Social Media Marketing - Assignment Example

Social Media Marketing Grade (March. 8, Table of contents …………………………………………………………………………………………3 Introduction…………………………………………………………………….…………..……..4 PRACE-model relation to Social media marketing………………………………….......………..4 Role of Social media marketing..……………………………………………….………….….…..6 Metrics of social media marketing – statistics.………………………………….………….……..7 Followers/Fans.………………………………………………………………….………….……..7 Inbound Links.………………………………………………………………….………….….…..8 Engagement rates.……………………………………………………………….………….……..8 Advantages and disadvantages of Social media marketing……..………………………………...9 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………….10 Abstract Social media marketing is a form of marketing that entails promoting a brand, product, event or company using the social media and other technological tools such as blogs, instant messaging and newsfeeds. The PRACE-model as developed by Eric Goosen offers for a framework through which the social media marketing can be enhanced at every stage of the customer interaction lifecycle, until it becomes possible to capture the attention, build a fan-base and encourage repeat visits and sales. Through engagement rates, followers/fan numbers and inbound links, it is possible to analyze the effectiveness of the social media marketing and devise strategies to improve it even further. Nevertheless, social media marketing requires much patience, talent and time commitment before the marketer can eventually reap the full benefits. Introduction Social Media Marketing refers to a marketing strategy that deals with the creation of digital content that is highly attractive and appealing by social media marketers, such that the content attracts the attention of the readers and encourages them to share it through the social media sites (Evans, 2010:27). The creation of the appealing and attractive content causes the readers to pass over the content around the social media platforms, thus forming what has come to be referred as the electronic word of mouth (eWoM), that relates to information about an impending event, product, service, company or brand (Kenix, 2011:187). The Social Media Marketing strategy works towards creating and enhancing brand trust and loyalty, owing to the fact that the spreading of the electronic word of mouth is done by third-party users of the social media. Therefore, the third-party users can easily influence and persuade their friends, colleagues and relatives into buying into the attractive and appealing message related to a brand, company, event or product/service as opposed to when such message is circulated by the marketing company itself (Cohen, 2015, 21). The Social Media Marketing applies the existing fast electronic communication tools such as the instant messaging, social media networks, live chat services, websites, blogs and newsfeed platforms (Evans, 2010:41). The other important aspect of the Social Media Marketing is that it transforms marketing and advertising through social media into paid media, owing to the fact that the social media marketers earn from circulating the messages and information related to different brands, as opposed to the traditional mass media marketers, who have to pay to advertise (Zarrella, 2010:36). PRACE-model relation to Social media marketing The PRACE-model, which was developed and promoted by Eric Goosen, refers to a digital business growing strategy that seeks to promote the growth of business online, through offering a framework of digital planning across the whole of the customer lifecycle (Goosen, 2014:n.p.). The key aspects of the PRACE-model of digital marketing include Planning-Reach-Act-Convert-Engage, with each stage standing for the suitable online promotional strategies along the different stages of the customer online-interaction lifecycle (Goosen, 2014:n.p.). The planning-stage requires that a marketer plans on the nature of the product, service, brand or company that he/she seeks to promote through the online platforms, as well as the nature of information and messages that the marketer seeks to pass regarding the product or service. This is followed by the Reach-phase, which entails the formulation and acquisition of the right strategy that will see the information and messages related to a product, service, brand or company circulate across the customers online and also offline. Under the Reach-Phase of the PRACE-model, the marketer must consider the choice of relevant strategies of reaching the target customers and users of the social media, through for example applying strategies such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click (PPC), Online PR or/and Affiliate and Partner advertising (Goosen, 2014:n.p.). This phase is followed by the Act-Phase of the PRACE-model, which entails the actual building of awareness of the product, service, brand or company by offering the attracting and appealing message or information through the social media networks, websites, blogs or instant messaging platforms. Once the message or desired information is already availed for access by the third parties, the Conversion-Phase of the PRACE-model sets in, which entails the further optimization and enhancement of the accessibility of the message or desired information, through such strategies as homepage-optimization (Goosen, 2014:n.p.). Such a strategy entails making the homepage of the brand, company, product or service appear attractive and appealing as does the advertisement message, so that the potential users of the social media networks can also be drawn to the page by having their attention attracted by the attractiveness and appeal of the homepage, once they have read the advertising information and decided to visit the homepage (Goosen, 2014:n.p.). It is through the optimization of the homepage that the marketer is able to convert the target social media users into potential clients of the brand, event, product, service or company that is being promoted through the social media marketing. Thus, once the target social media users have been converted into potential clients, the final phase of the PRACE-model, which is the Engagement-Phase sets in, seeking to apply retention and growth strategies that will see the potential clients continue to purchase the commodity being marketed (Goosen, 2014:n.p.). The Engagement-Phase of the PRACE-model seeks to build customer loyalty and fan base relationships between the advertising company and the clients reached through the social media advertising, through offering further incentives such as customer service support, E-newsletters and promotional and informative e-mails to the customers, to encourage repeat visits and sales (Goosen, 2014:n.p.). Role of Social media marketing The major role of the Social media marketing is to make the companies, events or brands accessible to those who are interested in them, while at the same time creating the knowledge of existence to the potential customers who are unaware of the existence of such brands, events or companies and their associated products (Tuten & Solomon, 2013:96). The second and most fundamental role of the Social media marketing is to create a platform through which the company or brand owners can learn the customer needs, tastes and preferences from the customers (Cohen, 2015, 