doTERRA Essential Oils: Social Media Monitoring Project Part 2

Source: Pinterest

Introduction
It's another week, but unfortunately it's not doTERRA's BOGO week 😭. In my last post, I talked about doTERRA, an essential oil direct-selling brand that is based in Utah. Known for developing CPTG therapeutic-grade essential oils, doTERRA is taking the lead in the holistic wellness industry.

Currently, doTERRA can be found on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. What we found in last week's research was that there was an inconsistency between it's different social channels with numbers of followers and levels of engagement. While their Facebook account has over 1.4 million likes, their Instagram and Twitter accounts are lagging behind with 802k and 66k followers, respectively. doTERRA's interactions with its followers also vary on different levels with more engagement by and with followers on Facebook, medium levels on Instagram, and very little on Twitter. These differing levels of engagement are were surprising at first, but knowing that the majority of doTERRA's customers are older and that they are more active on Facebook rather than the two other platforms, it is actually not as surprising that doTERRA has a main focus on its most popular social media channel.

Interest over time 10/22/18-10/22/19, Source: Google Trends

The Google Trends analytics from last week also showed that there were high spikes in interest during the BOGO (buy one, get one free) weeks of November 18-24, 2018 and February 17-23, 2019. We'll break the campaign down later on in this post.

But first, let's take a look to see if anything has changed in the past week:

Analytics

Google Trends

Interest over time 10/22/19-10/29/19, Source: Google Trends

Related Topics 10/22/19-10/29/19, Source: Google Trends

This chart is showing the interest in doTERRA over the past week. While the line does fluctuate through the days, there are no dramatic peaks. It's been a relatively stable week for interest over time. This is reasonable because there are no major promotions or events happening with doTERRA currently or in the near future.

When we studied doTERRA over the course of the past year, its top related topic was Adaptiv, the newly released series for anxiety relief, and this hasn't changed. Looking at related topics in the past week, I was surprised to see dryer balls listed. Yesterday, they released a video on co-impact sourcing dryer balls from Nepal as well as related media to using dryer balls with doTERRA oils. On Facebook, videos have higher engagement than photos as shown in the chart below:

Most Engaging Post Types 9/29/19-10/28/19, Source: Social Bakers

BOGO

doTERRA BOGO interest over time 10/29/18-10/29/19, Source: Google Trends

doTERRA's BOGO promotions are a big deal for essential oil fans. Because there is a wide range of prices depending on the plant, many customers wait for these bogo promotions to find the best deal possible. This graph looks similar to the peaks found in the general doTERRA Google Trends search as expected. BOGO days do not generate as much interest as the BOGO weeks do. Knowing that there will be another BOGO week at the end of November, I predict that there will be another spike in both "doTERRA" and "doTERRA BOGO" interest at that time.

Engagement on Social Bakers

Average interactions per post (Instagram),
Source, Social Bakers

Average interactions per post (Twitter),
Source, Social Bakers

Average interactions per post (Facebook),
Source, Social Bakers

While a broader timeline of engagement with doTERRA shows that Facebook has higher interactions and number of followers, this week Instagram reached a higher level with 5.1k interactions versus 4.6k on Facebook. Instagram was more consistent throughout the week while Facebook gradually increased towards the end of the week. Twitter, on the other hand, is a bit more sporadic with varying levels of interactions.

Groundswell
So why does this matter?

As we've learned over the course of the semester, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook are just a few of the vast amount of tools within the Groundswell. The groundswell is described as "a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations". Because of people, technology, and economics, the groundswell has evolved to where customers are interacting. It would be wise for companies to meet them where they already are.

doTERRA's direct-selling model creates a natural path for people to talk to each other about essential oils. Since anyone can become a Wellness Advocate (although it may not be the right fit for everybody), ordinary people are becoming ambassadors of the brand and are doing the marketing work for them. It's power to the people, the main reason why the groundswell is able to succeed. Although Wellness Advocates are contributing to the people aspect of the brand's social media presence through personal accounts, doTERRA's official social media channels are also following many of the principles outlined in the text such as listening, talking to, energizing, supporting, and embracing the groundswell. 

SWOT Analysis

Strengths

• A consistent theme across all channels. All photos and videos are on brand and have the same look. 
• Strong appeal to emotions. In the Behind the Bottle series, doTERRA emphasizes the social impact mission to empower people around the world in the process of creating the oils.
• Regular BOGO and discount promotions.
• Giveaways specifically for social media (example: comment what plant this is to be entered into a giveaway)

Weaknesses

• No traditional advertising
• Inconsistency in engaging with followers across platforms
• Photo feeds look too staged, it seems like a push to buy products rather than connecting with audience
• "White savior" complex vibe in co-impact sourcing videos -- questions of ingenuity 

Opportunities

• Partner with Wellness Advocates to produce content
• Live demonstrations
• Behind the scenes of events and the sourcing process
• Target younger and male demographics

Threats

• Language when talking about the effectiveness (they cannot mention any diseases in the marketing, not approved by FDA)
• Biomedicine is seen as superior to holistic health primarily in Western culture
• Supply chain regulatory issues (what is actually pure?)

Recommendations

While it makes sense that doTERRA has a bigger focus on Facebook because most of its target market is on the platform, Instagram and Twitter should not be neglected. Instagram engagement is not as high as Facebook's, but doTERRA still puts in the time to respond to comments, ask questions in their stories and other interactions. This isn't the case with Twitter where there is very little engagement and few responses to inquiries. Although there aren't as many customers on Twitter, there are still some using Twitter that want to engage with doTERRA--but that only works if doTERRA actually puts in more effort to engage through Twitter. Although each experience differs depending on the platform, doTERRA needs to maintain engagement consistency.

The essential oils target market is mostly older people because people tend to care more about their health when it becomes a problem instead of taking preventative measures. doTERRA can take advantage of the untapped younger market by having millenial-aged Wellness Advocates and focusing their content on what appeals to younger audience. As of now, doTERRA's family-friendly is directed towards moms with little kids, but what about teenagers or college students? doTERRA can find ways to energize young people such as essential oil education that is relevant to school or featuring younger people in their content.