Social Media refers to marketing using media such as online communities, social networks and blogs. The top four social media tools are Facebook, twitter, linkeldn and blogs. There has been an increase in the use of social media as it fulfils certain human needs. People want to connect with others and make friends. They want to know what others are doing and hear their views on what is happening in the world. People also want to express their feelings and even tell people what they are doing right now and what they plan to do in the future.
The Advantages of Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing provides a medium for selling goods and services. The costs of social media marketing are also considerably lower than traditional forms of marketing such as print and television or radio. It also provides a medium for the company to listen to the customer’s grievances and complaints. The marketers are able to identify and connect with various peer groups who are able to influence others. These influencers become brand evangelists and help in the growth of the company’s brand (Neti, 2011).
Social media increases the exposure of the company. It increases the traffic of the new members or subscribers to the company website. On the social media sites, the companies provide the web address and customers are able to go to the website if they are interested in getting more information. The company’s ratings in search engine rises.
Social media assists the company to build new relationships and partnerships with the customers. Businesses take advantage of social media for several reasons. It gives them access to a lot of people.
A social network like Facebook has 250 million subscribers. Twitter on the other hand has 70-100 tweets per second. A person on Facebook has on average 120 friends. These social sites therefore provide access to a large number of people. If the company has a great reputation and quality services, the word is spread to a lot of people within a short time (Kaplan, &Haenlein, 2010).
The Disadvantages of Social Media
There are certain risks associated with social media marketing and a company should take adequate steps to mitigate these risks. In any social site, the comments by the users are not regulated. The users can post anything concerning their perception of the company’s product which can be picked up by journalists and used in storylines that will adversely affect the reputation of the company. There is also a power shift from the market executives to the public where people rely on product review and articles to decide whether they will invest in a product or not.
Certain companies are concerned with the addictive nature of the social networking sites and the attention it takes from the employees while they are working. They are concerned about lost productivity (Chi, 2011). If a site does not have sufficient authentication controls, a hacker may be able to access the passwords of the subscribers and get the personal information of the users. There is also the risk of cross scripting where the use of the victim’s website is used to execute an attack on a third party or access the victim’s personal information without their knowledge.
There has been the rise of phishing in social media. The users may open fake websites thinking they are interacting with the authentic websites. Their personal information is then stolen. The hackers can even get account information and steal money from the users.
There is high familiarity and intimacy on social sites that encourages an individual to share personal and corporate information with friends or family members. There is information leakage on trade secrets which competitors may obtain. If a malicious individual releases false information on the company’s websites, the viewers may take the information to be correct and social media causes the information to travel very quickly and the reputation of the company is severely affected.
These risks and reported incidences have made several companies to shut down on the use of social media marketing. However, there are ways in which these risks can be mitigated. The users should be educated on the importance of using password-protected screen savers and locking their computers when they leave their desk. The computer software should only accept strong passwords that are difficult to decipher.
The users should be encourages to scrutinise their email messages and report any suspicious content. They should not click on any links in the emails or provide any login details or any other personal information. Employees should ensure that the anti-virus software on their laptops is up to date. They should also be alerted not to share personal information over social media and especially company information. In overall, the organization should introduce a security policy that will guide the information technology operations to ensure that the company data is secured and protected.
Coca Cola’s Efforts in Social Media
The company is highly involved in social media and recently they were involved in two initiatives known as the “Expedition 206” and ‘24-hour session with Maroon 5”. In the expedition, the company sent three bloggers all around the world with all their expenses covered by the company. The three bloggers went to all the 206 countries where coca cola products are sold. The main objective of the campaign was to find out what makes the customers happy in their interaction with the company’s products.
The campaign involved posting videos on YouTube, tweeting and blogging. The team also attended the winter Olympics in Vancouver and other activities in the other countries (Sullivan. 2009). The three bloggers were selected from the public where invitations were sent to the fan base for the interested individuals to apply for the position. They were to be known as the “Open Happiness” ambassadors. At the beginning 60 applicants were selected then the number was narrowed to 18 and then eventually the final three. The eighteen applicants were taken to Atlanta where interviews were conducted. They were reduced to nine then placed in three groups and they were encouraged to solicit for votes from the public. They used Facebook and twitter to gather support. The final three chosen and they were two men and a lady from the United States, Belgium and Mexico. The main goal of the campaign was to focus on the joy and optimism associated with the company.
For one year, the bloggers travelled all over the world. They would spend a maximum of three days in a country. As they travelled, the winners would blog, tweet and update their status on Facebook on their experiences in every country. The public were therefore kept aware of what
was going on all the time. There were even videos posted on YouTube. The campaign was a total success. The senior manager of digital communications told the public that the campaign resulted in 650 million media contacts. There were also billions of individuals involved in the campaign whether through online and offline mediums. It created high visibility for the company especially in countries such as China.
The second campaign ‘24-hour session with Maroon 5” was also a success. Coca cola and the band teamed in March, 2011 to create music. The public were invited to communicate with the band through social media by sending in words, pictures and comments. They were to motivate the band. They were also invited to ask questions and vote for different options for the song. The main objective of the campaign was to allow teenagers to know what happens behind the scenes of the music industry. The campaign was promoted through Facebook and twitter and there were bloggers across 20 countries that helped in the campaign. For this campaign, there were challenges such as internet browsers crashing, spamming and receipt of inappropriate messages.
Finally a song was produced by the band known as “Is Anybody Out There?” The song was available for download at the company’s website. For the first 100,000 downloads of the song, the company made a donation to the company Replenish Africa Initiative (RAIN) an organization that provided access to safe drinking water for several communities in Africa. There were 350,000 people logged in the stream video of the campaign for the whole duration. There were also 250,000 fans that tweeted on the campaign by placing the hash tag, # followed by maroon 5. It was an intense 24 hours where a song was created and many fans involved in the process.