24). Social media marketing seeks to create a buzz around a certain brand or product as offered by a company, and then let the social media users delve into the features, functionality and other physical attributes of the product or brand. This way, the company or brand owner is able to learn from the customers what their attitudes, perceptions and feelings towards the advertised brand or product is, and what their tastes and preferences for a more functional and satisfying product would be. This way, the companies or brand owners are able to apply Social media marketing to generate knowledge of the customer needs and preferences regarding different products, and thus be able to tailor-make their products in such a way as to satisfy the customer demands (Evans, 2010:33). Lastly the role of Social media marketing is to finger out and implement the customer decision-making at each stage of the commodity production journey. Social media marketing is the only platform that allows the brand owners and companies to get feedbacks from the customers at each and every stage of the product development phase, thus ensuring that the product is produced in such a way as to encompass the different aspects of customer decision making through its different phases (Kenix, 2011:192). This way, the product becomes more popular and acceptable once it has been launched into the market. Metrics of social media marketing – statistics Followers/Fans The number of followers or fans is one of the major social media metric that can be applied towards measuring various aspects of the brand or product being promoted through social media marketing. The number of followers or fans simply gives the metric of the population percentage that is interested in a certain product or service that is offered by a company or a brand owner (Tuten & Solomon, 2013:72). However, while the number of followers or fans, and the rate of the growth in the followers or fans might offer meaningful information to a company regarding the growing interest in the company or its products, this metric does not offer further insightful information. For that reason the follower/fan metric in social media marketing should not be overemphasized (Tuten & Solomon, 2013:72). Inbound Links The Inbound Links represent another very crucial metric for social media marketing, owing to the fact that this metric shows the number of other external links that have pointed to the homepage of a company or product being marketed through social media (Zarrella, 2010:36). The Inbound Links are very useful metrics in social media marketing, owing to the fact that it is through the high rate and volume of Inbound Links that more and more potential customers are being directed to the homepage of a company, brand or product, from where they can get more brand or product information, and thus be able to make a final decision on whether to purchase the product (Cohen, 2015:22). Additionally, without any meaningful number of Inbound Links pointing to the homepage of a company or brand product, it is highly unlikely that such a homepage will rank high in the search engines, meaning that the visibility of the product, brand or company will definitely be low (Tuten & Solomon, 2013:77). Engagement rates Engagement rates is yet another important metric for social media marketing, owing to the fact that it indicates the number and rate of responses that a brand advertisement is getting from the possible interested persons. The Engagement rates may occur in different forms, for example the number of comments to a blog post, the number of responses and re-tweets in a tweet message or the number of likes and sharing of a facebook post (Zarrella, 2010:35). In other social media, the engagement rates can be the number of mentions or selections as favorites that a certain message post has earned. The use of engagement rates can make it possible to define the exact nature of messages that are appealing or influential to target audiences, and the nature and rate of reactions such posts elicit. Advantages and disadvantages of Social media marketing The major advantage associated with Social media marketing is that it presents the potential for reaching the customers that other traditional methods of advertising cannot be able to reach (Tuten & Solomon, 2013:97). Social media marketing applies technological tools such as the internet, social media platforms and mobile phones to pass and circulate messages regarding a company, brands or products. In this respect, there is no limitation as to the number of people who can be reached by the message, as opposed to traditional advertisement, where the print or mass media may be limited in accessibility to a certain category of audience (Evans, 2010:21). The other advantage of Social media marketing is that it offers a far easier strategy of building brand loyalty, through allowing the engagement of the customers through every stage of the brand production, such that the final product is tailor-made for customer satisfaction, thus making the customer loyal to the brand (Zarrella, 2010:17). Social media marketing is also advantageous in that it offers the brand owners and company’s opportunities to improve their products, by learning the customer needs from the feedbacks generated through social media. Nevertheless, the disadvantage associated with Social media marketing is that the effectiveness of social media marketing highly depends on the marketer’s talent and time commitment to developing the advertisement message, as opposed to traditional media which can reach the target audience even without overburdening the marketer with time and talent commitments (Cohen, 2015:47). The other disadvantage associated with social media marketing is that the return on investment from social media marketing is highly delayed, since although social media advertising can easily build brand loyalty, it takes mush time before the advertisement efforts starts to pay in actual monetary terms (Tuten & Solomon, 2013:77). Conclusion Social media marketing is an important tool for markets to apply the social media networks, blogs, websites, instant messaging and newsfeeds in circulating an appealing and attractive message regarding a brand, event, product or company. Social media marketing makes it possible for the brand owners and companies to involve the customers throughout the whole process of product development, making it possible to develop high brand loyalty. Nevertheless, even though it is easier to build brand loyalty using Social media marketing, it also requires much talent and time commitment in order to reap the actual monetary benefits of this form of advertising, since it does not turn into brand popularity overnight. References Cohen, H. (2015). 7 Social Media Lessons To Make Your Corporate Communications Trustworthy. Communication & Language at Work1(3), 18-25. Evans, L. (2010). Social media marketing: Strategies for engaging in Facebook, Twitter & other social media. Indianapolis, Ind: Que. Goosen, E. (2014). PRACE-model. Web. March 9, 2015. Accessed: Kenix, L.J. (2011) The Future of Alternative Media?. Observatorio, 5(1), pp. 187-214. Tuten, T. L., & Solomon, M. R. (2013). Social media marketing. Boston: Pearson. Zarrella, D. (2010). The social media marketing book. Beijing: OReilly. Read More