Outré PR Spotify UK Communications Report
Contents: Section 1. Executive Summary Section 2. Agency Information Section 3. Organisational Profile 3.1-Your Organisation 3.2 Your Organisational Structure Section 4. Situational Analysis 4.1 -PESTLE Analysis 4.2 -SWOT Analysis Section 5. Stakeholder Analysis 5.1 –Results 5.2 – Explanation Section 6. Strategy Section 7. Objectives Section 8. Messages Section 9. Evaluation Section 10. Conclusion Section 11. Research Documents
Section 1 - Executive Summary This document has been produced to assess and evaluate the external communications currently being used by yourself, Spotify, to connect with your target audience, within the United Kingdom. When evaluating your communication strategies currently in place, we identified a few problems, these are: 1. Using social media as the main form of communication, whilst other competitors use bigger platforms. 2. Only targeting younger audiences through communication. 3. Not responding to customers over social media pages about current issues with the app on certain devices, due to new terms and conditions. 4. The @spotifyuk twitter feed is not consistent, with followers sometimes going 4 days without seeing any tweets appearing on their timeline. 5. Also the twitter feed has a lack of hash tags, meaning you are missing out on connecting with new users through trending topics. After looking in to these findings, we propose Spotify UK, needs
Section 2 – Agency Information Outré PR is an agency based in the West Midlands, specialising in social media. The aim of the agency is to innovate and create new ideas for your business to intrigue and engage with customers. We aim to create social media platforms that create a buzz and allow users to interact with the business through them. Many of our previous clients have been highly impressed, which you can see through our testimonials from them on our website, www.outrepr.com www.outrepr.com.. There are a few case studies below for you to look at some of our work: 1. Benefit Cosmetics - #RollerLash Campaign Working with our client Benefit Cosmetics, we teamed up with Elle Magazine; to give Benefit it’s most successful campaign of all time. On a budget of only £3000, we included free samples of the new mascara in Elle magazine, encouraging readers to take to social media to share their experience of using the mascara before it became available to buy in store. There was an incredible response response to this campaign, and a video produced featuring the readers became benefits most viewed video of all time, despite costing less than £3000 to create. We also received free celebrity endorsement, from bloggers, such as Zoella, who made unpaid posts about the mascara. This led to Benefit’s market share increase from 25% to 38% in the first quarter after the campaign was released.
Section 3 – Organisational Summary 3.1 Your Organisation Spotify was founded in 2006 in Sweden, and has now become a market leader in the digital music streaming market. It has head offices in both Stockholm and London, and has approximately 1,600 employees. The business is classed as using a ‘freemium’ business model, where users are able to use the service for free, or pay for a premium service where they can experience higher quality features, as well as an ad-free service. The business makes its profit from selling users the premium streaming services, as well as using advertising on the free service. As a business, you aim to decrease decrease piracy within the music streaming streaming industry, by allowing the public to stream music on a free basis, or pay extra and have a premium service.
3.2 Your Organisational Structure As can be seen below on the example diagram, as a business Spotify takes a different approach to the standard organisational structure businesses usually use. The use of the words ‘team’ and ‘line managers’ are not used within the business, as you believe everyone should be on the same level. Instead, employees are divided into ‘squads’ who are set both open or closed-ended missions that they must work to achieve. The structure of your organisation means each squad is not dependent on another, so they t hey can complete the job without relying on anyone else, so they can continue continue innovating. (Culture and Diversity, Diversity, 2015) On the diagram below, there is a sketch of how the organisation is structured.
Section 4 – Situational Analysis 4.1 PESTLE Analysis Political •
European Union - With Spotify still having offices in Sweden, issues are likely to arise from the UK deciding to leave the EU. The Swedish Prime Minister has already spoken to the country regarding his concerns for trade, as it is possible the EU may collapse if France chose to leave the EU as well. This means there may be stricter restrictions on trade for the company, and rules about advertising and marketing may affect the company.
Economical •
Competitive Pricing - New competition within the market are offering more competitive prices for consumers, therefore Spotify must either create a unique selling point for their brand or match/beat competitors pricing.
