Social media Marketing (Brief Insight)
Everyday, the number of people online increases. In 2002, about 361 million people were able to access the internet worldwide. In 2014, more than 3billion, which is a massive growth of 764%! As of today, there are more than half of the world’s population online.
So what are these people doing online? First of all, people want to stay connected! Whether reaching out to high school pals, family members or distant friends. They also spend a greater amount of time socialising and sharing information. As people use social media sites, they sign up firstly with vital information which are very useful.
In marketing, the key focus is targeting the right market and it makes sense to market your product or services where your prospective customers will be hanging out. Here in the social media land.
So what is social media marketing?
Social media marketing (SMM) is a form of Internet marketing that utilizes social networking websites as a marketing tool. The goal of SMM is to produce content that users will share with their social network to help a company or business increase brand exposure and broaden customer reach. It is also the process of gaining traffic or attention through social media sites.
Over time social media has evolved. Beginning from 1979 when Usernets was launched. Usernets, the first progenitor of social media, allowed users to post on newsgroups. It was followed by bulletin board systems (BBS) which allowed users to login and interact. Online services like progidy were the precursors to BBS. After online services, internet relay chat came into light which gave way to instant messaging.
In the 90s, dating sites and forums were on peak, which led to the development of social networks. But they did not let users make friend lists. Six degrees launched to overcome this feature. It allowed profile creation and listing peers. It was purchased and shut down after playing for a decade. Blogging emerged in this phase, creating a sensation in social media. It is popular even today. Other sites like BlackPlanet(African-American Social Website) and MiGente(Latino) cropped up having provision to create profiles and add friends.
Modern social networks came into picture post 2000. Apple launched its Friendster in 2002. It has millions of users. Hi5 and Linkedin were launched in 2003. Linkedin is a ground for professionals to reach out to one another. MySpace also originated in 2003 and became well known by 2006.
Similarly Facebook was launched in 2004 and surpassed MySpace, Orkut, Multiply, etc., and is still expanding. This decade also conceived media sharing platforms like photobucket, flickr, youtube, instagram, etc., along with news and bookmarking platforms like Digg and Delicious.
Since 2000, Social Media has bloomed to horizon and is still expanding limitlessly. Along with media sharing, many other portals that provide real-time updates were introduced, for example, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. In 2007, Facebook launched its advertising system.
Fast forward to 2017, we now have a lot of these platforms with millions of users on them. This important as businesses are leveraging this opportunity to meet their customers and connect better while increasing their brand awareness along the line.
Social media, as we just discussed, is a platform that allows users with similar interest to share information through content in form of texts, photos, and videos.
Social media marketing involves the use of social media sites and networks. Social networking websites allow individuals, businesses and other organizations to interact with one another and build relationships and communities online. When companies join these social channels, consumers can interact with them directly. That interaction can be more personal to users than traditional methods of outbound marketing and advertising. Social networking sites act as word of mouth or more precisely, e-word of mouth. The Internet’s ability to reach billions across the globe has given online word of mouth a powerful voice and far reach. The ability to rapidly change buying patterns and product or service acquisition and activity to a growing number of consumers is defined as an influence network.
Social networking websites are based on building virtual communities that allow consumers to express their needs, wants and values, online. Social media marketing then connects these consumers and audiences to businesses that share the same needs, wants, and values. Through social networking sites, companies can keep in touch with individual followers. This personal interaction can instill a feeling of loyalty into followers and potential customers.
Key Concepts of Social Media Marketing
The Platforms
The popular social media platforms includes but not limited to the under listed. They are:
Facebook
Facebook is undoubtedly the most popular social media platform available with many advantages associated with it. It is primarily a social networking site, however it can be used as a handy tool for promoting and advertising a business. We can use Facebook to promote a brand, market a company, or create awareness about a service or a product.
Twitter
Twitter is another social networking platform that allows registered users to read and write 140-character messages called ‘tweets’. It is available across all devices such as cell phones, desktops, laptops, and tablets.
Twitter marketing is a powerful tool for companies of every size and structure to reach out to new customers, promote their brand, and connect with the rest of the companies. Users can find out if customers are talking about them, and the business can accordingly respond.
Instagram
Instagram is a mobile, desktop, and Internet-based photo-sharing application and service that allows users to share pictures and videos either publicly or privately. It was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, and launched in October 2010 as a free mobile app.
Google+
Google+ is a social networking platform served by Google and relished by millions of users. Besides being a networking platform, it is a channel to make you known to search engines. Your presence on Google+ helps in improving your local search visibility. You can follow people in ‘Circles’ on Google+ for sharing information.
Pinterest
Pinterest is a dynamic social media platform for sharing favorite images, videos, fun media, etc. It can be termed as a visual bookmarking tool.
Using Pinterest, you can connect with other like-minded people by sharing your hobbies and interests through online bulletin boards.
Pinterest taps into a very fundamental human behavior – the desire to collect things (even if they may not be of any apparent value).
