In todays society social media has a huge impact on most aspects of our lives. From the obvious friend to friend interactions to the political power of social media. 2001 “marked the first time that social media had helped force out a national leader“ (Shirky, 2011). When the tool of social media can pack that much of a punch to the way a Country is run; why wouldn’t companies of all sizes jump on the bandwagon to market their businesses at a low cost?

A key, yet albeit scary question that we must ask ourselves is; how much of our lives has been taken over by social media? Now thanks to smart phones people can be online wherever they go, keeping in contact with friends and news from all around the world. Over 74% of online adults are using social networking sites (Pew Research 2014). So again, why wouldn’t companies seize the opportunity to market their business through these social media platforms that are constantly being utilised by the public?

BENEFITS OF SOCIAL MEDIA:

When used correctly social marketing media can return great benefits for a company, for example:

1. Increased brand recognition – this is an important aspect as it makes the company easier and more accessible to new customers and more familiar with existing ones. For example an existing customer may share your page on Facebook; which may lead to a new customer stumbling upon your page. (DeMers, 2014)
2. Expand brand loyalty – studies have shown that ‘brands who engage on social media channels enjoy higher loyalty from their customers’. (DeMers, 2014). Social media provides the opportunity for direct interaction with customers on a daily basis.
3. Opportunity to convert customers – social media gives competing brands the opportunity to convert customers with every post or tweet that they share; as this gives the opportunity for someone to react which may lead to their loyalty as a customer. (DeMers, 2014)
4. Decreased marketing costs – “84% of marketers found as little as six hours of effort per week was enough to generate increased traffic.” Six hours of developing your content and syndicate strategy could lead to huge results This is not a great investment of time for such a large channel and even advertising costs on Facebook and twitter are relatively cheap (DeMers, 2014). This is perhaps viewed as one of the largest benefits, particularly in the eyes of a small business with a small budget.

This is not an exhaustive list of the benefits of social media marketing (see more here), however companies need to take caution to ensure that these do not turn into negatives. Direct interaction with customers for example could easily transform into a negative. Lets say that a company shares a post advertising a new product, and a customer comments sharing a negative experience with this product; this is out of the company’s control and if ignored it could lead to the loss of custom. Thus a potential weakness of social media marketing is that you cannot control what customers are saying, however Liu (2006) argues that both negative and positive word of mouth marketing increase performance. Therefore in order to reap the full benefits of social media marketing companies need to be on the ball and take this as an opportunity to turn it around and show off its excellent customer service.

COMPANIES THAT ARE DOING IT RIGHT: 

An example of a company that is fully utilising social media to engage its customers and spread brand and product awareness is Heinz. Heinz uses Facebook to launch new products such as their 5-bean blend. They incorporated direct interaction with customers by creating a game in the form of a personality test where the results were given in types of beans and if you shared the app with ten people, you would receive a goodie bag. (Mignanelli, 2013)

Another company that is taking full advantage of social media marketing is  Nike. Nike used a major sporting event to surround their social media campaign. They featured the average Olympic athletes instead of the high profile Olympic athletes and this gained them 166,718 Facebook fans during the London Olympics. (Mignanelli, 2013)

To see more examples please click here… 

Social media marketing can be a powerful tool for a business, especially one with a low budget. If used in the right way, taking into consideration current events as seen in the example above; it can generate enormous results. However businesses need to recognise the drawbacks and make sure that they are on top of any bad feedback to ensure that all negatives can be turned into a positive.

REFERENCES:

Shirky, C. (2011). The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change. Foreign Affairs. 90 (1), 28-41.

Barrutia, J & Echebarria, C. (2013). Networks: a social marketing tool. European Journal of Marketing. 47 (1/2), 324-343.

Pew Research Internet Project. (2014). Social Networking Fact Sheet. Available: http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/social-networking-fact-sheet/. Last accessed 1st Dec

DeMers, J. (2014). The Top 10 Benefits Of Social Media Marketing. Available: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/08/11/the-top-10-benefits-of-social-media-marketing/. Last accessed 23 March 2015.

Liu, Yong (2006), “Word of Mouth for Movies: Its Dynamics and Impact on Box Office Revenue,” Journal of Marketing, 70 (July), 74–89.

Mignanelli, B. (2013). Top 10 Companies With Successful Social Media Marketing Campaigns on Facebook. Available: http://socialmediastrategiessummit.com/blog/top-10-companies-with-successful-social-media-marketing-campaigns-on-facebook/. Last accessed 24 March 2015.