Social •
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Piracy – Although trying to be tackled, piracy is still a large on-going issue within the music industry. The ability to illegally download songs is affecting the amount of people investing in paid music streaming. Consumer Trends – Consumer trends within the industry are constantly changing, people are now investing in the likes of Vinyl, therefore less likely to invest in music streaming service as well. Also the t he increase in live music events means people are likely to invest in the music industry through that, rather than music streaming services.
Technological •
Advancements in app development – Constant updates in the development of music apps means Spotify must continue to develop and remain competitive in order to ensure their customers stay loyal. Also they must react quickly to any faults during app updates to retain a close relationship with their customers.
Legal •
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Plagiarism – Within the app and mobile market, there have been many cases where legal issues have arose due to the similarity in apps, therefore the company must continue to advance their technologies and include USPs. Music Licenses – In the past the company has had issues with music licensing and has failed to have licenses for some of the features it includes (G.Peoples,
2016). Therefore it is key to ensure in future the business complies to licensing laws in order to avoid a void fines.
4.3 SWOT Analysis Strengths •
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The business is competitive within the market, as it has a wide selection of genres and a lot of mainstream artists have their music released on the platform. The company has an established app, with constant updates allowing users to get the bets possible music streaming. Effective communication campaign at the end of 2016, using billboards across the world, and specialising each one to the area it was in.
Weaknesses •
The company doesn’t use social media to its full potential, meaning they are missing out on direct communication with their customers, impacting consumer’s opinions on the company. This can also affect the company’s customer service, many of the target audience see social media as a way to report any issues or issue complaints, however if the company is not responding, consumers consumers are being left angry and frustrated with the business.
Opportunities •
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After coming out of a recession, people’s income is increasing, meaning they have more of a disposable income to spend on services like Spotify. Cutting down on illegal downloading by web providers such as YouTube, means people need an alternative way to stream music. New artists see music streaming apps as an effective way to get their music heard first.
Threats •
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Competition such as Apple Music, have secure deals with artists who will only release music via their streaming apps. Trading laws with countries may begin to change as various countries Spotify currently operates in are opting to leave the t he European Union.
Section 5 – Stakeholders 5.1 Who is a stakeholder? In this section, we have analysed all possible stakeholders to Spotify UK, and prioritised them, to how important they are to the success of Spotify. Here is a list of stakeholders, in no particular order. Employees Spotify Global
Customers Media
Advertisers Shareholders
Government Local community
General Public Competition
Trade Unions Suppliers
Artists Pressure Groups Apple PlayStation
Android Record Labels
Stakeholder Matrix Map
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Keep Satisfied
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Government Trade Unions
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Media
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Manage Closely • • • •
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Monitor • •
General Public Local Community
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Spotify Global Spotify Premium Customers Employees Partnerships with businesses such as Apple, Android and PlayStation. Record Labels Share Holders Keep Informed Artists Competition Suppliers Pressure Groups Non-paying customers
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5.2 Justification A stakeholder is someone who the action of your business affects, in both a direct and indirect way. When stakeholders become aware of issues with Spotify UK, they then become publics who are active stakeholders. From looking at the above table, we can see the four categories we have split your main stakeholders into, allowing us know to see how to handle each one differently, depending on how much power power and interest they have in in Spotify UK. This will then allow us to build the communication strategy for Spotify UK based around these stakeholders. Manage Closely: The stakeholders within this section have the highest interest and power in Spotify UK; therefore have the most influence over what you do as a business. Due to this, we must ensure we manage these communications with these stakeholders extremely close so that there is no misleading information, and we maintain a positive relationship with them. We will ensure these stakeholders are prioritised within our communication strategy. Keep Satisfied: Within this section, the stakeholders may have low interest in Spotify UK, however they do have the power to control the actions of the company. The main stakeholder within this section is the government; the strict policies enforced by these stakeholders must be followed closely by the business, to stop any issues occurring. Due to the low interest of their stakeholders, the communication with them is low, as by following their policies, there is no need for communication between you and them. Keep Informed: The stakeholders within this section have a high interest in Spotify UK, however have little power over the actions of the business. Therefore, it is good to communicate with them so they stay interested in your business. Also good communication with the non-paying customers, whoa re stakeholders within this section can help convert them to premium customers who are paying for the service. Monitor: Stakeholders here are of minimum importance to the business. They have low power over the business and low interest. Summary: After researching these stakeholders, we feel it is best for the communication strategy for Spotify UK to primarily focus on the ‘managed closely’ section of our stakeholder map. These will be the most important stakeholders to focus on communicating with, in order to become market leaders. We will also focus on the keep informed section, as we believe it is important to invest time into communicating with customers who are currently using the free service, to try and show the benefits of investing in a premium subscription to them.
