The Social media platform has changed the way companies market and engage with customers by allowing constant communication. The aim of this article is to critique the strategies that other companies have ran on social media and suggest useful tactics that Businesses could incorporate and try to innovate.

(Vahl, 2014) identifies ten marketing strategies that have been successful of Facebook, one of the strategies by Qatar Airways posts about American football which they have identified is what the customers are interested in.  The benefits of using this strategy is the business is able to change the basic relationship that they share with their customers, which is about the transaction. By using this strategy, it makes the relationship more complex so that the customer will be more prone to brand loyalty. This strategy also allows the company to be a foundation where customers can come as a community and discuss interests such as football.

Another effective Marketing campaign that has proved successful on Facebook is running a competition for customers, it brings in high engagement and companies who add stipulations such as downloading the app receive a deal and register for the competition find that they are able to attract and retain more quality customers (Vahl, 2014).

The common theme when looking at these examples is that they all regard adding value to the customer as the most important factor when marketing on social media all of the strategies aim to make their impression on the customer by trying to bring out an emotional response from their customers which enhances customer engagement (Zheng et al, 2015).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es-6Qzooy2I

One model that can be applied to the creating a successful Facebook Marketing Campaign is (Zheng et al, 2015) User Engagement Model. They argue eight hypotheses that lead to brand loyalty, they state that User participation in online brand communities in SNSs (Social Networking Sites) is positively associated with online community commitment. Also User promotion in online brand communities in SNSs is positively associated with online community commitment. Theses statements have both been supported by (Vahl, 2014) in their examples of successful marketing strategies with cases like Qatar Airways.

Aside from this, (Building Social Proof, 2016) suggest that businesses must also make sure of three things when devising a marketing strategy on Facebook:

• Firstly, that businesses have picked the right target audience, precise marketing to customer will serve a business better than general marketing techniques options like Facebooks look alike audience serve to collect potential customers similar to the business website audience.
• Secondly not using Conversion Pixels which helps as a performance insight into conversion rate of customers

(Facebook, 2016)

• Finally, not using the reports to its full potential businesses should understand what number of their target markets are responsive to the posts and what are the cost per conversion and the click rates.

However, there are limitations in creating and managing social media marketing campaign as addressed by (Digital Marketing Philippines, 2016) (Sharma, 2013) who highlight the threats of negative comments that can damage the businesses reputation with the negativity trending on Social Media if many customers become disillusioned with the company. A further problem that could be encountered is the time spent on social media and how a business judges its return on capital from social media because having a high number of followers does not necessarily convert to high sales volume (Gray, 2016).

Despite having some limitation marketing on Social Media is beneficial because if businesses are able to keep in mind adding value to their customer by means of utilising strategies such as competitions eye catching visuals and displaying genuine interest in topics that the customers are interested in then their reputation and credibility on social media will expand.

References

Youtube.com (2016) “How To Market On Facebook | Exactly How To Take Over Facebook For Your Business!” [online] available at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es-6Qzooy2I [accessed on 21^st April 2016]

Zheng, X., Cheung, C.M.K., Lee, M.K.O. & Liang, L. 2015, “Building brand loyalty through user engagement in online brand communities in social networking sites”, Information Technology & People [online] available at  http://www.emeraldinsight.com.ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk/doi/pdfplus/10.1108/ITP-08-2013-0144 [accessed on 22nd April 2016]

Vahl, A. (2014) “10 Successful Facebook Marketing Examples” [online] available at  http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/10-successful-facebook-marketing-examples/[accessed on 19^th April]

Lommer, J. (2013) “14 Steps to Succeeding at Facebook Marketing”[online] available at http://www.jonloomer.com/2013/11/07/facebook-marketing-success/ [accessed on 17^th April 2016]

Bulygo, Z. (2016)” Facebook Marketing: A Comprehensive Guide for Beginners” [online] available at https://blog.kissmetrics.com/facebook-marketing/[accessed on 17^th April 2016]

Baker, D. (2016) “What Role Should Facebook Play in Your Marketing?” [online] available at  https://contently.com/strategist/2016/01/04/what-role-should-facebook-play-in-your-marketing/ [accessed on 20th April 2016

Sharma, P. (2013) “Disadvantages of Social Media Marketing” [online] available at  http://www.wisitech.com/blog/social-media-marketing-tool/ [accessed on 20th April 2016

Seiter, C. (2015) “What Should I Post On Facebook, 12 Facebook Tactics Working Right Now” [online] accessed on (https://blog.bufferapp.com/post-facebook-12-facebook-tactics-working-right-now [accessed on 12th April 2016]

Digital Marketing Philippines (2016) “The Pros and Cons of Social Media Marketing for Business” [online] available at http://digitalmarketingphilippines.com/the-pros-and-cons-of-social-media-marketing-for-business/ [accessed on 24th April 2016]

Gray, A. I. (2016) “4 Reasons Why You Should Not Buy Followers” [online] available at   http://iag.me/socialmedia/4-reasons-why-you-should-not-buy-followers/ [accessed on 23th April 2016]

Facebook (2016) “Facebook for Business” [online] available at https://www.facebook.com/business/help/952192354843755 [accessed on 23th April 2016]

Youtube (2016) 3 Biggest Facebook Advertising Mistakes – Facebook advertising tips and strategies [online] available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpyvKo3f6Ec [accessed on 23th April 2016]

Building Social Proof (2016) [online] available at http://www.buildingsocialproof.com/blog/ [accessed on 23th April 2016]