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site launched in 2003. It has 300+ million users across the world. It is available in 20 languages. It allows users to create and customize profiles and connect with people having similar interest areas.
Presently, it is the largest platform for social networking, assisting people with job opportunities. Jobseekers can connect and follow hiring managers and can update their profiles in a defined fashion to get easily discovered.
YouTube
YouTube is a video sharing website that lets you upload, view, and share videos. You can also like and comment on videos. It is used by millions of users. It is a great tool for business branding.
How To Integrate Social Media Marketing
To integrate social networks into marketing strategies, companies have to develop a marketing model. A marketing model (SNeM2S) based on social networks is provided. The model includes the following steps:
Social Media Optimization (SMO)
1. Aim for building reputation by depicting yourself as a trusted source or business.
2. Encourage more engagement and sharing.
3. Be an authorized name in your industry.
4. Be original.
5. It is social, so Keep it social.
6. Master over your media platforms.
7. Optimize every single point that hinders your efforts.
The Strategy
There are two basic strategies for engaging the social media as marketing tools: the passive approach and the active approach.
The Engagement Planning
In the context of the social web, engagement means that customers and stakeholders, such as consumer advocacy groups and groups that criticize companies (e.g., lobby groups or advocacy organizations) are active participants rather than passive viewers.
Social media use in a business or political context allows all consumers/citizens to express and share an opinion about a company’s products, services or business practices, or a government’s actioins. Each participating customer or non-customer (or citizen) who is participating online via social media becomes part of the marketing department (or a challenge to the marketing effort), as other customers read their positive or negative comments or reviews.
Getting consumers and potential consumers (or citizens) to be engaged online is fundamental to successful social media marketing. With the advent of social media marketing, it has become increasingly important to gain customer interest in products and services, which can eventually be translated into buying behavior (or voting or donating behavior in a political context). New online marketing concepts of engagement and loyalty have emerged which aim to build customer participation and brand reputation.
Campaigns
Purpose And Tactics
The importance of social media is undebatable. It is a powerful channel of marketing − a game changer for any business. It provides us the flexibility to communicate at both personal as well as business levels.
Business owners can improve search rankings, leads, sales, and traffic using search media. This can be done at reduced marketing expenses. Social media is as a communications tool that makes the companies accessible to those interested in their product and makes them visible to those who have no knowledge of their products.
These companies use social media to create buzz, and learn from and target customers. It’s the only form of marketing that can finger consumers at each and every stage of the consumer decision journey. Marketing through social media has other benefits as well. Of the top 10 factors that correlate with a strong Google organic search, seven are social media dependent. This means that if brands are less or non-active on social media, they tend to show up less on Google searches.
While platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ have a larger number of monthly users, the visual media sharing based mobile platforms, however, garner a higher interaction rate in comparison and have registered the fastest growth and have changed the ways in which consumers engage with brand content.
Instagram has an interaction rate of 1.46% with an average of 130 million users monthly as opposed to Twitter which has a 0.03% interaction rate with an average of 210 million monthly users. Unlike traditional media that are often cost-prohibitive to many companies, a social media strategy does not require astronomical budgeting.
Marketing Techniques
Social media marketing involves the use of social networks, consumer’s online brand-related activities (COBRA) and electronic word of mouth (eWOM) to successfully advertise online. Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter provide advertisers with information about the likes and dislikes of their consumers. This technique is crucial, as it provides the businesses with a “target audience”. With social networks, information relevant to the user’s likes is available to businesses; who then advertise accordingly.
Activities such as uploading a picture of your “new Converse sneakers to Facebook” is an example of a COBRA. Electronic recommendations and appraisals are a convenient manner to have a product promoted via “consumer-to-consumer interactions.
An example of eWOM would be an online hotel review; the hotel company can have two possible outcomes based on their service. A good service would result in a positive review which gets the hotel free advertising via social media. However, a poor service will result in a negative consumer review which can potentially harm the company’s reputation.
Metrics
Web site reports
This involves tracking the volume of visits, leads, and customers to a website from the individual social channel. Google Analytics is a free tool that shows the behavior and other information, such as demographics and device type used, of website visitors from social networks. This and other commercial offers can aid marketers in choosing the most effective social networks and social media marketing activities.
Return on investment data
The end goal of any marketing effort is to generate sales. Although social media is a useful marketing tool, it is often difficult to quantify to what extent it is contributing to profit. ROI can be measured by comparing marketing analytic value to contact database or CRM and connect marketing efforts directly to sales activity.
Customer response rates
Several customers are turning towards social media to express their appreciation or frustration with brands, product or services. Therefore, marketers can measure the frequency of which customers are discussing their brand and judge how effective their SMM strategies are. In recent studies, 72% of people surveyed expressed that they expected a response to their complaints on Twitter within an hour.
Reach and virality
Popular social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social networks can provide marketers with a hard number of how large their audience is nevertheless a large audience may not always translate into a large sales volumes.
Therefore, an effective SMM cannot be measured by a large audience but rather by vigorous audience activity such as social shares, re-tweets etc.
Comments
Post a Comment