Abstract
Social media is changing the world marketing in various ways. Companies are using the social network to reach a broad range of customers. This paper defines social media and social marketing terminologies. Social media is any online platform where people can connect with friends, share pictures, photos, and messages either openly or through private messages. Social media marketing involves creating web traffic or attention on the social media platforms. In this regard, the traditional approach to marketing has since become less efficient. More people trust information shared on the social media just as they would to a word of mouth.
Besides, the social media tends to sieve the customers that marketers can target. For instance, there are groups with mutual concerns, such as job searching or professional groups like teachers, lawyers, doctors that a market can focus with little efforts. Narrowing the niche increases the efficiency in marketing. Further, people tend to rate the products or demand for answers on their concerns on social media. It follows that marketing information needs to be as convincing as possible because it could lead to harsh criticism on the online platforms. In this regard, there has been a significant increase in competition as more and more companies go online to market their products. The presence of immediate reviews, customer responses and other experiences allows clients to compare prices, performances, durability, and other aspects stiffening competition. Social media marketing also saves time and by extension money. However, it requires extensive research and support staff to handle issues that client or customer raise online. From this point of view, the cost of marketing may considerable increase as the firm use more and more social media platforms.
Introduction
In today’s technology-driven world, we can see that how social media completely changes the world of marketing. In this era, all businesses are doing marketing of their products and service by using social media. Social media helps the companies to extend their marketing campaigns to a wider range of consumer. In past few years, social media enforces many companies to change their marketing style and by social media marketing which takes advantage of social networking to help a company in enlarging or broaden the customer reach. It helps the companies to increase the brand exposure in the customers. Increasing brand exposure and broaden customer reach. Social media encourage the marketers to create such content on online networks that compel enough user to share it with other (De Vries, Gensler and Leeflang, 2012).
Social media marketing can be defined as it builds a connection between consumers and brands which offer such channels to the users by social interaction and addressing networking. The ways or approaches used by marketers to communicate with customers have changed greatly due to the emerging use of social media marketing. So the business should learn about social media a make such business plan, which is consistent with emerging needs of the developed world (Tuten and Solomon, 2014). It is very important for those companies with are trying to gain the competitive advantage in the market.
This paper will explain the terminologies that define social media and social media marketing, which then following the ways which help social media in changing the world of market and some examples of the companies are using social media for marketing.
Social media
In today’s world, social media becomes the need of the present time. To understand about the Social media, we should know about the World Wide Web (www) first. World Wide Web is a way which provides their end users a place where the content can be changed by the users or operators and that data can be shared with other users (Tuten and Solomon, 2014).
The term social media can be defined as “it is a group of internet based applications that is built on World Wide Web, it allow their users to create and share the content which is generated by the users (Tuten and Solomon, 2014)
Social media is a location which provides an online platform to their users to take part in the conversations. For individuals it is a platform which helps them, to be connected and share their content with friends and family. For businesses it is a very good platform where they can know about their brand, product, and services, they can come to know that what people are saying about their brand. They can participate in the conversation people are doing online about their product and services and come up with new ideas and make better business decision (De Vries, Gensler and Leeflang, 2012).
Social media is considered as the darling of the marketing world and has been so for quite some time. In the present time, it is very difficult to find anyone who doesn't have any social media profile or not using any popular social network like Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube. LinkedIn is a social networking site designed specifically for the business community. LinkedIn has a goal of t to allow registered members to establish and document networks of people they know and trust professionally (De Vries, Gensler and Leeflang, 2012).
The phrase social media networking is often used interchangeably with social media. But social media is different as it helps the people to interact with one another. It permits their users to generate their personal information profiles and then invite their friends and family to access and see to their profiles. Thus, social media creates an environment for the companies to enhance marketing by using social media. And in few past years social media completely change the world of marketing and in this technology world, a business can do business on a large scale while they are using social media for marketing (De Vries, Gensler and Leeflang, 2012).
