Samenvatting

Commissioned by the fs Agency for one of her brands, Rosti Mepal, a quantitative research has been conducted into the behavior and demands on social media of the target group. This research was necessary because little is known about how the target group is best approached through social media. Based on the findings of this research, a social media marketing campaign has been designed for Rosti Mepal so that more traffic can be generated towards their webshop. The research is based on the following research question: “Which factors of social media influence the target group of Rosti Mepal and can be utilized in order to generate more traffic towards their webshop?”.

In order to answer the research question and to realize the goal of the research, the researcher engaged in both desk and field research. The desk research gave information about what the effect of social media is, what the current social media activities of Rosti Mepal entail and what influencers do. By using field research, consisting of a questionnaire, the researcher examined the behavior and demands concerning social media of the target group.

The desk research shows that social media is crucial for Rosti Mepal. It is important to remain actively engaged with social media so that the organization exploits the demands of the target group. Rosti Mepal currently uses social media but not to a great enough extent. Making use of social media poses many opportunities for companies. The desk research also showed that influencing is a popular means of marketing nowadays. In this marketing strategy, influential people are used to bring products of the brand to the attention of the target group through social media.

From field researched followed that each age category shows different social media behavior. Moreover, they differ in the demands and desires they have. People between the age of 20 and 29 generally use sports products whereas parents with young children are mainly found in the 30 to 39 age bracket. Besides, people who are older than 40 years have different interests than sports of children's products. Interestingly, each age group appears to be interested in cooking.

The research shows that the youngest segment uses Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Parents are better reached through Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. People of 40 and older appear to use only Facebook. Youth are relatively easy to influence through influencers and they indicate it is likely that they will be convinced to visit the webshop of a brand. People above the age of 40 are indicate they are very unlikely to be persuaded to visit a webshop. Most active on social media are youth. There appears to be a connection to the heavy users and heavy buyers. This follows from the fact that young people order things online more often than people above the age of 40, who are also least active on social media.

There are also some similarities between the age segments. All generally use social media in the evening and indicate that the search for inspiration is their greatest motive to use social media. Messages in the form of images draw most attention for each target group segment.

Using these findings, three recommendations are made by the researcher, which are: segmentate the target group, post creative content on social media and make use of influencers. Segmenting the target audience makes for more effective approachment of each segment. The second recommendation means that social media must be used more intensively. The researcher recommends monthly meetings and weekly brainstorm sessions to this end. The researcher also developed idea for the posting of creative concepts. The last recommendation is outsourced to fs AGENCY. They are specialized in public relations and this saves a lot of time for Rosti Mepal.