In this blog, I will be discussing the effectiveness of social media marketing for firms, with a specific focus on the use of Twitter. Please note, that these views are my own and do not represent the views of any companies discussed.
Social media marketing greatly enhances the ability for consumers to engage and interact with brands, hence why it is increasingly being used across firms globally (Solomon & Tuten, 2014). According to Pick (2016), 90% of young adults today use social media, and one third of millennials say that social media is one of their preferred channels for communicating with businesses. Social media is a great way for businesses to respond to the needs of their customers almost instantly, rather than using the more typical methods, such as communicating via a phone call or an email. One social media platform which is widely used by companies to promote products and communicate with both existing and potential customers is Twitter.
The use of a Twitter for a customer
One way in which Twitter is commonly used by consumers is to get a quick response from a company regarding an issue they are currently having, for example a clothes order which has arrived late:
As you can see above, New Look responded within 24 hours to help resolve the issue, by asking the customer to ‘DM’ (private message) their New Look Help account, where someone would work on tracking the order. This response would most likely be met positively by the customer, because not only did they receive a quick response, but the personalisation at the end of the tweet “NLEmma” makes the customer feel like New Look are taking the issue seriously. However, New Look are also using the response to the issue as an effective marketing tactic. By encouraging the customer to follow “New Look Help” various tweets, such as the one below, will begin to appear in the customers newsfeed:
Interestingly, New Look use their ‘help’ page, to inform their followers of positive experiences that customers have had with them. Hopefully, this will effectively re-assure the disgruntled customer that although they are currently having an issue, the issue can be resolved and they can have a positive shopping experience with New Look in the future. In turn, this restores New Look’s strong brand image, and ensures that they are not losing customers due to negative press. Additionally, they are building customer trust, which according to Bart et al (2005), creates long-term customer relationships.
See the link provided for nine other reasons, alongside connecting with customers, as to why businesses should use twitter: http://askaaronlee.com/10-reasons-why-your-business-should-use-twitter/
The power of the hashtag for companies
Another interesting element of Twitter is the use of the hashtag, as tweets which contain hashtags get twice the engagement as those without (Cooper, 2013). One of the most effective hashtag campaigns used across social media was the #ShareACoke campaign, which launched in 2013. The idea of the campaign was to find a Coca-Cola bottle with your name on it, and then share a photo of the bottle on a social media platform, such as Twitter or Instagram. This was an excellent social media marketing strategy, as not only did it encourage consumers to purchase a Coca-Cola product, but it also encouraged them to share a photo of the product online, prompting their friends and followers to go purchase the products for themselves. The campaign was so successful that in total there were 235,000 tweets from 111,000 twitter using the #ShareACoke hashtag (Hepburn, 2017).
See the link for provided for an article which gives further detail on the power of the hashtag for an entrepreneur: http://www.forbes.com/sites/neilpatel/2015/08/17/how-to-harness-the-power-hashtag-as-an-entrepreneur/#1b33c6a145fa
However, the use of social media can also have a negative effect on a company. In 2014, the Di Gornio pizza company tried to use the #WhyIStayed hashtag to promote their pizza. However, they failed to realise that the hashtag was being used to respond to a newly surfaced video of an NFL player assaulting his wife (Broderick, 2014).
Unfortunately for Di Gornio, the misjudgment had a negative impact on Di Gornio’s brand image. Mei at al (2012) found that a hashtag has a dual role: it is unique indicator of both the topic of the content and the membership of a community. In this instance, Di Gornio simply misunderstood the topic of the content, however there was a large uproar from Twitter users as it could be perceived that Di Gornio were trying to promote their product to a vulnerable community. Di Gornio were quick to react to the mistake they had made, and promptly deleted the tweet and released several tweets apologizing to anyone they had offended. Although Di Gornio were a hot topic on Twitter when the event occurred, the top trends and hashtags on Twitter are constantly changing, as news and world events are published online as soon as they occur. Therefore, although Di Gornio may have lost some customers due to the tweet, most Twitter users would have been reading about the next news story or scandal just minutes later.
References
Bart, Y., Shankar, V., Sultan, F. and Urban, G.L. (2005) ‘Are the drivers and role of online trust the same for all web sites and consumers? A large-scale exploratory empirical study’, Journal of Marketing, 69(4), pp. 133–152.
Broderick, R. (2014) DiGiorno Accidentally Tried To Advertise Their Pizza In A Hashtag About Domestic Violence. Buzz Feed News [Online] <https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/digiorno-whyistayed-you-had-pizza?utm_term=.qvMbBKWnvX#.ixY3086dW7> [Last accessed 22 February 2017]
Cooper, B. (2013) 10 Surprising New Twitter Stats to Help You Reach More Followers. The Huffington Post [Online] <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/belle-beth-cooper/10-surprising-new-twitter_b_4387476.html> [Last accessed 23 February 2017]
Hepburn, M. (2017) The Share a Coke Story. Coca-Cola Journey [Online] < http://www.coca-cola.co.uk/stories/share-a-coke> [Last accessed 22 February 2017]
Mei, Q., Sun, T., Yang, L. & Zhang, M. (2012) We Know What @You #Tag: Does the Dual Role Affect Hashtag Adoption? School of Information, the University of Michigan.
Solomon, M.R. and Tuten, T.L. (2014) Social Media Marketing. SAGE: 2nd edition
Pick, T. (2016) 47 superb social media marketing stats and facts. Business 2 Community [Online] <http://www.business2community.com/social-media/47-superb-social-media-marketing-stats-facts-01431126#1V5PMafCzcj8mRse.97> [Last accessed 23 February 2017]