Social Media Marketing
Our expertise in the field of social network marketing, concern the major world media:
- Foursquare
- Google+
- YouTube
- Social Search Engines
- Word Of Mouth & Buzz Search Engines
Social media marketing refers to the process of acquisition of website traffic or attention through social media sites.
Social media marketing programs efforts focus on creating content that will attract attention and encourage sharing via social networks by users. The spread of corporate messages from user to user grips faster because it comes from an acquaintance rather than by the company itself, so is perceived as a disinterested advice. So this form of marketing is driven by word of mouth, passing through the media rather than by free media fee.
Contents
Social media have become a platform easily accessible by anyone with access to the Internet. Increased communication for organizations fosters brand awareness and, often, the improvement of customer service. Furthermore, social media is a relatively inexpensive platform with which to realize marketing campaigns. Social networks allow individuals to interact and build relationships. When products or companies enter into these networks, people can interact with the product or the company, and this interaction is developed on a personal level for users because of their previous experience with social networking.
Social networks and blogs allow to every single fan to "retweet" or "public" on the profile of the product being promoted. Following the publication on your profile, all users connected to the fans are able to see the message, then, the message can reach more people. Social networks exploit the same mechanism of word of mouth, the more the product information are repeated, the more the traffic is brought to the company.
Through social networks, products and companies can have conversations and interactions with individual fans and this personal interaction can infuse them a sense of loyalty, also choosing who to follow on these sites, the products can reach a very specific target audience. Social networks also convey a great deal of information about products and services to which potential customers would be interested, with the aid of new technologies of semantic analysis and marketing can detect signals of purchase as content shared by people and questions posted online, needed to obtain targeted micro-campaigns.
Successful campaigns examples
Betty White
Social networks can have a big impact on the results of the events: in 2010, in a campaign on Facebook born in the form of petition, users have signed up to ask the NBC Universal to have actress Betty White as a guest on Saturday Night Live and after they've signed, each user has invited his friends to do the same. The petition has become viral, and May 8, 2010, Betty White led SNL.
2008 US elections
The 2008 presidential campaign has had a strong presence on social networks. Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate for the American presidency, used Twitter and Facebook to differentiate their campaign. His profiles were kept constantly updated to interact with his supporters, and this has allowed the Democratic Party to reach them by sending email campaigns to ask for votes and donations for the campaign.
Local businesses
Even small businesses use social networks as a promotional technique. Companies can follow the customs and traditions of their user base through social profiles and create special offers and ad hoc. In the most common form can be "present a print of this tweet and you'll get a free drink," this type of message encourages others to follow the activities of the area to get the promotional deal. In this process, the company is always in the spotlight and promotes itself (brand awareness).
Mobile Phones
The use of the mobile phone has become an added advantage for social media marketing. Today, many phones have social networking features: people are informed about the events of the social network through their smartphones, in real time. With this constant connection to social networks, products and companies can constantly remind and update fans on their ability, on the uses, etc ... Since smartphones are constantly connected to social networks, these ads are always in sight. In addition, many companies are now putting QR codes on products to allow people to access the company's website or online services by mobile.
Involvement
In the context of the social web, involvement means that all stakeholders are participants rather than spectators, unlike as with the traditional media advertising that relegate the potential customer to a mere spectator who then suffers the marketing actions in a passive manner. Social media allow anyone to express and share an opinion or an idea on the path to the market. Every participant customer joined the marketing department, and all other clients have the ability to read comments or reviews submitted by customers like them, so with the same needs. The engagement process is therefore critical to the success of social media marketing.
Kony 2012
On March the 5th, 2012, came out a short film of the humanitarian group Invisible Children for a period of 29 minutes, aimed at attracting the attention upon Joseph Kony, a fugitive from the International Criminal Court, to get support for his arrest by December 2012, the date of the end of the campaign. The video became viral in the first six days of the launch, reaching 100 million views on YouTube and Vimeo. According to research done by Visible Measures, the campaign "Kony 2012" was the one with the higher growth rate and the viral video, followed by the performance of Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent, and who has reached 70 million visits in 6 days.
Tacticts
Twitter enables companies to promote products to the individual, since the use of a product can be explained in brief messages that fans read more easily. These messages appear on the bulletin board of the fan and the messages can link to product site, Facebook profile, photos, videos, etc... This link provides fans the opportunity to spend more time interacting with the product online, and this interaction can create a fair connection between the product and the customer and can also lead to the largest advertising opportunities. Twitter promotes a product in real time and induce customers to enter.
The Facebook profiles are more detailed than Twitter's ones, allow to provide videos, photos and longer descriptions for each product, you can show when a product can be used and how to use it, you can show your own testimonial and the fans can comment on the product pages to make all read it. Facebook can be linked to the Twitter page of the product as well as send event reminders, also promotes a product in real time and brings new customers.
