The Use of Viral Techniques to Generate Advertising Buzz - Essay Example

?Discuss Implications of the Use of Interactive Media and Social Networking Sites that Use 'Viral' Techniques to Generate 'Advertising Buzz' Table ofContents Implication of Utilisation of Interactive Media and Social Networking Sites for Generating ‘Advertising Buzz’ 3 Utilisation of ‘Affective Labour of the Audience’ by Social Network Campaigns 7 Requirement within Ad-Text for Successful ‘Viral Transmission’ 10 Ford Fiesta Campaigning on the Social Network 11 References 12 Implication of Utilisation of Interactive Media and Social Networking Sites for Generating ‘Advertising Buzz’ The World Wide Web and internet have evolved as the two of the most important elements of the various businesses in the present technology driven world. With the wide advent of internet, its impact upon the daily life of the people has undergone radical changes over the past few years (Atrens, 2001). As a consequence to the comprehensive transformation of traditional modes into the modern technological environment, the interactive media and the social networking sites have become an essential part of the general people’s lives (Nixon, 1997). The interactive media and the social networking sites are actually the various websites that assist the web users to share feelings and to communicate and discuss about interesting topics among each other (Wesnick, 1994). The challenge that marketers face in this modern world of social networking is in relation to the identification of the key individuals who can persuade viral technique so as to generate the ‘advertising buzz’. However, once the marketers succeed in identifying the individuals, the entire phenomenon gives rise to effective implication both for the marketers as well as for the consumers (Abedniya & Mahmouei, 2010). Viral marketing which is an effective marketing technique for generating advertising buzz is considered to be an important aspect of the social networking sites. In the present World Wide Web, social media is taken to be granted as an effective tool of word-of-mouth (Miller & Lammas, 2010). The impacts of the use of interactive media and the social networking sites towards marketing arenas have been presented in the following section of the research paper: Support Aspirations of Community: The various communities are different from each other and carry varied views along with aspirations. The aspirations can be anything starting from supporting any phenomenon and ending at generating support from dwellers of the same community. Social media marketing has grown effective in this regard because the campaigns being promoted through this medium primarily satisfy the needs of the community (Fraim, 2000). After satisfying the communities, the marketers’ interests are considered. For example, through flicker account, EMC Corp would identify the interest of a particular community, say the software engineers, and would start promoting various packages of software through ‘photosharing’ (Clemons, 2007). Inducement of Campaigning Effectiveness: Promotional aspects through interactive media and social networking sites carry strong implications for encouraging interaction among the prospective consumers being targeted. This is because the promotional campaigns are launched through inclusion of the audience or the consumers. The networks for the social media are designed as such that information moves very fast from one community member to the other. The marketers who strive for achieving fast response from the consumers aim to promote their products or services through this medium. This unique feature of the social media marketing is termed as the ‘Viralness’, ‘Velocity’ or ‘Spread’. The marketers assure themselves of the fast response through promoting their products or services through this media. However, the effectiveness is entirely dependent upon the ability of the marketers to skilfully identifying the community (Clemons, 2007). Influence towards Generation of Trusted Behaviour from Members: The trust upon traditional advertising contents has almost reached the base level and advertisements, to a considerable extent, have become ineffective in influencing purchase decision of the consumers (Klein, 2000). It is due to the advent of social media’s popularity that trust of the consumers’ upon advertising contents has been rebuilt. The content of interactive media and social networking advertising are trusted by the community members because of the ‘sharing’ feature within the community. The feature of sharing is composite of mutually shared experiences on a common phenomenon, perception towards any form of values and beliefs being shared among others. For example, a professor would like to accept recommendation from another professor about an accountant on the grounds that his or her colleague would be holding the similar necessities and thus similar preferences. The interest of various businesses upon the social media networks is dependent upon the belief that the elements within the social network would be trusted. For example, the retailer Ikea Group effectively uses Fan Group for generating recommendations through the social networking media. The trust generated upon the members would lead towards more number of recommendations that would again be trusted and in this way the chain of trusted recommendations would stimulate sales for the businesses. The sales that would be generated can in turn be harnessed for benefitting the owner of the network or the operator (Clemons, 2007). Effective as a Tool of Internet Marketing: The network of the social media has achieved the topmost position within the field of internet marketing. The advantage of the media has paved the way for its effectiveness during the last few years. The most important advantage of the social networking sites is that it is based upon a wide reach spread around the world. As a consequence of this advantage, the scope of the advertisements depicts an exponential expansion. The process of this internet marketing is a representative of numbers being multiplied in case of advertising through the social networking sites. For example, the number of recipients goes on multiplying when a banner advertisement is launched upon a particular website. Social marketing is considered as an effective tool for internet marketing not only in terms of cost effectiveness but also in terms of generating consumer awareness. The various organisations utilise the advantage of the social networking through inviting comments from the readers and thus gathering feedbacks for identifying areas of improvement. For example, Guardian operating in the industry of consumer goods and services utilises ‘Comment is Free’ in the social media type of ‘blogging’ for receiving feedback from its readers (Trosdahl, 2010). Generate Level of Satisfaction from Users: The loophole of the traditional advertising form that, at present, fails to provide the consumers satisfying experience has been overtaken by the social networking media. The advertisements within the social networking medium are promoted with caution through inclusion of acceptable contents and items of redirecting. The languages in which the advertisements are promoted are carefully selected so that they are understandable to the users. In addition to this, the entire gesture and feeling of the site is controlled very carefully so that the users can well be attracted to the advertisements. The campaigns that evolve as successful generally are able to create long-term value for the users. The trait for becoming successful is to incorporate applications that the users find useful for them rather than