Nouf AlQethami was recruited as a Community Manager by Goody back in 2010, when that  position  was  still  very  new  &  unfamiliar  in  the  region.  In  2  years,  her  job responsibilities grew with the rise of social media marketing, to become in charge of all of Goody’s digital activities.

In her role, she focuses on achieving Goody’s goals of building brand loyalty among existing customers, raising and increasing awareness about the company’s large variety of products, and building a community that maintains a good level of engagement among its target audience which is Saudi females, between 20 and 45, single and married, who are cooking enthusiasts. Based on the brand’s goals and target audience, she developed the social  media  strategy  after  brainstorming  with  the  brand   manager   and  marketing department, researching  competitors  and  studying  the  Saudi  market. After  thorough assessment, she concluded that Saudi females extensively search for recipes from expert chefs in the region and also  from peers in their networks, which were mostly forums. The young females also thought of Goody as a “mommy” brand, something that moms used that is ancient and not modern. Therefore, there was a  need for a local online community that can meet these females’ requirements, and building a community using social networking sites would help the brand communicate with the young females and create a “trendier” image.

She realized that building a community will take a lot of time, effort and resources, and the company  was willing to invest and commit to that. The first step in building the community was opening a Facebook Group, in March 2011, as a small-scale experiment, then in January 2012, a full-fledged Facebook Page was launched. A twitter account was also launched earlier in November 2010 but was only activated this past year. The brand’s youtube channel was also created in September 2010, but only activated about a year ago. Nouf stated that, due to lack of knowledge in those times, it was important to just join these  social  networks,  listen  and  experiment  until  she  develops  a  clear  content  and communication strategy. She continues to experiment with social media as she adds relevant new and upcoming social networking sites into the mix, such as Instagram.

The brand  had  ready  content  since  it  was  already  maintaining  an  offline  cooking magazine  as  well  as  a  website  filled  with  local  recipes;  the  website  was  recently remodeled to be “social”, and  the content was used to build conversations and engage with the target audience around what recipes they like and use or like to learn, and drive them to the website’s community. The brand focused then on creating valuable content that encourages the audience to engage with it and share it, rather than on pushing for product promotion in a direct and uninteresting way. The content strategy was also supported with a communication strategy that aimed to enable cooking enthusiasts, and support them by  giving them space to showcase their cooking skills in The Goody Kitchen community, to turn them into brand evangelists. It’s important to note that the brand uses only the Arabic language in its content and to communicate with its target audience.

Nouf has utilized a mix of tactics to achieve the brand’s goals, ranging from online to offline. She leveraged the Goody Cooking Academy, which offers cooking enthusiasts 5 free cooking courses, to fuel  content as well as connect with its audience on a more personal level and reward it. She also  maintains  regular social media competitions on Goody  Kitchen’s  Facebook  Page,  as  well  as  third-party  platforms  such  as  Yahoo! Maktoob, with prizes ranging from electronic devices, to Goody products, or a feature/ shout-out in the brand’s new magazine “The Goody Kitchen”, which is a very  good example of integration between traditional and digital media. Nouf believes that such integration is very important in the Saudi market because there is a big percentage of the brand’s target audience, mostly the older ones, who do not use social networking sites or have preference for traditional mass  media such as newspapers and magazines. She believes that having digital and traditional media  support each other is a good way to convert the offline audience to online, and to give the online audience something tangible they can keep and value.

Nouf  has  also  used  some  one-off  tactics  to  increase  fans/followers  growth  and engagement, such as product placement of Goody’s fava beans in an episode of a popular Saudi youtube show called “Masameer”, which targeted young males who are the main buyers of this product. This tactic did not only just achieve the best results in terms of views, likes and virality, seen below, but it has  also  created a big buzz in the Saudi online population on the topic of product placement in Youtube  show, i.e. the commercialization of social shows. After the success of this tactic, she was encouraged to also  test  it  on  Twitter  by  getting  sponsored  tweets  from  HawaaWorld,  the  largest community of  Saudi females online, and WAM (Women Appreciation Month) that is organized  by  femi9,  the  fashion  brand.  These  tactics  are  great  in  increasing  reach; however, when it comes to increasing engagement, Goody Kitchen’s own Youtube Videos with Chef Sumaya and featuring fans’ own recipes are the most engaging.

Video can be found here: http://youtu.be/QOZHWcMbS2w

When it came to measuring the results, Nouf translated its brand goals into metrics: brand awareness meant reach and fans/followers growth, brand loyalty and community building meant engagement, and social2web conversion meant traffic. To measure these metrics, she used tools such as Facebook Pages  Insights, Klout.com for Twitter, and Google Analytics,   and   used   competitors   such   as   Shahiya.com,  YumYummy.com   and SahawHana.com for benchmarking.