Social media has developed in such ways which is not simply providing a platform to people but which help the people to sit and stay in touch or interact with their friends and family. The social media presence turns the platform into the places where the consumer can learn more about their companies and the products they sell. So the companies have to do marketing on social sites to advertise their product and inform about their products to a large number of consumers. The advancement of technology helps increases the power of search engines and online social networks, and also increase the ability of marketers to reach the customers through new touch points or ways (Spero and Stone, 2004).
Social media marketing
Social media marketing (SMM) is a process of gaining website traffic or attention through social media sites. Social media marketing is a form of internet marketing that implements various social media networks to achieve marketing communication and brandings goals. Social media marketing covers activities involving social sharing of content, videos, and images for marketing purposes as well as paid social media advertising.
Social media changes the traditional marketing
In the era of technology advancement, Social media helps in altering the old or traditional marketing methods. Social media has helped to create new online markets, connecting customers and businesses in nearly every country or region of the world. Social media helps the customers to learn about other customers experiences and get information about other brands and products and services which will help them to find such deals in which they can get incentives (Spero and Stone, 2004).
Social media become instrumental when devising marketing campaigns. Due to the increasing number of social media channels available, achieving brand visibility has become easier for businesses, social media has also greatly impacted search engine optimization by triggering social signals to build a websites ranking. Social signals are created by social media audiences they like, share or recommend a business. Search engine picks up on these signals and boosts a business’s position on the result page. Creating and sharing images is a good way for a business to boost or increase the amount of social signals their brand receives (Spero and Stone, 2004).
Marketers recognize that email marketing is still essential for creating leads. They are starting to increase these lead numbers by updating their email marketing content in their social media status updates (Andreasen, 2002)
Now a day’s word-of-mouth is no longer restricted to those that you physically come in contact. Social media or social networking has made this possible to interact with people all over the world, which increases the brand's potential reach. According to social media today, consumers are more likely to trust word- of- mouth advertising on social media, than how a business markets their product or service on a website. From people simply ‘liking’ or ‘sharing’ information about a brand online, it has the potential to send this brand viral across all the social platforms. According to Neilson, 60% of consumers researching products online, learned about a particular brand from a social media channel. In data compiled by NM Incite, 63% of social media users list consumer ratings as their preferred source for information about products and services (Tuten and Solomon, 2014).
Consumers who are rating the product are social influencers they can have a significant impact on a particular brand. There are three categories of influencers Social broadcasters, mass influencers, and potential influencers. These influencers impact a brand by ‘liking’ and sharing content across social media, dramatically increasing that brand’s exposure to consumers.
Companies using online marketing strategies or the online marketers are starting to see the advantages of incorporating the social media into their marketing strategies. They are recognizing that consumer is turning to social media to cater their purchasing needs of products and services. Online marketers came to know by Researches that consumer’s reviews regarded by shoppers are more trustworthy than the marketing promotion which comes directly from the brand site. The majority of brands which are successful nowadays have a social media page to widen their marketing converge of making their brand more accessible to the social media users (Spero and Stone, 2004).
Changing face of marketing through social media
A whole new toolkit
In this shortly timed and fast era the marketers have to deal with a lot more information. This information is very helpful to them in making the different customer attracting strategies. New media’s now are playing a great role in transferring the messages to their consumers so easily and quick (See appendix for pictorial presentations). With the help of social media marketing, the marketers can easily identify either their product is doing well or how much it get succeed in getting appraise from the consumers. Furthermore, customers have shifted to the cell phones and marketers still haven’t made any strategies like advertisements apps which help them selling their products on the cell phone. Now it’s totally on the marketers how they come up with a plan to attract the customers who are using these latest technological gadgets.
