How effective actually is social media as a marketing tool? This is something I thought would be interesting to look into further to help answer these two questions…
– Is social media important in the marketing mix?
– What actually makes a successful social media campaign?

Bashar et al. (2012) identify social media as a key component of the marketing mix, especially within the promotional mix. In this day and age it is vital to have an online presence and this is increasingly involving different platforms of social media.

In the ‘2014 Social Media Marketing Industry Report’ it was found that 92% of marketers believed that using social media in their promotional mix was important to their business, however, only a third of these marketers were actually able to measure their social activities (Carter, 2014). I find this interesting, if companies find social media so important to their business then why do they not find the time to analyse and measure the effectiveness? This should be something for them to focus on in their digital marketing strategy!

A successful social media campaign is that of Always as shown in the video below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjJQBjWYDTs
Sourced from: Always (2014)

The filmmaker and director of the ‘LikeAGirl’ video, Greenfield (2014) said “In my work as a documentarian, I have witnessed the confidence crisis among girls and the negative impact of stereotypes first-hand. When the words ‘like a girl’ are used to mean something bad, it is profoundly disempowering. I am proud to partner with Always to shed light on how this simple phrase can have a significant and long-lasting impact on girls and women. I am excited to be a part of the movement to redefine ‘like a girl’ into a positive affirmation.”

So what actually makes this campaign successful?
The overall aim of the campaign was to change the statement of “like a girl” from a negative insult to something positive, which I think they have done very well! Why do I think this… they have changed my view on the statement in that short video!
The target audience is key, targeting the right customers is essential and in this case Always were targeting teenage girls with a message they could relate to.
Using emotion in campaigns can lead to great success through powerful messages (Libert & Tynski, 2013). A bit like this memorable quote “When you get to the heart, the head will follow”.
Since seeing this video I have now noticed the adverts popping up on Facebook and other sites, either embedded in my cookies or clever marketing in the right places!

How about a less successful campaign?
That of British Gas in 2013 when they decided to host a Q+A session on Twitter the same day as raising their prices by 10%. The result, many angry customers tweeting their dismay. This indicates how important timing can be!

So from all of this I can conclude that yes social media is important in the marketing mix and plays a very important role in the promotional mix. Also, as to what makes a campaign successful? I suppose that varies from each campaign but knowing your target audience is a probably a great start!

References:
Always., 2014. Like A Girl. [Online] Available at: http://bit.ly/1BwmhsX [Accessed 24 February 2015].
Bashar, A., Ahmad, I. & Wasiq, M., 2012. Effectiveness of Social Media as a Marketing Tool: Anempirical Study. International Journal of Marketing, Financial Services & Management Research, 1(11), pp.88-99.
Carter, M., 2014. Greater Insight: How social media measures up in the marketing mix. [Online] Available at: http://bit.ly/1DQYk07 [Accessed 24 February 2015].
Greenfield, L., 2014. Like A Girl. [Online] Available at: http://bit.ly/1B998RO [Accessed 24 February 2015].
Libert, K. & Tynski, K., 2013. Research: The Emotions that Make Marketing Campaigns Go Viral. [Online] Available at: http://bit.ly/1C9pYFt [Accessed 24 February 2015].