of Zappos Insiders experts will identify those who will be hired. Not everyone will be happy, but still, those candidates who really want to work and fully share the company's vision, will remain connected. If companies can carry out such projects with their employees being involved with the groundswell, these employees, in their turn, will be involved in the companies' cultures and probably will communicate with customers through social networks more passionately.



 How do you feel about the fact that more and more companies are shifting their activities to the online sphere?










 

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

KAPLAN International English. Social Media monitoring 1

Brand


 I have decided to write about Kaplan  because I had the greatest experience with Kaplan a couple years ago.
 Kaplan International English is one of the world’s leading providers of lifelong education, that  provides higher education programs, professional training courses, test preparation materials and other services for various levels of education  in English speaking countries across the world. 
 

Kaplan's History

 Let me tell you about Kaplan and how they  have come to be the international provider of international education that they are today.
Kaplan was founded in 1938 by Stanley H. Kaplan.  He started to tutor and prepare students for the SATs.  His business grew rapidly as more and more colleges across the United States started to use standardized testing methods to assess the applicants.
1984  - more than 100 centers nationally with around 600 part-time satellite offices serving 95,000 students a year. Later on in the year
1985 - the Washington Post Company bought Stanley H. Kaplan Educational Centers Ltd.
2006  - a merger between Kaplan, Inc. and Aspect Education, Kaplan  Aspect emerged.
2009  -  one business unit under the Kaplan International Colleges name.
Nowadays - over 1 million students each year, over 600 locations,  more than 30 countries, Kaplan employs more than 31,000 Kaplan employs  worldwide.
The target audience of Kaplan is the people of different ages (Kaplan has the programs for all ages and tastes) that want to improve their future,   they are curious and open to the new 

 
 

Kaplan and social media

 
 
The company`s website is very easy to use and very  informative  at the same time.
We can easily find all the services  the company offers. Company`s social media pages are displayed on the top and bottom of the page and very  visible.
 
 
The WooRank score is a dynamic grade on a 100-point scale that represents your internet Marketing Effectiveness at a given time
 

YouTube
Kaplan International English channel:

4,074 subscribers    
1,589,215 views
Joined Mar 23, 2010
As you can see Kaplan has many  featured channels. The company  has a lot of y very interesting and useful videos, available on it's YouTube channel.  Beside the video about services of the company, the channel  offers video-lessons and tutorial on Youtube . Thus about 2 years ago Kaplan announced content collaboration with YouTube channel Rachel’s English  to create a video which helps non-native speakers improve their American English.
Generally channel have  positive feedback from the viewers. Sometimes  people  leave their complaints and Kaplan answers them
 
 
Likes:149,096
The page is  one of the most popular places among many social media users.
 
 
On the  Facebook the company is  actively using groundswell's principle: energizes and embraces  people inviting  to discussions and asking for their opinion.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Tweets: 6.650
Following: 578
Followers: 1.175
Favorites: 1,080
 Twitter page is not very popular comparing to other social resources. Content is similar to Facebook, Instagram pages. The company use Twitter to post pictures, announce about upcoming events, and talk about current ones. There's no a lot of user's feedback here
Posts: 890
Followers: 19.1k
Following: 7.308k

 

 
Instagram is very popular company's social media page.  And again,  along with Facebook,  groundswell's principle: the company energizes and embraces users

 
Instagram for Kaplan is  the perfect opportunity to get quick messages and photos to their target audiences. They use Instagram as  effective platform to reach a new audience  with visuals and short messages
 
Followers: 1,594
Views: 287,929
 
Not very popular company's social media page. They don't use this resource a lot, the date of last post is December 2014, of picture is August 2014 . It has mainly reposts from YouTube.
 
 
 


The pages are well-organized,  easy and enthralling to read. Kaplan is building credibility and trust with their customers through  Blog  and motivate them to  purchase  the service
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
12, 854 members
I would like to draw your attention to one more thing. Besides profiles on     famous social media websites like Facebook, Kaplan has profiles,  community pages and groups on social medias that are popular in a particularr country. For example they have   "Kaplan International English"community on popular Russian network "Vkontakte". Actually they don`t have an office in Russia , so it is very reasonable to have collaboration through the social network.  The company's  representatives   always  answer  questions. There are a lot of pictures,ineresting  posts, discussions and customers' review  about experience with Kaplan.
 

Observation of analytics

IceRocket specializes in real-time search Blogs, Tweets, news, images etc. all from one page.
 
 
 In comparison,  one of the  competitor "EF educational" - 0.17  posts per day and total posts - 5 
Addictomatic - search of the customer  page with the latest buzz on any topic. I have tried different names: Kaplan International English, Kaplan International College and Kaplan. The results were nearly the same. (There are no datas about  account content from Twitter, Facebook or Instagram)

 
Social Mention 
Results for last week
Four metrics:

















Strength: The likelihood your brand is being discussed in social media.
Sentiment: Ratio of mentions that are generally positive compared to those that are generally negative.
Passion: The likelihood those mentioning your brand will do so repeatedly.
Reach: Measure of the range of influence
I know my brand has been mentioned by others on  Facebook and LinkedIn and other sources. But none of these mentioned showed up in the list.




Google Trends shows us how often a particular search-term is entered based off the total search volume.



Compete
Compete.com is a web traffic analysis service of Compete, Inc. which operates in the United States and publishes the approximate number of U.S. visitors to the top 1,000,000 web sites.

 



Conclusion

Social media has changed the face of customer relationships. Consumers have become so accustomed to online communities that it's often their preferred go-to for communication, even with companies. When the customer of Kaplan have a good experience with a service, they want to share it with everyone. I think that it's very clear for management of Kaplan how to use social media and  tap this  kind of engagement. Sure, no limited for perfection and in the next part of my  monitoring  will try to give some recommendations.