Digital Writing Skills - Assignment 1

1. I chose the company Unilever.

2. Diagram of content creation

Focus

With my new online activity I want to inspire people

and appeal to their emotions. Therefore I am going
to use the storytelling writing style for the   

assignments. My goal is to improve Unilever's

branding, lead generation which in the long-term will

hopefully increase their sales as well.
As for the target audience I am going to focus on

international families.

Research

I. Target Audience
The target audience I am going to focus on is international families. By

this I mean academic, middle-class families from different cultural

backgrounds with access to the internet and global community.

 II. Organisation's current online activity

 Unilever is active on multiple online platforms. First of all, their website

 unilever.com provides the most important information about the company   

 such as their vision, mission and the brands they own. The layout is

 modern and one can easily get an overview of Unilever's activities.
 
Furthermore it uses the social media platforms facebook, twitter,   
YouTube and LinkedIn. On Facebook for example Unilever has
3.402.905 likes and regularly posts articles, pictures and videos about

multiple topics in an uplifting and friendly manner to involve their
consumers.

III. Competition online

Among Unilever’s greatest competitors are The Procter & Gamble     

Company and Nestlé. The Procter & Gamble Company is also active on
social media platforms and like Unilever provides numerous worldwide
corporate websites for different countries in their national language.
Next to the most used social media platforms Nestlé is also active on
Pinterest and Flickr. Its website has a similar style as Unilever: modern,
informative and adapted to individual countries.

IV. Online news about company and market

Recently Unilever has been in the news because of concerns about the
economic consequences of a possible Brexit (Britain leaving the EU).
Furthermore many news sources such as The Guardian report that
Unilever has pledged to quit using coal energy in the next five years and
to only use renewable energy sources by 2030. About the consumer goods
market in general journalists write that the industry growth has decreased from
11-12% in March 2015 to 5-6% in January 2016 due to a sinking consumer
confidence.

VI. Online Trends

Among the trends that might influence Unilever’s online relations are: content  
will become more interactive for consumers, Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
will align further to content marketing and design and speed will be considered
a necessity by consumers. Another

VII. Readers responses

VIII. Favourite Subjects
One of the recent favourite subjects on facebook is a post about the Chinese    
New Year, accompanied by a picture of an Asian toddler with almost half a

million likes. Another popular facebook post. On YouTube a video about

Unilever’s top female leaders who talk about their careers is most liked by

consumers with over 5,000 views.

Improve    
Judging from the number of views and retweets it can be said that Unilever is    

not successful in involving their consumers on YouTube and Twitter. Thus I

would suggest an endorsement or campaign with a well-known public figure.

Moreover increased use of interactive media tools such as might differentiate

them from the competition.

Write  
I. Paid Post
The advertisement by Unilever is in celebration of Walmart’s 50^th anniversary.

Although the slogan has a relevant message the design hinders its

effectiveness: the ad is overloaded with pictures of products which makes it look

unprofessional and unappealing to the eye. Furthermore the colour of the

slogan is hard to read. Instead I would focus on the three most popular and
successful products and their development throughout Unilever’s foundation. 

(Link to ad: https://www.behance.net/gallery/3969953/Three-Page-Unilever-Ad 

for-Walmarts-50th-Anniversary)

II. Owned Post

The Twitter Post by Unilever promotes the increase of comfort in fabric
conditioner. First of all, the picture is unfavourable because it does not show the

whole product but only the caption “comfort intense”. Furthermore, the text is

not engaging and the topic is not framed in an interesting way. An alternative

approach might be to involve the consumers by asking rhetorical questions or

asking them to share their experiences with the product. Besides, the picture

could show the effect of a product without comfort in fabric conditioner and

Unilever’s product to emphasize its superiority.

(Link to ad: https://twitter.com/Unilever/status/720518819173822464)

III. Earned

The blog entry by Ian Cairns is an interview with one of Unilever’s employees.

Although the content is highly qualitative it goes down in the unfavourable

design. A picture of the interviewee would be useful to give a face to the

statements. Furthermore, pictures, videos or links about topics discussed in the

interview could catch and keep consumers’ attention.
(Link to ad: https://blog.twitter.com/2015/how-unilever-became-a-pioneer-in-social-analytics)

Sources
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jan/19/unilever-prepares-for-tougher-global-market-conditions

http://www.pg.com/en_UK/

http://www.nestle.com/aboutus

https://www.unilever.com/

https://www.facebook.com/unilever/?ref=br_rs

http://www.livemint.com/Money/5u19i0oTdpk4WfnMabV8vI/The-curious-case-of-high-consumption-growth-projections.html

http://www.inc.com/dan-scalco/5-digital-marketing-trends-to-watch-for-in-2016.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_NyGpmsdFM

https://www.youtube.com/user/Unilever/videos

https://twitter.com/unilever

https://blog.twitter.com/2015/how-unilever-became-a-pioneer-in-social-analytics