Summative Assignment Final Project

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Kingdom consulting

Our business is to help you start yours!

Who we are

Our Company

What We Do

Our Services

For new entrepreneurs, we assist the small business owner to identify their target market, define their marketing strategy, calculate funding needs, identify and connect with capital funding sources, and write their business plan when needed. It is our goal to work with the entrepreneurs to gather information about their businesses and provide solutions and valuable analyses that will help them to meet their business goals. What originally began as a volunteer effort at a local church in Eatonville, Florida five years ago has now transformed into a consulting firm that has connections to more than 150 local small businesses. We envision reaching many more in the years to come. Our purpose is to assist new entrepreneurs with writing business plans, assisting with locating funding sources, and connecting them with other established entrepreneurs in the local market through our entrepreneurial mentoring program, Kingdom Konnections. We seek to assist entrepreneurs build and expand their brand and connect with others in their industry to share best practices and create strategic alliances.

Our mission

Our mission is to help your company answer these key questions:

What unmet need has been identified in the market?

Is additional information or business intelligence needed to fully exploit the opportunity presented by this unmet need?

Is my organization properly positioned?

Does my organization fully understand the market and competitive environment?

Have we created reasonable measurable goals?

Do we have a clear, organized strategy to optimize this business opportunity?

Does our existing business structure and internal capabilities align with what is needed to undertake this initiative?

Our Hierarchy

Hierarchical structure is defined as the different chains of command within and organization, from senior leadership to administrative and technical support to general employees. For Kingdom Consulting, we have determined the best structure for our organization is a sole leader (owner-operator) with department heads (finance, marketing, tech support, etc.) with a group of subordinates that are under them. Our organization currently employees 75 individuals consisting of the CEO, leadership team (12 members), a team of four executive assistants, and the remaining support staff. All employees report to their specific managers with the information from employees compiled from the leadership team and presented to the CEO on a weekly basis with additional off-cycle communication as needed. The organizational hierarchy creates and establishes the flow of information within an organization from leadership down to general workers and vice versa (Bilson & Aitchison, 2016).

Owner-Operator

Leadership Team

Admin

Managers

Employees

Hierarchal FLow

Hierarchy within an organization assists employees with understand the proper chain of command when escalating issues or presenting process or service gaps within an organization. Unfortunately, a weakness of a hierarchical structure is that it can prove at times to be a hindrance to innovation and creativity. Without the proper flow of information from employees to leadership, or alternate channels to submit issues or new ideas, innovative ideas or other concerns can be caught in a communication logjam if management fails to share the information. Within Kingdom Consulting, we have created the Send Us Feedback tool which allows employees to submit new ideas, suggestions, complaints, or identify process gaps. Input from this tool is reviewed bi-monthly by leadership with all submitters receiving a direct response. In cases were issues have been identified that affect the entire organization, leadership analyzes the issue to create a solution which is then communicated throughout the organization via company email with follow up with additional training if needed. This tool has boosted job satisfaction as well as employee morale as employees feel that their input is valued by leadership and they are included in leading and managing change within the organization.

How We Build our Community

Social Entrepreneurship

Social entrepreneurship can be challenging to define, in large part because the concept has been evolving rapidly in recent years and increasingly blurs the lines of the traditional business, government and non-profit sectors. Social Enterprise Alliance defines social entrepreneurship entities as “organizations that address a basic unmet need or solve a social or environmental problem through a market-driven approach (Social Enterprise Alliance, 2019).” Social entrepreneurs recognize social issues and and seek to achieve a social change by using entrepreneurial principles, operations, and processes. While social enterprises may not eradicate a social issue completely, the driving factors and reason for the organization's existence is the lifelong pursuit of the improvement of existing circumstances in their communities.

How We Build our Community

Kingdom Konnections

Kingdom Consulting offers our clients an advantage that few other firms can, Kingdom Konnections. Kingdom Konnections is our premier entrepreneur networking system that connects new entrepreneurs to mature business owners (in business and operating successfully for at least five years) in the same or similar industries to share best practices and create strategic alliances. Current research shows that entrepreneurs with access to mentorship have a higher success rate than those that do not have the same access (Association for Enterprise Opportunity, 2017). We currently operate in an underserved community of underserved African American and Hispanic families. It is the goal of our firm to assist these families with building generational wealth through business ownership. This can start a cycle within the family as research shows that individuals with early exposure to entrepreneurship through family are 47% more successful in their entrepreneurial pursuits than those who do not have the same exposure (Fairlie & Robb, 2007). The network will also assist our entrepreneurs with connecting with entrepreneurs to outsource certain aspects of their businesses. For example, if a business owner needs to outsource its graphic design, they may be able to connect with a graphic design firm through Kingdom Konnections. Strategic alliances can be created as well. We have connected event planners with food truck owners and caterers. This alliance connects vendors that allows them to expand their brand and meet new potential customers. While the firm does not profit directly from these connections, the word-of-mouth referrals help to sustain the business and expand our network.

