William Petherbridge

CLO #6
Parentes Social Media Plan Assignment
One of the major assignments that I had to complete as part of my Honors Introduction to

Marketing course that I took at Bryant University showcased a moment when I had to

demonstrate the ability to accomplish communicative goals. For this assignment, I was placed in

a group that would be tasked with devising a social media plan for an organization that would

partner with the class. After creating the social media plan, the group would present it to the

organizations representatives and our professor. My group was assigned to Parentes, a restaurant

located right next to the entrance to Bryant University, which makes it a very popular and

convenient option for Bryant students. When first beginning the assignment, my group had to

identify contexts, situations, and barriers that impede communication goals. We did this by

thoroughly examining, analyzing, and critiquing Parentes current social media policies and

practices. We found that the largest barrier to Parentes effectively marketing through social

media was that the restaurant had virtually no existing presence on many social media platforms.

Before my group began meeting with Parentes representatives, the only social media site that

they posted on with any regularity was Facebook. Even with the Parentes Facebook account,

there were no guidelines in place on what to post and how to interact with others on the site.

Parentes was failing to take advantage of the opportunities to connect with customers through

social media, especially with Bryant students who make up such a large part of their customer

base. My group also had to perform verbal and nonverbal behaviors to accomplish the goals of

the social media plan assignment. For nonverbal behaviors, we conducted research and

completed an audit of the social media accounts of Parentes and its competitors, before also

creating a competitive analysis of the social media accounts of other restaurants and bars popular
in the area. We used verbal behaviors by meeting with Parentes representatives and employees

before our final presentation of the social media plan to get a better idea of what events at the

restaurant could be marketed through social media. Our meetings with Parentes representatives

also allowed us to make a more informed judgement on the social media capabilities of their

employees who would be running the accounts, and how much training these employees would

need to properly execute our social media plan. These meetings allowed my group to evaluate

the personal communication strengths and weaknesses of the Parentes employees. Learning

about the social media knowledge of Parentes employees helped us decide which parts of our

social media plan would need to simplified in the beginning or cut out entirely.