Samenvatting

Doing business with France and in France is a term that is very familiar in the Netherlands. The French Chamber of Commerce (CFCI) in Amsterdam was therefore founded in 1979 by initiators like Freddy Heineken. The CFCI gained a lot of success till now, as it has network of more than 200 members and 1600 contacts worldwide. However, the CFCI noticed the trend that social media is coming up and realised that its content marketing strategy should be revived. Hence, this research is based on the following central question: How can the CFCI generate more visitors to its website and social media by improving its current content marketing strategy?

In order to answer this question, both qualitative and quantitative research were done for this French institution. The qualitative research consisted of interviews that were held with five professionals. In the field of qualitative research, desk research has also been done on the available content of websites and social media channels from other French Chambers of Commerce. And last but not least, quantitative research was done in the form of a survey that has been carried out by the CFCI’s clients, members, partners and prospects.

The research results indicated that the CFCI is not doing badly on its social media channels and its website. It can be concluded that the highest score for the CFCI’s content was based on the CFCI’s content’s reliability and the lowest score went to its originality. According to the interviews, it is advised to keep a certain rhythm in mind. The survey has shown that the respondents want to receive only once a week the CFCI’s content in the form of a blog, articles or a newsletter. Therefore, it was recommended to maintain a blog on the CFCI’s website. The interviews have furthermore shown that it is necessary to make a planning of the content that is wished to be spread through social media. Hereby, it is strongly recommended to the CFCI to arrange regularly, weekly meetings in order to discuss the topics of content thoroughly. The interviews stated that both SEO and SEA planning and a Paid Advertising Planning are interesting to carry out in order to enhance a company’s visibility on the internet. Therefore, an SEO and SEA planning and eventually a Paid Advertising Planning are recommended. If the CFCI takes these recommendations into account and carries them out, it can be stated that its visibility will increase and therewith will solve its current problem: laying behind the competition in the field of content marketing. For this, an implementation plan will be made for the CFCI which will be presented on the 18th of June at the HZ University of Applied Sciences in Vlissingen.