Current Social Media communication issue

What we lack

A well developed Social media strategy

Strong brand recognition

Kingdom Consulting, LLC is a small business consulting firm that seeks to assist entrepreneurs start or expand their businesses. Our goal is to help business owners across various industries make their businesses operate more efficiently and identify and reach their target markets. Currently, the organization faces an obstacle in terms of our social media strategy. While we are known in the community in which we began volunteering our services, we wish to expand our services to entrepreneurs throughout central Florida. Unfortunately, the organization is having challenges regarding our communication, marketing strategies, new client recruitment, and creating brand awareness outside of word-of-mouth referrals. The company has a weak brand awareness. In order to create a strategy for how to resolve these concerns, it is critical that our leadership carefully review, analyze, and identify process gaps within our current communication and marketing strategy. This approach will help to identify shortfalls in the existing strategy to move us toward the goal of building a new strategy that will serve as the foundation for continuous process improvement that will assist the company with achieving its short and long-term goals. The primary focus of this analysis will be to focus on creating a strategy that will help us to utilize all appropriate social media platforms to strengthen our brand and increase brand awareness.

The Goals for our social Media strategy

Increase brand awareness

Generate new client leads via social media platforms

Receive feedback to be used to create future content

Increase brand engagement

Engage entrepreneurs to grow mentoring network

Increase revenue for the firm

We currently have a very weak social media presence and need to create strategies to increase traffic to our pages. Through the social media platforms, the organization will be in a position to reach out to a broader audience, thereby creating the potential for a larger mentor network for our clients. The best approach to creating an effective and viable social media strategy if to have a clear, well-defined social media goal. A key starting point for our strategy must begin with identifying our target audience, what content is most likely to appeal to that targeted group, content sharing cycles, and current social media traffic to existing pages to determine which platforms are generating the most hits. After careful review of all of these factors we have identified six goals. These goals, shown here, are aligned with strategies identified in “Social media marketing strategy: definition, conceptualization, taxonomy, validation, and future agenda (Li et al, 2021). All of the identified goals will be contributing drivers for our main objective which is to increase visits to the company’s main website and an influx of new business.

Identification of the target market

Who is our desired audience?

To create an effective social media marketing strategy, we must consider three important factors: the identification of our target market, content, and the social media platforms where will concentrate our efforts. Identifying our target market is critical to determining the social media strategy. The target market will have an influence on which social media platforms our company focuses gives more attention. The target market also influences the content create and shared on the platforms and how often it is shared. As content is created and shared, the engagement and feedback from the target market will shape future content. Feedback received via these channels may also play a role in shaping the services that we offer to our clients. The primary target market and audience are individuals between the age of 20 and 40 who are interested in or have started their own business.

Content

What we create

To appeal to our target market through our social media strategy, it will be critical to create content that they find useful, informative, and entertaining. Social media offers the ability to post varies forms of content from creating short videos on TikTok to longer videos with more content on YouTube. Posting memes has become quite popular and may be used to grab an individual’s attention while providing the company’s website information in the caption for the post. For our company, it may be beneficial to post content that new and existing entrepreneurs, and those considering entrepreneurship will find helpful in running and/or starting a business. That content will include how our business can help them to achieve their business goals.

We are currently considering creating short videos that can be posted to our preferred social media platforms. We will highlight success stories from our clients who are willing to share their information. These videos will add a human side to our services. Hearing how they have benefited from being a client and using our services directly from a client helps to build trust and a sense of community. These videos will also offer the opportunity to highlight our mentoring program, Kingdom Konnections. Creating a unique branding strategy will be critical to setting our organization apart from other business consulting firms in the area. Consumers are aware that they have options, so we need to create a branding strategy that makes choosing our firm the obvious choice. Kingdom Konnections will be what sets our firm apart from others and gives us a competitive edge.

Social Media Platform cHoice

Where will We Share

There are several options to choose from in social media platform. Today’s platforms include, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Pinterest, with the possibility of more in the future. The choice of platform will be based on appropriateness for our business needs and goals. LinkedIn and YouTube would be optimal sites as they provide more flexibility on content that can be shared. For example, establishing a YouTube channel would allow new, existing, and potential clients to subscribe and receive notification about new content. Facebook provides access to individuals of all ages, races, nationality, profession, and background versus LinkedIn which is a site that has access for the same group of individuals but is mainly used by professionals seeking career mobility opportunities and other career-oriented content. The advantage of social media today is the ability to share content across platforms. A link for a TEDtalk shared on LinkedIn can be shared to Facebook with the link for the post taking the Facebook user to the content to view it directly on site from which the original content was posted. Of the current options available for social media, our firm has determined that the platforms that would be most suited for our business needs, goals, and strategies are Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube. While we will not exclude the other platforms from use, the majority of content will be shared across the primary four platforms. The websites chosen will allow our organization to showcase our services, post testimonials, offer helpful tips, and increase overall brand awareness.