The power of people
The wide change which is brought by the social media is that it convinces everyone from executives to peons, school teachers to students to the gatekeeper to watch and hear those advertisements. Social media has completely changed the view of marketers as it was used to be in past. It’s a complete right for everyone to raise their voice and do whatever they want to. Now customers are no more passive customers. They want immediate answers for which they queried. They want not to consider as walking wallets. They expect to be considered as an end, not as an end (Andreasen, 2002).
Interactivity
The most important and the powerful thing about the social media is that it is creating the direct links with the customers. Now almost all the passive customers are changing to active consumers. It is due to change in the consumer’s business relationship from passive to active monolog. Those organizations whose marketing strategies fulfill their needs the consumers started looking forward to them but if they not then consumers look for their competitors.
Competition overdrive
Social media has increased the competition in the market. As it does not restrict anybody to raise their voice, so it is very helpful for the businesses from small to mid-level and the large organizations. As the social media is everywhere so, marketers are always in search of the activities to find out the ways which help them attracting their customer, and their products sell like a hot cake. Now the marketers do not make the mistake to think that customers are unknown to the facts. For every marketing strategy, the marketers should think that the consumers have many choices, and they have to do something so that their customers will remain loyal to their brands.
A narrowing of niche
In old days, the marketers have so called strategies of making advertisements target their customers. They made advertisements in the simple most way. There was not much usage of mind. The concept of marketers was unknown at that time. But with the passing time the marketers came into being and totally change the scenario of the marketing world. With the help of social media person can get information about any product, at any time. Social media brings convenience to the consumers. So the marketers should focus on the social media campaigns. Marketers can easily identify their business target and niche (Hayman Ryder, 2013)
Increased marketing efforts
Social media marketing has increased the level of inputs as compared to the traditional marketing approaches. Marketers can do a lot more things with the help of social marketing rather than use old fashioned traditional marketing strategies. Social media marketing requires low cost, and if the marketers can get the use of social media marketing, then it would be very beneficial to the organization. Still there are so many tactics that can be used by the marketers which still has not been used.
Time is money
The social campaigns which are running on different Medias require a lot of time. It is in need of hours and hours to first make the entire advertisement and then it also require time for its implication. It demands a high level of creativity. It also requires the time of the consumers to spend hours on sitting in front of the television and watch their commercials. So through social media, they can easily connect to their customers and can make their campaign successful in no time. But it should be of worthy. It is the fact that a piece of content is catchable by the consumer if it has something attractive inside. To that sense of humor and creativity is a need (Hoffman and Fodor, 2010).
Broken Sales Funnel
Social media has chewed the traditional sale funnel and now it has to deal with whatever is the left over. Social networking has completely broken the sales funnel and now it is unable to repair. Now they are free from all the all fashioned advertising campaigns now everything is at one click. The consumer can get wherever their interest is and what brand they want to get. Social media sets everyone free. So the social media sites are playing a great role in it. But the question is still there whether the model was ever really relevant to begin.
Now a day’s advertisement is not restricted to TV only, but they are also taking several other media like FM radio. They try to get hold of every possible resource to reach the audience. It depends on the consumers as well how they take that advertisement either they listen to it or simply just ignore it. It is not an easy task to do an advertisement in a complete diversified cultured country. So the process of marketing has changed one of the ideas into one of the experience. So now the marketers are doing the advertisements in such a way so that their customers not only stick to their brands but also become the loyal consumers and buy their products and goods in future as well. And this all can be done through effective marketing.
Business-wide effort
Advertising is not the task which has to be done by the marketing department only. But it is done through the collaboration of the whole company together. The efforts of all the company’s staff involve in it. To work with the latest technology company is in need of the people who are aware of all such innovations and latest technology. The company has to adopt the new media so that it can spread its messages fast like wind (Haymann-Reder, 2012).
A Powerful market tool
With the advancement of technology, as social media change the world of marketing, the marketers are using now social media as a marketing tool. Social media provides a venue to the organization to expand their marketing campaigns to attract more customers and increases the market share by considering social media as a marketing tool. Organization should well aware of or understand every aspect of it. Social media is a very border term which describes software tools that create user-generated content that can be shared (Haymann-Reder, 2012).
