The Problem
The case “Can Facebook save our furry friends?” by Kenyon (2013) clearly states that the non-profit animal shelter FCCRSNC is seriously limited by its scare resources of ‘money, time, and personnel’. Obviously the non-profit organization was not in a position to invest in new areas of business regardless of their likely potential. As the case indicates, FCCRSNC has failed to utilize the scope of social media marketing due to multiple reasons. Lack of expertise was the most important factor that caused the issue. Another reason was the shortage of fund for assigning these roles to professionals. Also, the firm was not sure about the significance of social media presence, for in the initial stages the organization did not required wider coverage. Admittedly, Rasmus required more fund, space, and manpower for the smooth functioning of the organization. At the same time she is now convinced of the importance of the online presence.
Significance of the Problem
The problems identified here cannot be ignored by a marketing professional. Some of the reasons can be listed as follows;
The emergence of social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter has tremendously changed the way people create their world
Facebook is the most popular social network today. This website has over one billion active users as of September 2012.
Although Facebook actually intended to improve social relations, today this website has turned to be a new style of online branding.
The site is a prominent platform for business promotion today
Hence, Facebook is good for business promotion today, and Rasmus should present this idea in the meeting. In contrast to conventional promotion techniques, Facebook based promotion can assist Rasmus to collect customer feedbacks regarding various service instantly. If the organization does not consider the significance of this problem, it will have to limit its access to local resources.
Social Media Campaign
Today all successful organizations have well maintained Facebook pages through which they keep touch with their customers. Market analysts point out that Facebook is very helpful for companies with regard to brand positioning in the current business environment. The simple logic is that modern people spend much time browsing internet, particularly Facebook. Therefore, TV ads would be less effective (in terms of cost and productivity). The most fascinating advantage of Facebook based brand positioning is that it significantly benefits businesses to cut down their operating costs while achieving the planned benefits quickly. An organization like FCCRSNC can very cheaply maintain a Facebook page and develop its followers group as there is no extra charge for doing so.
Facebook provides users with extensive exposure to information and information sharing, and this feature of social media contributes to word of mouth referrals. The Guardian reports that “there are more than 3.2 billion likes and comments posted to Facebook every day, many of those to the 37m brand pages” (Fox-Davies, 2012). It directly reflects the unimaginable scope of Facebook based brand promotion.
Significance of Expertise
FCCRSNC’s Facebook page should reflect its business and its ideologies. The management must pay higher attention to the quality of its brand page. To illustrate, the firm may set a cover photo that depicts the message and quality of services it offers. It can include the “find us on Facebook” option on its website, emails, and newsletters in order to encourage its existing customers to like the firm’s brand page. Hence, the company gets a huge group of existing and prospective customers subscribed to its brand page. Every new post should assist the FCCRSNC to engage with its existing customers and other subscribers. By creating high-quality interactive posts, FCCRSNC can improve the level of engagement on its page. FCCRSNC can get the assistance from Social Media Marketing people and Search Engine Optimization experts to measure the success of the campaign.
In total, Facebook based brand promotion will assist FCCRSNC to interact with a huge volume of existing and prospective customers. The organization can meet its goals in respect to service promotion and public support just by creating and promoting an attractive Facebook page.
References
Fox-Davies, T. (2012). Driving revenue and growth through Facebook the Guardian, Oct 11. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/small-business-network/2012/oct/11/sales-and-revenue-through-facebook
Kenyon, K. (2013). Can Facebook save our furry friends? Case Study. Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation.
