Social Networking Websites - Research Paper Example

? Social Media Marketing Executive Summary Social marketing allows the exchange of creative ideas and also facilitates communication, evaluation of effectiveness of marketing activities. The increased engagement allows the customers to think about the rationality of the existing managerial procedures and also facilitates the creation of value of products. Social networking websites have benefitted teenagers, youth, school children and the business enterprises. It has transformed the process of communication. Social networking websites has become easily accessible and can be accessed through gadgets like cellular phones, tablets etc. The use of social networking websites increased with the innovation of gadgets. The study will lay emphasis on how the management of Stone Goose can utilize the benefits of social media tools for the smooth execution of marketing activities. Table of Contents Executive Summary 4 Table of Contents 7 Introduction 12 Value Added Benefit of Social Media Marketing Tools 17 Usage of Social Marketing Platforms 22 Implementation of Social Media Platforms 27 Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud Model 32 Incorporating Social Media Policy 37 Conclusion 40 Introduction Social networking is defined as an online community that allows people to develop profiles of their backgrounds and interests, communicate with friends and strangers, and share thoughts, photos, Internet links, music etc (Vermaat & Shelly 2006).The utility of the social media tools is prevalent and websites like Facebook, Twitter and Linked In are gaining recognition because of its usage by billions of people worldwide for professional and personal uses. The business organizations are developing several social media policies which help providing new opportunities to the organization for networking and attracting new clients, recruitment and marketing of services and promotion of brands with minimum of financial commitment. Many organizations encourage the use of social media in most of the marketing activities but they are also aware of the benefits of social media are associated with huge number of risks. These organizations actively encourage the usage of sales of business development and also branding of marketing and services. Social media policy helps in setting out standards that an organization expects from the employees while their usage of social media marketing for various online media marketing activities. The social media policies serves purposeful and acts like a guidance for the employers and employees in helping them to distinguish in the course of employment and also help in setting out the different course of actions which can lead to possible consequences which help the employees in breaching the policy. The benefits of the social media marketing tools will help in marking out new business development ideas which will outweigh the risks associated with each of the project. The organizations will recognize the risks associated with the organization and give a certain level of protection for their marketing activities. Value Added Benefit of Social Media Marketing Tools The marketing mix will serve purposeful in construction of planning and implementation of social marketing programs which is designed specifically to encourage the behavioral change. Price, place, product and promotional activities are some of the important central elements which are pivotal for social marketing campaigns and help in reaching out to a desired social media target and also come to a unified social media decision (Merrill, Kenneth, Navetta & Santalesa, 2010). The new communication model helps in giving the social marketers a challenge to reach the desired target and goals. The new form of communication model gives the social marketer an opportunity and also a platform to attain a desired target. The new communication model facilitates uniformed managerial decision making and also helps them in arriving at a unified critical decision points. These critical points allow the social marketers with the provision of innumerable direct marketing channels of varied types like multiple and mobile channels to reach customers to create a direct two way personal channel. The main objective of the marketer is to use the social media tools to target a particular customer base and convey a rationale and healthy marketing message for the benefits of the customers. For example, nutrition information sign advertisements in the grocery store will enable the customers to select and buy healthier food items. The emergence of social media tools has enabled the marketer to promote products and services that are corporate sponsored and can be transmitted through the traditional marketing mix elements. The management of the Stone Goose can leverage social media tools which help in the engagement of social media and marketing tools and it helps the social marketer to advertise their products and services. Usage of Social Marketing Platforms The definition of social media has changed considerably and includes methods like electronic communications like social media websites, chat rooms, and discussion boards’ help in brainstorming session and lead to the evolvement of various creative ideas and communication messages. It also helps in facilitation of communication between marketer and the customers which can lead to the emergence of various creative ideas (North West Regional Development Agency, 2012). This interactive nature helps in facilitation of interactive ideas through the engagement of various communication tools like cell phones, official and social media websites and varied other multimedia channels. Different products require specific social media websites and can be linked to various conversations and events occurring in the live social networks and allows the user to make specific managerial decision making (Hartley, 2010). The management of Stone Goose can use the most popular social media websites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to advertise about their products and disseminate important product features and benefits. Twitter would allow the management to use specific online social marketing platform to highlight the product features and benefits worldwide at the same time; it is estimated that Facebook is the most popular social media website with 750 million users (Social Networking Pro Con, 2013). These platforms can be used even after the introduction of the products and services and allows the user to post brief updates which are