Instructions

We as humans are driven by needs and emotions. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs provides the perfect model of these needs for marketers. At our most basic level are physiological needs (breathing, food, water, etc.). Marketing to these needs could fill an entire specialization.

For youre A/B split tests, you will focus on the following four needs:

1. Safety: security, employment, safety of family and property, health and well-being, etc.

I want to avoid risk so appeal to my concerns about missing out or my need to be safe.

2. Belonging: friendship, family, intimacy, etc.

I must embrace my need to be a part of the group; I want to know what my peers know

3. Esteem / Prestige self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of others, etc.

This Maslow level focuses on our desire to stand out from our peers or to have "inside knowledge" that makes us special.

4. Self-Actualization morality, creativity, problem-solving, acceptance of facts, etc.

This Maslow level focuses on achieving your life goals. It is the highest level aspiration of an individual.

Knowing these levels, you can craft messages that will appeal to each of these human needs in your target audience while using hashtags and @mentions to find them on social.

Submission

Part I - Title and Summary of your Blog

Submit the title and a brief summary of your blog post. Include any relevant background on your blog and target market if necessary. This article can be the one you created in MOOC #3, or a more recent post from your filter and focus blog. Your summary does need not exceed 100 words.

Parts 2-5 - A/B Split Test messages (8 total)

Develop two different example messages for each of the four Maslow levels discussed.

Include 1-2 hashtags followed by your target audience, but keep them consistent within each Maslow level (e.g. #trendwatching, #insights, @VitaminIMC for both of your Esteem/Prestige test messages; #brands, #digital, #trend, #consumertrends, @NUSocialIMC for your two Safety messages, etc.)

Keep them short - remember you will be adding more hashtags and influencer @handles when you roll out your best messages.

Don't go to your influencers yet.

For this assignment submission, including your actual Bitly link is optional; however, when your test messages are added to Hootsuite, you must include the Bitly link to your article.

A/B Split Test Instructions:

1. Test each message by time period to find which message works best and in which time period. You will be testing your messages for 2 weeks.

2. Set up a test of your 8 messages (2 from each Maslow level) across the 4 time periods - each period should be 6 hours long. Put your message on twitter any time in this time period. We use all 24 hours because social is global.

3. You can copy the creative test copy into the cells. Use either message from each Maslow level, but its recommended that you do message 1 on the first day, message 2 on the second, and then alternate them for the entire test. Whatever your pattern, be consistent.

4. Now that you have your schedule, open Hootsuite and work day by day setting up the messages to automatically transmit on the day/time you want to test. You can load up an entire week or use a frequency of your choice.

5. Each day, look at your Bitly performance page by hour. You will see each hour's clicks. The clicks happening between the hours you have set can be attributed to your test message.

6. Identify the winning messages. It will likely be just one of the Maslow levels. Remember, this is a small scale test, so the differences will likely be minor. In an actual A/B test, we would be using sites with more people who would be exposed to your message.

7. Take the winners and craft messages for your social communities on LinkedIn and Google+, and your influencers using your hashtags. Use Hootsuite to push out your messages aggressively for the last 2 weeks before MOOC #5.