Blackshaw & Nazzaro exposes that social media provides the opportunity of consumers to post, like or share information and create content about topics they want (2004, cited in Mangold, W.G. & Faulds, D.J., 2009).

Social media is a term which gathers all the online social networks.

If you, as a brand, use social media in your digital marketing strategy, you need to learn how to lead a conversation about your brand in the best way for your business (Mangold, W.G. & Faulds, D.J., 2009).  In fact, being aware of what is said about your business is crucial.

 

BE AWARE OF WHAT IS SAID ABOUT YOU

Roberts & Kraynak (2008 cited in Akar, E. & Topçu, B., 2011) explains that the new marketers are the consumers present on social media posting, commenting or sharing about products or services from your brand. But this is the risk of using social media. You can’t shape easily the way a conversation is going and negative comments or bad posts over the brand can go viral. Have a big impact. And destroy your reputation. (Tracey Sandilands, 2018) In fact, Tereza Litsa (2018) gives an example of bad posts on Twitter.

If only nature would find a way to cover these oranges so we didn't need to waste so much plastic on them. pic.twitter.com/00YECaHB4D

— Nathalie Gordon (@awlilnatty) March 3, 2016

 

Because of the use of plastic packaging instead of letting the clementine peal, this post has gone viral. The opinion of this consumer over Whole Food has been a negative experience of how fast it is going on social media.

 

In their research, Akar, E. & Topçu, B., (2011) proves that 87% of consumers are regularly using social medias as YouTube or Facebook. And marketing influences their behaviour throughout their social media experience.

 

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

To establish a social media strategy, Alex York (2018) gives good information about social network sites.

On Facebook, 89% of women and 88% of users aged between 18-29 years old.

Twitter is less used by women with 25% of them on this network. For Snapchat this is less men with 24% of them.

With these you know to who you are writing, posting, sharing content on social media and you have to adapt those to the users.

 

The best time to post?

Nathan Ellering (2018) answers to this question and provides important numbers to know when to post:

• On Facebook, people are more aware of your posts at 1pm and at this time they are more willing to share or comment…
• On Twitter this is between 5-6pm.

 

Using analytics is inescapable to better know your audience, with for example with Brandwatch you can explore what your customers love, where your customers are…

Alex York also shows that 46% of the people on social media don’t like when brand is being too promotional and this lead to unsubscribes. This is the same scheme for brand pages with “irrelevant content”.

Thus you should be able to answer to this questions:

• Are your videos relevant to customer behaviour?
• Does your content matches with your audience?
• Are you being closed to your client? Do you answer to their messages on social media?
• …

And even if you are doing well, you always need to record your results and make changes to improve them!

 

SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING

For Taylor, Lewin, and Strutton (2011 cited in Chu, S.C., Kamal, S. & Kim, Y., 2013) advertisings on social networking sites exposed as advertising (banner ads) or not (brand page) are social media advertisings.

 

Let’s take the case Facebook Ads.

If you go on Facebook, you can see many advertisings on your flow of information.

On her blog, Christina exposes that the Social Media used for advertisings giving the best ROI for 95% of the marketers is Facebook. However, it is important to be aware that you need to calculate and know what are you expense. These expense need to be done according to the results of your ads (Ignite Research (2017).

 

Read more about Risks of Social Media and Tips.

 

The use of social media gives an impact on your SEO actions (Search Engine Land, 2018).

That is why it is important to know how to drive an Ad on Social Media. You can read this blog post to know more about it.

 

Here is an example of Ad on Facebook. This one is from Secret London.

 

 

To create an Ad like this one, you need to buy a Facebook Ad.

Then, choose your objectives as “Promote your Page”, “Increase conversions on your website”…

The next step is to target an audience. This picture presents you the different options you can choose.

You also have to build your budget. And finally, create the design of your ad.

To know more about “How to Advertise on Facebook”, here is the Complete Guide.

 

 

References:

Akar, E. & Topçu, B., (2011), “An examination of the factors influencing consumers’ attitudes toward social media marketing”. Journal of Internet Commerce, 10(1), pp.35-67.

 

Alex York (2018), “7 Steps in Creating a Winning Social Media Marketing Strategy in 2018”, sproutsocial, 19th February 2018. [Online]

https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-marketing-strategy/

 

Chu, S.C., Kamal, S. & Kim, Y., (2013), “Understanding consumers’ responses toward social media advertising and purchase intention toward luxury products”. Journal of Global Fashion Marketing, 4(3), pp.158-174.

 

Christina Newberry, (2018), “Social Media Advertising: The Complete Guide, Hootsuite”. [Online]

https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-advertising/

 

Ignite Research (2017), “Risks of social media: Tips on how to run a successful campaign, the first time, every time”, Ignite Research, 31th October 2014.

https://www.ignitesearch.com.au/social-media/risks-social-media-advertising-fail-campaigns/

 

Mangold, W.G. & Faulds, D.J., (2009), “Social media: The new hybrid element of the promotion mix”. Business horizons, 52(4), pp.357-365.

 

Nathan Ellering, (2018), “What 20 Studies Say About The Best Times To Post On Social Media”, CoScheduleBlog, 16th October 2017. [Online]

https://coschedule.com/blog/best-times-to-post-on-social-media/

 

Tereza Litsa (2018), “12 times brands went viral for the wrong reasons”, ClickZ, 17th March 2016. [Online]

https://www.clickz.com/12-times-brands-went-viral-for-the-wrong-reasons/95741/

 

Tracey Sandilands (2018), “Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Media Marketing”, Chron. [Online]

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-disadvantages-social-media-marketing-21890.html

 

Search Engine Land (2018), “What is Social Media Marketing?”, Search Engine Land. [Online]

https://searchengineland.com/guide/what-is-social-media-marketing