associated with the web hyper links and multimedia content. Twitter boast of a strong and active platform which is widely popular and has an active community of more than 200 million members. Implementation of Social Media Platforms Branding has become an important activity for the marketers which have led to the emergence of several marketing concepts and also the adoption of varied innovative marketing techniques. Branding requires the adoption of most suitable marketing technique and selection of the perfect distribution channel (Sethi & Adhikari, 2010). Distribution channels include the selection of newspapers, leaflets, televisions, radio etc and also measuring the effectiveness of the promotional strategies. Social media permits the marketers to integrate, collaborate, interact and harness the required collection of intelligent marketers for the accomplishment of organizational outcome. The social media marketing tools helps in customer acquisition, awareness and customer retention which should not actually be monetizing but would help in developing effective social media strategies which make the company a standout amongst the others (University of Minnesota, 2008). The main purpose of the marketing department of the Stone Goose company would be to develop the marketing activities which help in integration of various marketing techniques along with the traditional marketing mix elements. For instance the creation of customer based development program would enable the facilitation with the existing customers and garner attention from the potential customers. Although, identification of varied social media marketing tools at different marketing stages is easy the utility of each of the social marketing tools would require thorough analysis and assessment. Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud Model The SMAC Model consists of six different stages which include learning, observation, broadcast, participation, and relationship and collaboration phases. The learning phase would teach the management of Stone Goose Company about the fundamental functionality and utility of the social media marketing tools which not only acts as a marketing tool but also has a broadcasting effect which includes collaboration phases and is more focused on improvement of the one way communication procedure (Vermaat & Shelly, 2006). It helps in the initiation of the conversation between the customers and the marketers which could turn into the long lasting relationship through the usage of social media tools. These interaction tools can help the marketers to bring about positive changes within the organization. It also helps the marketer to develop long lasting relationship which can be realized in the collaborative phase where the organization benefits from the interactive media session. These models serve purposeful in acting as a guide in implementation of these complementation models that help in prioritizing the targeted audience, strategic objectives and then striking a balance between prioritizing the targeted audience and also meeting the strategic objectives (Arca, 2012). Incorporating Social Media Policy Stone Goose should develop their own social media policy which would help in the establishment of a set of standards and should be managed by the social media managers and the employees should follow these standards during the development and modification of the product. The usage of the appropriate marketing language and reduction of error would lead to the defining of activities apart from establishing governance codes (Dasgupta, 2009). The management of Stone Goose should know the proper usage of social media tools which act like a monitoring tool and refining measures for the development of strategies. Thus, adoption of social marketing tools will empower the management to make informed and rationale decisions during the purchasing process. Conclusion Social networking websites are powerful tools that can be useful as well as harmful to an individual and business enterprise. It has benefitted the common people by providing jobs to millions of people (Government Office for the Northwest, 2008). The usage of social networking websites should be done cautiously and judiciously. Social networking websites are susceptible to security attacks such as hacking and viruses (Shih, 2009). Thus, it is observed that social media tools help in increasing the brand awareness and engagement of the product development programmers which have the potentiality of making Stone Goose a distinctive company and create niche for itself in the market. References Arca, C. (2012). Social media marketing benefits for businesses why and how should every business create and develop its social media sites? Retrieved from http://projekter.aau.dk/projekter/files/63562608/CelineArca_MScInternationalMarketing_MasterThesis2012.pdf. Dasgupta, S. (2009). Social computing: Concepts, methodologies, tools and applications. Pennsylvania: Idea Group Inc. Government Office for the Northwest. (2008). North West of England plan regional spatial strategy to 2021. ? Retrieved from http://www.4nw.org.uk/downloads/documents/oct_08/nwra_1224255799_Final_adopted_RSS_300908_Conte.pdf. Hartley, D. (2010). 10 steps to successful social networking for business. Virginia: American Society for Training and Development. Merrill, T., Kenneth, L., Navetta, D., & Santalesa, R. (2011). Social media: The business benefits maybe enormous but can the risks --reputational, legal, operational—be mitigated? Retrieved from http://www.acegroup.com/us-en/assets/ace-progress-report-social-media.pdf. North West Regional Development Agency. (2012). Business, people and places. Retrieved from http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20120325084815/http:/www.nwda.co.uk/pdf/Legacy%20-%20Part%202.pdf. Sethi, A., & Adhikari, B. (2010). Business communication. Noida: Tata McGraw-Hill Education. Shih, C. (2009). The Facebook era: tapping online social networks to build better products, reach new audiences, and sell more stuff. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Social Networking Pro Con. (2013). Are social networking sites good for our society? Retrieved from http://socialnetworking.procon.org/#Background. University of Minnesota. (2008). Strengthening social capital: Examples. Retrieved from http://srdc.msstate.edu/fop/levelthree/trainarc/socialcapital/strengtheningnetworks.pdf. Vermaat, M.E., & Shelly, G.B. (2006). Discovering computers - fundamentals: Your interactive guide to the digital world. London: Cengage Learning. Read More