Social Media Marketing by Korean Tour Company
KAL Tour Company is a subsidiary of the KAL (Korean airlines). The company decided to get involved in social media marketing in order to improve its corporate image and build customer relationship. There are two staffs in charge of the social media and they are charged with the responsibility of inputting information on Facebook, twitter and other social sites. They are assisted by outsourced media companies which take care of the technical services and customer service.
There are certain initiatives carried out to increase the visibility of the company. There is a contest for exciting travel story where the customers get an opportunity to share their travel stories. There is also a contest for travel pictures which is even more interactive as customers share their photographs. The customers are invited to vote for their favourite destinations where they have travelled with the firm in order to choose the best destinations. The company sends out electronic messages where they invite their customer’s friends to join the company on twitter and Facebook. In twitter, the company is able to spread word fast and secure higher sales by tweeting about their packages which have their deadlines approaching (Park & Oh, 2012).
The popularity of the company has increased. It has the second highest number of followers amongst the tour companies in Korea in twitter. The company Facebook site is used to provide detailed information to the customers and interact with them on an individual level. There is a major social networking site known as Coupang where the company sells its tour packages. This has provided an opportunity for the company to get involved in social commerce with minimal investment. By the company understanding and appreciating the distinct characteristics of the social sites the effectiveness of the social media marketing is maximised.
Pepsi’s Efforts in Social Media
In 2010, the company decided to get involved in social media marketing. The company launched the Pepsi Refresh Project. The company redesigned the logo and wanted to refresh and modernise their brand by getting associated with social media. It was believed by the management that they could build a healthier brand and create high awareness by conducting a social media campaign than by using the traditional forms of advertising.
The management believed in carrying out the campaign as a result of a research carried out that showed 70% of Americans believed that new ideas from each other would be the ones that would be the most impactful in the next decade(Preston,2011). The company made a decision to divest in participating in the Super Bowl event and other traditional forms of advertising. The company encouraged social entrepreneurs through grants to post videos on YouTube to promote their ideas. Secondly, it created competition for funding ideas.
The social engagement project was successful. The people submitted a total of 12,600 ideas and there were 87 million votes cast. The votes were cast either on the project refresh website or through the project refresh Facebook page. There project also generated more than 3M likes on the status updates that allowed the company to post on the users News Feeds. The company received even more attention when the project was highlighted in thousands of local newspapers and television stories. The company was praised for the innovative project and initiating a ground breaking social movement.
Despite the positive reviews, in 2010, the sales were much lower than expected. The sales for Pepsi and diet Pepsi fell by 4.8% and 5.2% respectively. The market share percentage fell by 0.6% to 29.3%. However, Coca cola’s market shares on the other hand improved by 0.1%. The management told the public that they did not expect that the project’s success would pay off in the first year but in the consecutive years.
In 2011, the company ran the project again (Bauerlein, 2011). They responded to the public’s comments and complaints on the 2010 project. They wanted the social media efforts to translate to higher sales. The company however realized they cannot neglect other forms of advertising. It increased the television advertising by 30% and spent $60 M to support the popular program, X-factor. It also got involved in the Super Bowl in 2011.
In the Super Bowl, the fans were invited to submit commercials and vote on their favourite one for it to be shown during the game. There was also a social vending machine where the users interacted with it through a touch screen and they are able to send drinks to their friends. The friends would be informed through personalized messages. Throughout the project, the company was able to interact with the public and understand their views and the adverts that they connected with which the company had launched in the past.
The Future of Social Media
Social Media will be even more progressive in the future and sites such as Facebook will enable the users to conduct more activities. The speed with which people can communicate will even be higher. The people will be influenced more in terms of what they buy or invest in by the views being communicated on Facebook and twitter. Companies will have to employ staff to track the public’s perception and views on the internet concerning their product and respond to these comments in order to conserve image of the company. The company will be able to forecast the sales of the company’s products by analysing the public’s views on social media sites.
In the future, there will be higher connectivity in social media through mobiles and companies will want to invest more in mobile advertising. However, they will need to first carry out research to find out if the investment will be worth it in terms of revenue generation. There will be a lot of competition when it comes to social advertising. More and more companies will join others in investing in social media advertising. The companies will need to take certain steps to ensure it is a success.
They will be a lot of traffic to manage and security risks therefore companies will have to employ social media experts and departments which will oversee the whole process. This is to ensure that the user comments are screened, there is data protection and customers are responded to in a timely basis.
As there are more companies advertising on social media, the speed which customer’s queries are addressed will be a key issue. There will also be a lot of research conducted to confirm that the social media advertising efforts are translating into sales. This will be necessary as companies invest a lot of money in social media marketing.
References
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Chi, M. (2011).Security Policy and Social Media Use. Sans Institute Paper, 1-28.
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Neti, S. (2011).Social Media And Its Role In Marketing. International Journal of
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Park, J., & Oh, I. (2012).A Case Study of Social Media Marketing by
Travel Agency: The Salience of Social Media Marketing in the Tourism Industry. International Journal of Tourism Sciences, 12 (1), 93-106.
Preston, J. (2011). Pepsi Bets on Local Grants, Not the Super Bowl. Retrieved from
www.nytimes.com
Sullivan. H. (2009). Coca-Cola to Send Employee Bloggers on All Expenses Paid, Round-the-
World Trip. Strategic Communication Management, 13(6), 9-15.