Our Strategy

Focus

Grab Attention

engAGE

Take action

Successful implementation will be executed by employing a dragonfly effect model across all chosen platforms. Principally, there are four “wings” of the model: Focus, Grab Attention, Engage, and Take Action (Seo, 2018). The first wing, Focus, advises that the organization needs to identify a single quantifiable goal. For our organization, that goal will be to use social media to increase new clients by 35% over the next twelve months. This goal is actionable and testable. A question can be added to our existing intake form to ask how the new client heard about our services. This data can be tracked and relayed to leadership during quarterly meetings and our annual shareholder meeting. Wing Two, Grab Attention, is intended for the organization to translate their social media intent into activities that can create a buzz. This can be done by creating content that is personal, unexpected, visual, and visceral. Appealing to those areas of your target market can generate additional traffic via likes and shares.

Wing Three, Engage, is the stage where the organization begins to build a community. We will accomplish this by sharing video testimonials of current clients. By allowing the clients to share their story with other, it allows the feel celebrated and seen. Success is very satisfying but even more satisfying when others are able to use your story as a building block to build their own. Wing four, Take action, is the final step is to put your plan into action. We will make the content interesting, engaging, and fun. It will be tailor-made for spiring entrepreneurs and existing entrepreneurs who are seeking to increase stagnant sales. Mirroring the way a dragonfly uses all four wings to propel itself, these phases can be represented by the model as pictured below (Seo, 2018):

Monitoring our success

What we will Measure

Brand awareness

Sales

Customer loyalty & satisfaction

Website traffic

Our organization will employ four social media monitoring strategies. The company will utilize four social media monitoring strategies. The first strategy will monitor the effect of the social media strategy on brand growth. The metrics for monitoring the effectiveness of the platforms will include gathering data on the increase or decrease in the number of followers/subscribers for the organization on a quarterly basis after strategy implementation, the number of shares of each post receives, and the number of mentions the company across our primary social media platforms. The second strategy will monitor whether the social media platforms employed are driving sales for the firm’s services. The metrics for monitoring the effectiveness of the platforms will involve gathering and analyzing data for the total number of new client received and the income generated on a monthly basis after strategy implementation. Measuring income generated when a social media strategy is used is an effective way of knowing whether the strategy is good enough to attract potential customers (Sajid, 2016).

The third strategy will monitor whether the social media platforms employed are improving brand loyalty and customer satisfaction. The metrics for monitoring the effectiveness of the platforms will require the firm to review social media sentiments, testimonials, and compliments that the company after strategy implementation. The fourth strategy will monitor whether the social media platforms employed are driving traffic towards the company’s website. The metrics for monitoring the effectiveness of the platforms will involve analyzing Google analytics and our internal hit report bi-monthly after strategy implementation.

Conclusion

It will be important to continue to monitor and evolve the strategy as more data is gathered.

It will be important to continue to monitor and evolve the strategy as more data is gathered. It would be foolish to believe that a one size fits all approach would be the most effective strategy for social media marketing. A social media strategy is not one that can be planned and then placed on auto-pilot. The organization will have to consider the added expense of hiring personnel to operate as the social media execution and planning team. As we monitor our strategy, it is critical to quickly identify any content that does not generate the desired results. It will also be critical that any actionable customer feedback or complaints be implemented as quickly as possible without neglecting quality by our social media group. Social media is not the answer to all of our brand awareness issues, so it would be in our best interests to still employ traditional marketing strategies as well.

References

Association for Enterprise Opportunity. (2017). The Tapestry of Black Business Ownership in America: Untapped Opportunities for Success. https://aeoworks.org/images/uploads/fact_sheets/AEO_Black_Owned_Business_Report_02_16_17_FOR_WEB.pdf.

Bilson, C., & Aitchison, I. (2016). Tips for Building a Successful Design Organization. Design Management Review, 27(2), 50-53.

Fairlie, R. W. & Robb, A. M. (2007). Why Are Black‐Owned Businesses Less Successful than White‐Owned Businesses? The Role of Families, Inheritances, and Business Human Capital. Journal of Labor Economics, 25(2), 289. https://doi-org.proxy-library.ashford.edu/10.1086/510763

Li, F., Larimo, J., & Leonidou, L. C. (2021). Social media marketing strategy: definition, conceptualization, taxonomy, validation, and future agenda. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 49(1), 51–70.

Lichtenthaler, U. (2020). Building blocks of successful digital transformation: Complementing technology and market issues. International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management, 17(01), 2050004.

Ikeda, K., & Marshall, A. (2016). How successful organizations drive innovation. Strategy & Leadership.

Pattinson, S. (2020). The Hextol Foundation: Building a sustainable social enterprise business model. The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 21(1), 72-80.

Sajid, S. I. (2016). Social Media and Its Role in Marketing. Business and Economics Journal. http://41.89.240.73/bitstream/handle/123456789/810/social-media-and-its-role-in-marketing.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.

Seo, W. (2018, September 6). The Dragonfly Effect: Driving Social Change through Social Media. Cooler Insights. https://coolerinsights.com/2011/10/the-dragonfly-effect-driving-social-change-through-social-media/.

Warrick, D. D. (2017). What leaders need to know about organizational culture. Business Horizons, 60(3), 395-404.

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