There are some basic features that are necessary for every website to contain to meet the requirements of social networking website. These sites should contain content, profiles and a method or ways that allow users to connect with each other post comments to each other page and also to join virtual groups which are based on common interests (Andreasen, 2002)
For creating a successful marketing campaign on social media, consumers and marketers should open to technology. Consumer technology readiness can be defined as “people’s propensity to embrace and use new technologies for accomplishing goals in the home and workplace.” For marketers, it is very significant to know about consumer technology awareness because if their intended targeted market is not using social media or not aware of it, they can perceive it in the wrong sense, and social media marketing can be unrewarding. If marketing via interactive advertising would be a good fit for targeted market, then analysis of technology readiness can be determined (Haymann-Reder, 2012).
Shopper marketing has emerged as a new concept which is creating a new touch point for the interaction between customers and business. Shopper marketing is the way to plan and then execute marketing activities that influence the shopper along and also beyond the entire path of purchase from the point where the motivation is emerging for shoppers to shop through purchase, consumption, repurchase and recommendation. The increased use of the social media platforms by the consumers makes it a lucrative medium of advertising for the marketers. As social media advances, it creates new methods and ways for both companies and the customers to interact and facilitate the information sharing about brands (Haymann-Reder, 2012).
Companies using social media
With the extensive development of social media, now there is hardly any company which is not using social media. From barber to restaurant shops to political action committees, business and organization know that there is a huge audience to which they can reach only by using social media. But it’s not only to create a page and keeping it update. But it takes time and good abilities to do marketing online. Sometimes it very hard to business to decide which business site will best for it. There are many companies who is using social media (Andreasen, 2002).
T-Mobile USA
T-mobile is a company which considers as a technology giant and one of the wireless industry’s “big four.” So it’s not surprising that they are doing all they can do to reach out to their customer base in the extremely competitive market. But they take it beyond mere engagement. According to Social Bakers “T-Mobile” has been a consistently leading in social media interaction through their Facebook page (Hoffman and Fodor, 2010).
Pizza Hut
We see that something’s goes together like Americans and pizza, and no one see it understandable that more than the people over pizza hut. They are making their tweets, scrolling series of advertisement and sharing their promotional details through the social media platform. They use social media for reaching the customers in an entirely innovative way (Stelzner, 2010)
Conclusion
The crux of the whole matter is that social media changes the traditional marketing style with the change in technology. Social media helps the organizations to reach the large customer by using social media and to those organizations that are trying to cope with competitive advantage social media will help in creating the awareness about their brands by being creative nowadays. Many companies use social media for marketing and enlarge their business.
References
Andreasen, A. R. (2002). Marketing social marketing in the social change marketplace. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 21(1), 3-13.
De Vries, L., Gensler, S., & Leeflang, P. S. (2012). Popularity of brand posts on brand fan pages: An investigation of the effects of social media marketing. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 26(2), 83-91.
Heymann-Reder, D. (2012). Social media marketing. Addison-Wesley Verlag.
Hoffman, D. L., & Fodor, M. (2010). Can you measure the ROI of your social media marketing?. MIT Sloan Management Review, 52(1), 41.
Spero, I., & Stone, M. (2004). Agents of change: how young consumers are changing the world of marketing. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 7(2), 153-159.
Stelzner, M. A. (2010). Social media marketing industry report: How marketers are using social media to grow their businesses. SocialMedia Examiner.
Tuten, T. L., & Solomon, M. R. (2014). Social media marketing. Sage.
Appendix
10 laws of social media marketing adopted from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/218160
The Law of Listening
The Law of Focus
The Law of Quality
The Law of Patience
The Law of Compounding
The Law of Influence
The Law of Acknowledgment
The Law of Value
The Law of Accessibility
The Law of Reciprocity