Section 6 – Strategy After carrying out a full analysis of your company, Spotify UK, we have put together a strategy based upon the issues we have found from our research, to help create a more efficient and precise external communication strategy. Below we have pointed out your main problems: The company’s lack of response to users comments on social media Lacking to use other forms of mainstream marketing as well as social media, for example television and radio Targeting a small young audience, where as an older audience may also benefit from your services. Competition using more successful forms of communication. • •
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Taking these problems into account, Outré PR have created a new approach, adapting your current one in order to improve your communications. The goal we have set out for Spotify UK is to create a more personal communication strategy between the company and its customers (both customers who use the free service and those who pay) to create a closer relationship between the two. We have identified three key steps to take in order to achieve this. These are; 1. Outreach !
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Connecting with customers by retweeting/liking retweeting/liking and interacting with their content that is relevant to Spotify. Connecting with artists through social media so they can promote Spotify as a platform where fans can listen to their music. Using vocabulary in your tweets and Facebook posts that can encourage customers to join Spotify, for example interesting welcoming adjectives, which suggest without Spotify they are missing out on something. Update people with what is going on at Spotify head quarters, so they feel as if the company wants everyone to be a part of something.
2. Response Time After researching into Spotify UK’s social media, one issue that arose numerous times was people being left without a response to questions and queries, which were sometimes negative. This meant it was affecting the company’s customer service rating, and could lead to a bad reputation for the business, which would affect the number of people investing in Spotify Premium services compared to the amount investing in competitors. There are a few ways we plan to tackle this: !
Constant social media presence, meaning someone in always on hand to deal with complaints as they arise.
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Updates for any faults on all social media platforms, so if there Is anything major affecting a large amount of users, people are informed and kept up to date with the progress of repairing the issue. Set new targets for the speed of which complaints via social media will be responded to. Ensure no one should be left without a response for over 12 hours. Create a new strategy which encourages users who are complaining to use software on the Spotify website to take the complaints away from the public. Be sure that you act in a polite and professional manner, manner, even when the issue is extremely small, ensuring people know that you are apologetic for the issue.
3. Innovating and Exploring The social media pages need to ensure they do not become boring and traditional, so people can continue to interact. As a business that is constantly staying up to date with technology, Spotify UK needs to show this through their social media pages. !
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Create more exciting campaigns that encourage audiences to retweet, for example, the ‘Thanks 2016’ campaign gained a great social media presence by users sharing the billboards, however was barely spoken about on official Spotify accounts. New photos of updates that users will be able to enjoy soon, so they can see the planning and understand why Spotify is worth paying for. Create new photos and images to use on social media to respond to customers in a fun, innovative way. For example, videos of music artists used by Spotify responding to users.
Section 7 – SMART Objectives We have created a list of SMART objectives to allow you to see what exactly it is we are hoping to help your business achieve. SMART objectives are objectives set out that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time scaled.
S – Ensuring we begin by becoming active in engaging with customer queries through all social media platforms, and ensuring if a wide issue occurs, generic posts are distributed to lower the amount of queries coming in.
M – Create targets of how to respond efficiently to complaints, and ensure all questions are answered within 12 hours; therefore customers are never waiting long, and are not left in the dark about issues.
A – Ensure new content is being created to show users on social media how the company is innovating and encouraging them to remain loyal, as they are receiving a premium service worth the price.
R – Encourage users to complain via Spotify UK’s website rather than via social media, this will make complaints easier to log for the company as well as taking the complaints off social media where the can be viewed by the media and potential new customers.
