Social Media Marketing – The Do’s & Don’ts:
In today’s technology driven world, social networking sites have become an avenue where retailers can extend their marketing campaigns to a wider range of consumers (Chi 2011). There are about 3 billion people around the world who have access to the Internet, which is about 45 percent of the global population. Approximately 2.1 billion people have social media accounts, and approximately 1.7 billion people have active social media accounts (Rosen 2016).
In discussing the recent development of social media Campbell et al. (2011) state that it is much more to do with what people are doing with the technology than the technology itself, for rather than merely retrieving information, users are now creating and consuming it, and hence adding value to the websites that permit them to do so. Sorescue et al. (2011), stress that a retailer must go beyond the advertising aspect of social networking sites and find groundbreaking ways to use them as a way to conduct conversations with consumers, instead of a one-way communication network.
Sales:
McCarthy (2015) reported that Facebook now influences over 52% of consumers in their online or offline purchases. Companies using social media as a form of selling have seen a 22.2% increase in sales revenue compared to companies not using social media (Brudner 2016). A major concept assisting businesses with the development of social media is the theory of shopper marketing. Shopper marketing is “the planning and execution of all marketing activities that influence a shopper along, and beyond, the entire path of purchase, from the point at which the motivation to shop first emerges through purchase, consumption, repurchase, and recommendation” (Shankar et al. 2011).
Viral Advertising:
Viral advertising has become a way in which retailers are marketing and providing more information on their brands or products. A viral approach to online advertising has a ‘major advantage’ because communication is more targeted to a brand’s intended consumer (Bampo et al. 2008). Viral advertising is “unpaid peer to peer communication of provocative content originating from an identified sponsor using the Internet to persuade or influence an audience to pass along the content to others” (Chu 2011). Golan and Zaidner (2008) state that consumer to consumer communication is the dominate force for distributing messages created by advertisers; for that reason retailers need to look at marketing in a whole new way and include social media marketing within their business plan.
Brand Image:
When exploring the subject of social media it is key to explore the limitations within the topic. Kaiser (2013) fears that ‘the power of social media is being touted by many who are not aware that there are other forms of marketing that are just as essential. In fact, social networking activities are not a solution to marketing issues. They are tools for reaching large numbers of people, inexpensively, but they are not yet the tools that bind people to a company’. De Vries (2012) explains that ‘The share of positive comments on a brand post is positively related to brand post popularity’. This can work in both ways and consumers interested in a brand can also act in a negative manner. Much negative information appears to produce a negative effect on attitude toward the ad and the brand (Eisend 2006). Negative consumer reviews have a negative effect on purchase intentions or sales (Chevalier and Mayzlin 2006). Schlosser (2015) goes on to say that people do differentiate in their opinions. The seeing of negative comments can trigger consumers who are faithful to the brand to reply with positivity.
Social Media Monitoring:
Social media monitoring is a critical aspect to any well thought-out social strategy implementation. Social media monitoring has two main drawbacks. Firstly, the element of Spam and junk information that has to be shifted through to gain the correct information. In most cases spam can become such a problem that you have to alter variables in such a way that you end up missing over half of the conversations about your brand.
The second factor is based around the intrusiveness with social media monitoring. In recent research from J.D.Power it is suggested that 51% of social media users want to talk about companies without them listening in and 43% think social media monitoring invades their privacy. Taylor (2013) states ‘whilst this research will do little to deter brands from monitoring social mentions, it may make them think twice about when to engage. If a customer tweets about a brand, but does not ask a direct question or request for help, should the brand get involved?’. The risk is that users may see this as an unwanted intrusion. The thought process is that you would not interrupt a conversation two people were having in public so why would you do it online?
References:
Bampo, Mauro, Michael T. Ewing, Dineli R. Mather, David Stewart, and Mark Wallace. (2008). “TheEffects of the Social Structure of Digital Networks on Viral Marketing Performance.” Information Systems Research 19: 273-290.