Since marketing is gradually increasing the value of social media, advertisers continue to increase investments, spending 25% of the budget in these media. Strategies to extend the reach with Sponsored Stories and acquire new fans with Facebook ads contribute to an increase in investment on the site. The study attributes the 84% of "participation" or "Like" related to advertising on Facebook. Today, the number of fans of each brand grows by an average of 9% per month, doubling their fan base every year.
Percentage of use of social networks
Instagram is a free photo-sharing and social network that was launched in October 2010. The service allows users to take photos, apply digital filters, and then share them with other Instagram users connected to their social network, as well as a variety of other social networking services. A distinctive feature of Instagram, which currently has 80 million registered users, is that it limits the photos on a square shape, similar to that of the Kodak Instamatic and Polaroid, in contrast to the ratio of 4:3 or 16:9 which is typically used by the cameras mobile devices.
LinkedIn, being a social network for the development of professional contacts, allows you to create professional profiles for themselves and their business network to meet others. Through the use of widgets, members can promote their social networking activities, such as Twitter streams or blog entries of their own products, or on your LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn provides its members with the opportunity to generate potential customers and business partnerships. Members can use "Company Pages" similar to Facebook pages to create an area that allows companies to promote products or services and to interact with their customers.
Yelp
Yelp consists of a complete index of company profiles online. The site is operating in seven different countries, including the United States and Canada, the business account holders are allowed to create, share and edit business profiles, and can publish information such as the location of the company, contact information, photos and service information. The site also allows people to write, publish reviews on businesses and give a vote. Messaging and conversation features are further made available to the ordinary members of the site.
Blog
Every day the reasons that push companies to enter a blog in its "social media" portfolio are increasing. Platforms like LinkedIn create an ideal environment to connect businesses and customers online. Companies that feel the need of information, originality and accessibility use blogs to make their products popular and unique, finally, to reach consumers who frequent social media.
Blogs allow a product or a company to provide longer descriptions of products or services and that helps the understanding of the arguments and the uses of the product, can include testimonials and you can connect to Facebook, Twitter and many social networks including the pages of a blog. Blogs can be updated frequently and promotional techniques to keep customers. Other promotional uses are acquiring fans and subscribers and direct them to social network pages.
Similarly, the online community benefit from the companies because they allow them to reach customers of other businesses that use the platform. These online environments are accessible virtually to anyone, then, consumers are invited to be part of the creative process. To allow companies to measure their position in the world of companies, Glassdoor is a site where employees can enter the feedback about their companies.
Some companies choose to integrate social media platforms into their system of traditional marketing, because their employees do not like these online isolated environments. There are also specific company standards that apply in the case of online interaction. Other companies are concerned that the general public has too much power on how their marketing is perceived, because of the accessibility of the information retrieved on the Internet. To make sure to have an advantage in company-consumer relationship, companies must be aware of four basic resources that consumers keep: information, involvement, and community control.
YouTube
YouTube is one of the most popular social media, especially for its viral nature through which it can advertise a product without the cost of an advertising campaign. In the case of a structured campaign, the ads are made to suit the target audience, while the type of language used in commercials and ideas used to promote the product reflect the style and taste of the public. Another advantage for advertisers is also that the ads on this platform are usually in sync with the video content requested. Promotional opportunities are possible such as sponsorship of a video by a company, such as an industry of toys for dogs that could sponsor a video about the training of dogs to appear in search results as the other videos. YouTube also allows active users to earn money through its Partner Program.
Marketing Techniques
Targeting, COBRAs, and eWOM
The Social Media Marketing involves the use of social networks, COBRAs and eWOM to advertise a successful product online. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter provide advertisers with information about likes and dislikes of their consumers. This technique is crucial, as it provides businesses with a "target audience" (targeting). Thanks to social networks, the information about the user's "Like" are available to businesses, which can then organize the campaign accordingly. The online activities of consumers related to the brand (Consumer Online Brand Related Activities, COBRAs) are another method used by advertisers to promote their products. Activities like to upload a photo of your new Converse shoes to share with your friends is an example of COBRAs. Another technique for social media marketing is the electronic word of mouth (eWOM). electronic tips and assessments are an affordable way to promote a product through the interactions among consumers. An hotel, for example, can have two possible outcomes according to their service: good service would result in a positive review that will attract new customers through social media, but a poor service will result in a negative review of the consumer, that can potentially ruin the reputation of the company.
Social networks connect every day millions of people around the world
Social Media Marketing tools
In addition to the research tools, several companies offer specialized platforms and tools for social media marketing:
- Measuring the presence and activities in conversations between users
- Aggregation of content from different social networks
- Bookmarking, or publication of lists of bookmarks from users
- Analysis and Statistics
- Automation
- Social Media
- Blog
- Social Validation