CHAPTER 22 SOCIAL MEDIA AND MARKETING What are social media Any tool or service that uses the Internet to facilitate conversations Social media offer more one to one ways to meet customers Social media have several implications for marketers and how they can interact with customers 1 Marketers must realize that they often do not control the content on social media sites Customers are sharing thoughts wishes and experience about brands with the world through social media 2 The ability to share experiences quickly and with such large numbers of people amplifies the impact of word mouth in a way that can eventually affect a company s bottom line 3 Social media allow marketers to listen Can listen what is being said about its product and decide to change it 4 Social media provide more sophisticated methods of measuring how marketers meet and interact with customers than traditional advertising does 5 Social media allow marketers to have much more direct and meaningful conversations with customers Can bring the customer and brand closer How consumers use social media Many marketers are looking to get their message on the fastest growing social media platform Facebook baby boomers Videos are one of the most popular tools by which marketers reach consumers and YouTube is by far the largest online video repository Flickr is a popular photo sharing site where millions of people upload new photos daily Technorati tracks millions of blogs and indexes Social Commerce Combines social media with the basics of e commerce Involves interaction and user contribution aspects of social online media to assist online buying and selling products and services Relies on user generated content on web sites to assist consumers with purchases services Includes ratings and recommendations and social shopping tools Designed to help consumers make more informed decisions on purchases or Social media and Integrated Marketing Communications A unique consequence of social media is the widespread shift from one to many communication to many to many communication Marketers can use social media to have conversations with consumers forge deeper relationships and build brand loyalty Social media allow consumers to connect with each other share opinions and collaborate on new ideas according to their interests With social media the audience is often in control of the message the medium the response or all three The interaction between producer and consumer becomes less about entertaining and more about listening influencing and engaging Crowdsourcing Using consumers to develop and market a product Describes how the input of many people can be leveraged to make decisions that used to be based on the input of only a few people Companies get feedback on marketing campaigns new products ideas and other marketing decisions by asking customers to weigh in Creating and leveraging a social media campaign Marketers can categorize media types Owned media online content that an organization creates and controls Ex blogs web sites Facebook pages and other social media presences Purpose develop deeper relationships with customers Earned media is a public relations term connoting free media such as mainstream media coverage Ex viral videos retweets comments on blogs and other forms of customer feedback resulting from a social media presence Paid media content paid for by the company to be placed online Ex display advertising paid search words and other types of direct online ads To leverage all 3 types of media marketers must follow 1 They must maximize owned media by reaching out beyond their existing web sites to create portfolios of digital touch points 2 They must recognize that aptitude at public and media relations no longer translates into earned media Instead marketers must learn how to listen and respond to stakeholders 3 They must understand that paid media are not dead but should serve as a catalyst to drive customer engagement The Listening System First action a marketing team should take when initiating a social media campaign just listen Necessary to both understanding and engaging an online audience Customers telling marketers what they want and need Marketers must pay attention to who is saying what and act upon that information Consumers believe that if negative comments about the brand go unanswered that brand is insincere and consumers will take their business elsewhere 8 stages for effective listener 1 Without objective 2 Tracking brand mentions Identifying market risks and opportunities 3 4 Improving campaign efficiency 5 Measuring customer satisfaction 6 Responding to customer inquiry 7 Better understanding of customers 8 Being proactive and anticipating customer demands Social Media Objectives After a listening platform the organization should develop a list of objectives Attempting to reach a mass audience with a static message will never be as successful as influencing people through conversation Listen and learn monitor what is being said about the brand and competitors Build relationships and awareness open dialogues with stakeholders by giving them compelling content across a variety of media engage in conversations and answer customers questions candidly Promote products and services get customers talking about products and services which ultimately translate into sales Manage your reputation develop and improve the brand s reputation by responding comments and criticism that appear on blogs and forums Improve customer service use social media to search out displeased customers and engage them directly in order to solve their service issues Evaluation and Measurement of Social Media Measure the success of social media presence by the raw number of friends on Facebook and followers on Twitter it has accumulated but numbers depend entirely on context Social Behavior of Consumers videos forums media Once objectives have been determined and measurement tools have been implemented it is important to identify the consumer who the marketer is trying to reach Categories of social media users 1 Creators produce and share online content like blogs web sites articles and 2 Critics post comments ratings and reviews of products and services on blogs and 3 Collectors use RSS feeds to collect information and vote for web sites online 4 Joiners maintain a social networking profile and visit other sites 5 Spectators read blogs list to podcasts watch videos and generally consume 6 Inactives do none of these things 7
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