Brudner , E. (2016). 6 Surprising Statistics on Social Selling That All Salespeople Should Know. Available: https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/surprising-statistics-on-social-selling-that-all-salespeople-should-know#sm.0000ohygau1e95fg1rkc3sxt7qz2a. Last accessed 17th Feb 2018.
Campbell, Colin, Leyland F. Pitt, Michael Parent, and Pierre R. Berthon. (2011). “Understanding Consumer Conversations around Ads in a Web 2.0 World.” Journal of Advertising 40:87-102.
Chevalier, J.A. and Mayzlin, D. (2006). “The Effect of Word of Mouth on Sales: Online Book Reviews,” Journal of Marketing Research (43:3), pp. 345-354.
Chi, Hsu-Hsien. (2011) “Interactive Digital Advertising VS. Virtual Brand Community: Exploratory Study of User Motivation and Social Media Marketing Responses in Taiwan.” Journal of Interactive Advertising 12: 44-61.
Chu, Shu-Chuan. (2011). “Viral advertising in social media: Participation in Facebook groups andresponses among college-aged users.” Journal of Interactive Advertising 12: 30-43.
De Vries, L. (2012). Popularity of Brand Posts on Brand Fan Pages: Effects of Social Media Marketing. Available:http://www.aenorm.nl/files/nlaenorm2012/file/article_pdfs/7m2rw_Popularity%20of%20brand%20posts%20on%20brand%20fan%20pages.pdf. Last accessed 17th Feb 2018.
Eisend, M. (2006). Two-Sided Advertising: A MetaAnalysis. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 23(2), 187-198
Golan, Guy J. and Lior Zaidner. (2008). “Creative Strategies in Viral Advertising: An Application of Taylor’s Six-Segment Message Strategy Wheel.” Journal of Computer –MediatedCommunications 13: 959-972.
J.D. Power. (2013). Poor Social Media Practices can Negatively Impact a Businesses’ Bottom Line and Brand Image. Available: http://www.jdpower.com/press-releases/2013-social-media-benchmark-study. Last accessed 17th Feb 2018.
Kaiser, M. (2014). The Power and Limits of Social Media. Available: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-kaiser/the-power-and-limits-of-s_b_3893320.html. Last accessed 17th Feb 2018.
McCarthy, J. (2015). Facebook influences over half of shoppers .Available: http://www.thedrum.com/news/2015/04/24/facebook-influences-over-half-shoppers-says-digitaslbi-s-connected-commerce-report. Last accessed 17th Feb 2018.
Rosen , J. (2016). Social Media Growth Statistics. Available: http://www.business2community.com/social-media/social-media-growth-statistics-01545217#CAAcdUv9dVcW3CgA.97. Last accessed 17th Feb 2018.
Schlosser, A. (2015). Converting Web Site Visitors into Buyers: How Web Site Investment Increases Consumer Trusting Beliefs and Online Purchase Intentions. Available: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tiffany_White2/publication/228630251_Converting_Web_Site_Visitors_into_Buyers_How_Web_Site_Investment_Increases_Consumer_Trusting_Beliefs_and_Online_Purchase_Inten. Last accessed 17th Feb 2018.
Shankar,Venkatesh, Jeffery Inman, Murali Mantrala, Eileen Kelley & Ross Rizley.(2011). “Innovations in Shopper Marketing: Current Insights and Future Research Issues.” Journal of Retailing 1:s29-s42.
Sorescu, Alina, Ruud T. Frambach, Jagdip Singh, Rangaswamy Arvind, and Cheryl Bridges. (2011). “Innovations in Retail Business Models.” Journal of Retailing 1: s3-s16
Taylor, D. G., Lewin, J. E., & Strutton, D. (2011). Friends, fans, and followers: Do ads work on social networks? Journal of Advertising Research, 51(1), 258-275.
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