T – According to 16 various studies (Ellering, ( Ellering, N. and CoSchedule , CoSchedule , 2016), the best times to post on social media is at 1pm, 3pm and 9am. Therefore Spotify must ensure these are the times they are most active and ready to interact with users at these times. Relating back to time, the objectives set out, are in a 9-month plan where the business is to undertake the set out strategies and Outré PR will monitor the results.
These objectives have been set out by Outré PR, as the form a clear plan of what must be done in order to see the results of your new communication strategy. Along with the previously discussed strategies, these form a clear indication of the direction the business must now follow via its social media pages, to form an efficient and effective communication strategy.
Section 8 – Key Messages Outré PR have set out a number of key messages that will be seen across all social media platforms to represent your brand. They will be consistent and sell the service to users, as an investment they should make. 1. Claim – Spotify UK constantly have the best technology and apps to enjoy music on. Fact – Spotify are constantly working to innovate and create new features on
the app for users to enjoy, which they can not get from their competitors such as Apple Music. Example – Photos of head quarters with people working on the new software,
including tweets discussing how they are working to help the Spotify community enjoy the best features possible, before any other people can. Discuss how they are creating something that has never been seen in music streaming services before.
2. Claim – Spotify UK’s customers are the most important aspect of the business and we aim to please them through everything we do. Fact – Spotify respond to customer complaints in less than 12 hours every
time and interact with 90% of the tweets they are mentioned in. Example – When a customer contacts Spotify the issue must be resolved or
discussed within their target time of 12 hours, if not as a premium customer you are entitled to a month free of Spotify Premium. All of these will be accompanied by the relevant images and information, where users can look further into the messages stated via their website. This will also encourage users who are not currently premium to invest in the membership, in order to enjoy the premium customer service and interaction that accompanies it.
Section 9 - Evaluation The evaluation plan we have put together is one of the most important aspects of the strategy. Outré PR will weekly update Spotify UK on their progress with the plan, ensuring the plan is working, and update them on social media statistics. We will also send weekly updates on social media posts we believe to be relevant to the company, which you can then use to create content for social media. As well we will have someone constantly updating you with any news within the media we believe to be relevant to post about. Audience Interaction To evaluate the progress, we will use Facebook Insights and Twitter Analytics, which will allow us to see how many responses you have had to posts, as well as see how many new followers you have gained. Response Time To manage response time, we will monitor when complaints come in, when they are responded to and when the issue is resolved. This will allow us to form a complete overview of how effective the new 12-hour rule has been. This will also be a step closer to establishing a new relationship with users where we encourage them to log complaints through Spotify directly, rather than on social media. Innovating Content We will create comparisons from your old content to your new content, where you will be able to see the difference in both, and the change in image it displays on your social media. We will also include analytics, which will be able to show you whether the new content has been a success and how much it has improved your presence.
Section 10 - Conclusion Our proposal for Spotify UK aims to improve your communication strategy directly through your social media presence, which is lacking to interact with users. It will create new innovative social media pages, which encourage interaction between users and the company. If you have any further questions, please contact Spotify UK’s accounts manager at Outre PR at:
[email protected]
Section 11 – Research Documents Ellering, N. and CoSchedule (2016) What 16 studies say about the best times to post on social media. Available at: http://coschedule.com/blog/best-timeshttp://coschedule.com/blog/best-timesto-post-on-social-media/ to-post-on-social -media/ (Accessed: 7 January 2017). Peoples, G. (2016) Spotify’s $150 Million legal tangle explained. Available at: http://www.billboard.com/articles/busine http://www.billboard.com /articles/business/6836005/spo ss/6836005/spotify-150-milliontify-150-million-lawsuitlawsuitexplained (Accessed: 6 January 2017). culture, team and diversity (2015) Searching for a tech job? Join Honeypot! Available at: http://blog.honeyp http://blog.honeypot.io/2015-11-13-what’sot.io/2015-11-13-what’s-it-like-to-workit-like-to-work-at-Spotify/ at-Spotify/ (Accessed: 4 January 2017).
