Social Media Marketing – Are you following?

(Source: Marccx, 2016)

Social Media is a completely new medium for business, as such many businesses have not yet learnt how to fully take advantage of this fantastic marketing tool. But look no further, in this blog post I will be teaching you why Social Media Marketing is such a fantastic marketing tool, and also how you can make the most of it!

What is Social Media Marketing and why is it so great?

Social Media Marketing (or SMM) refers to “the process of marketing a business, individual or product on social networking sites” (Tracey et al, 2015); social networking sites being websites and apps such as Facebook, Twitter etc (obvious I know, but let’s cover all the bases just in case).

This is a marketing tool that has grown along side the rise of social media, with businesses creating new and innovative ways to harness the most out of the unique benefits offered.The main benefit of this form of marketing is obvious, it’s a numbers game. Due to the huge amount of social media users, organisations now have a reach that they never could have dreamed of; roughly speaking:

  • Facebook: 5 billion
  • Twitter: 320 million
  • LinkedIn: 380 million
  • Instagram: 400 million
  • Pinterest: 100 million
  • Snapchat: 200 million                                                                                                                                            (Source: Statista, 2016)

But how do businesses really gain from this huge reach? It would be logical to assume that an advert or brand would simply get lost in the sea of users? Right?

Well to put it simply, no. According to Oyza (2016), SMM allows businesses to reach its users and enhance its marketing through three key benefits; availability, increased brand loyalty, increased communication. So starting with availability, SMM allows any sized business access to a unique marketing stream (in volume and variety) that would otherwise be unavailable to them; this is particularly significant for small to medium sized enterprises (SME’s) that would otherwise struggle to create marketing campaigns with high levels of reach due to the level of resources available to them. A prime example of this is start ups, which I’m sure we’ve all seen hundreds of on Facebook. Small fashion start ups such as ‘AIFF Apparel’, have managed to create large levels of business and unique brand images  through marketing their business using simply popular hashtags on social media platforms combined with impressive visuals of their products. Click here to check out this impressive start ups Instagram.

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(Source: AIFF, 2016)

And this really goes hand in hand with brand loyalty, Oyza found that customers will actively seek businesses that they feel reflect their wants and beliefs. Once an individual actively seeks and connects with a business, assuming that the business continues regularly posting and connecting with their followers, customers will become more loyal to an organisation than simply through traditional advertisements.

Following on from this, the ability to communicate with customers is a huge draw of SMM. The two way dialogue stream allows for businesses not only to gauge feedback to their brand or products but also to respond on an individual bases to their customers; an ability that would otherwise be hugely costly and time consuming. A fantastic example of this is the website ‘GroupOn’ who have absolutely got the two way dialogue spot on, click here to check out their hilarious and effective replies to comments after using SMM to advertise a banana case (unsurprisingly these responses went viral). Here’s a couple of examples for those of you in a rush:

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(Source: Adweek, 2015)

How do you get the most out of SMM?

So the benefits are clear, but now you need to develop a SMM strategy that makes the most of the opportunities. Luckily for you, Ramsey (2010) outlines the do’s and don’ts of SMM strategies. He states that an effective SMM strategy SHOULD:

  • Develop a style: Your tone of voice will need to be different for each audience and situation, but make sure that brand personality comes through in every action and every communication.
  • Strike the right balance between conversation and sales: Nobody wants to receive repeated sales pitches via social media: therefore, it is important for organisations to be honest about why they are talking to consumers. Like any aspect of business, use dialogue to create a relationship not just to bombard them.
  • Do set limits for what is and is not to be tolerated in any channel: Just because an organisation wishes to seem approachable and conversational, it doesn’t mean it must put up with abusive comments. Escalate/refer difficult questions, delete abusive comments. No one likes airing their dirty laundry in public, it’s the same with SMM.
  • Vary the strategy per channel: It is silly to assume that all social media channels work in the same way. Different networks have different user profiles; therefore the tone and content used for one will not necessarily work for another. Variety is the spice of life, learn to customise your responses and strategies.

And there’s really only one don’t:

  • Don’t forget to update content:There is nothing worse than an organisation starting a twitter feed, which is active and updated for the first three weeks but then goes silent. No matter what SMM stream you’re swimming in, make sure you update the content regularly!

So there we go, the benefits of SMM are huge with minimal resources needed to achieve them. Follow the advice from Ramsey’s findings and you will be well on your way to developing a brilliant SMM campaign.

Falling short on thinking of content for your SMM strategy, click here to flick through some great examples and find inspiration.

 

 

 

 

 

References:

Adweek. (2015). Groupon Posted This Product on Facebook, Then Replied to Everyone. Available: http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/groupon-posted-product-facebook-then-replied-everyone-who-made-sex-joke-163737. Last accessed 10th Apr 2016.

AIFF. (2016). aiffapparel. Available: https://www.instagram.com/aiffapparel/. Last accessed 10th Apr 2016.

Marccx. (2016). What is Social Media Marketing and Why Should You Care? – See more at: http://www.marccx.com/social-media/what-is-social-media-marketing-and-why-should-you-care/#sthash.RGpss54I.dpuf. Available: http://www.marccx.com/social-media/what-is-social-media-marketing-and-why-should-you-care/. Last accessed 10th Apr 2016.

Oyza, I. (2016). Effectiveness of Social Media Networks as a Strategic Tool for Organizational Marketing Management. Journal of internet banking and commerce : JIBC. 4 (2), p1-19.

Ramsey, M. (2010). Social media etiquette: A guide and checklist to the benefits and perils of social marketing . Journal of Database Marketing & Customer Strategy Management. 17 (3), p257-261.

Statista. (2016). Leading social networks worldwide as of April 2016, ranked by number of active users (in millions). Available: http://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/. Last accessed 10th Apr 2016.

Tracy, T et al (2015). Social Media Marketing. 2nd ed. London: Sage. p34-56.

 

 

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