supplications that merely provide entertainment for a while. For example, the financial services institution, Fidelity Investments promotes the application of ‘Investment Guidance’ for providing useful information to the users (Owyang, 2008). Utilisation of ‘Affective Labour of the Audience’ by Social Network Campaigns Affective labour signifies the labour that is put into production of services. Since the result that service labour gives rise to is neither material nor durable, the labour involved is also considered as ‘immaterial labour’. The affective labour of the audience signifies the efforts of the advertisers through which the audiences are associated with the products (Blunden, 2003). The marketers who choose to promote their products through social networking sites make effective utilisation of the affective labour in order to integrate the audience into product utilities. The following are the efforts that marketers put in order to utilise the ‘affective labour of the audience’: Selection of the Most Appropriate Platform: There are many social networking sites that provide the platform to the business houses for advertising their products or services and attracting the users to visit their respective sites. The sites such as that of Facebook and LinkedIn provide the facility to the advertisers. However, for comprehensively utilising the affective labour of the audience, the campaigns should be designed to be run on the social sites, rather that redirecting the users to their own sites. Through developing campaigns aligned with the social networking sites, advertisers can strive towards development of long-term relationship with the users or the targeted customers. Advertising campaigns on sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn involve inclusion of the audience to a greater extent and thus the marketers can effectively utilise the concept for production of better sales results (Fisher, 2011). Blend the Media: Marketers are highly concerned about the effective utilisation of ‘affective labour’ and on this note they even blend the various media for more competently reaching out to the targeted customers. The effectiveness of advertising through social networks increases when they are put in line with a marketing strategy. For instance, if the marketers are striving towards generation of fans in the facebook site, they cannot restrict the advertisements to facebook only. If the marketers blend social networking sites along with certain other sites, like their own site, the consequences will be better. However, the marketers should have to be careful about the message content because when they blend their own sites and the social media, the risk of making the users confuse prevails. Thus, the marketer designs the campaigns after effective validation of the chosen platform and also after proper aligning of content with the media (Fisher, 2011). Design the Ad Campaign ‘Socially’: The meaning of designing the ad campaigns ‘socially’ is to make prominent to the users the availability of a brand in social media. The websites where articles are written about a particular brand would be inclusive of a blue-coloured ‘f’ or ‘t’ that can be observed in the bottom. The motive of the advertisers of putting such symbols is to make the users aware of the brand’s presence within the social media. However, the influence of such promotional strategy of the brand owner is minimal. Thus, in the recent times, the users can observe the same sites along with ‘url’ after the notifications. The users are redirected to their personal social networking accounts where the advertising campaign of the brands would be available (The Economist, 2001). Through this trait, the marketers actually generate social feeling among the users with respect to which the marketers expect enhancement of the brands’ sales figures. The social feeling is the indicator of effectively utilising the ‘affective labour of the audience’ by the marketers (Fisher, 2011). Requirement within Ad-Text for Successful ‘Viral Transmission’ The marketers who wish to produce successful advertising campaigns for generating ‘viral transmission’ should carefully cite contents of the advertisements. The marketers should be cautious about not only the messages and presentations within the social media advertisements, but the targeted groups of user should also be selected with caution. The various sites of the social media are composed of a wide variety of bases of the users and niche audiences. For example, the users of Facebook are more matured than those of MySpace. This fact has an indication that if a financial institution is striving for promoting its service related to housing loan, then it should choose Facebook rather than MySpace. Regarding the content of the messages, the marketers should be assured of himself that the right message has been sent to the right users. In this case, the marketers should be extremely careful while preparing the tag line for the campaigns. The colour, alignment and background of the advertised message should be kept in line of the users’ choice. For instance, while a message coloured in wither yellow or pink might appear to be attractive for the teenagers, the same message can irritate the elder users. The content must also be designed as such that it values perceptions and ideas of the users. The profiles of the targeted customers should be adequately evaluated before promoting products or services. For example, if the targeted users depict craze about fashion, then promoting schemes of educational loans to them would be no benefit for the marketer (Acmeous, 2011). Ford Fiesta Campaigning on the Social Network Before Ford Fiesta was launched in America during the year 2010, the company started advertising the anticipated success of the car through updates in blogs, Twitter and Facebook. The updates were of those of around 100 people who would share their experiences with the cars. Through the promotional effect before the car launch, Ford was striving towards generation of advertising buzz through ‘viral transmission’ for Fiesta. As a result of this advertising move of the company, Ford became able to invite around 240 people who used the car for a period of half a year and shared their experience to the people around the world. According to Ford’s boss for the social media, the results were better than expected and it became possible because of the ‘Fiesta Movement Campaign’. Through this move, the company succeeded in generating wider perspective of the product awareness among the world’s people. The campaigning efforts of the company through social media including the people’s experience showed that Ford cares for perception of the customers. With the big success of Ford’s promotional campaign, the company expected that around 70 million millennial would be buying the car during the next year, i.e., 2011. According to a study by Microsoft, the social networking sites are used by around 77 percent of the millennial among whom 28 percent operate with their personal blog. This is the best explanation of the marketing campaigning by Ford of its product Fiesta (Barry, 2009). References Abedniya, S. & Mahmouei, S. S., 2010. The Impact of Social Networking Websites to Facilitate the Effectiveness of Viral Marketing. International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications, Vol. 1, No.6. Acmeous, 2011. Tips for Successful Social Media Advertising and Campaign. The Geeks Club. [Online] Available at: http://www.thegeeksclub.com/tips-for-successful-social-media-advertising-and-campaign [Accessed September 09, 2011]. Atrens, D. M., 2001. The Future of Dietary Health Promotion. Health Promotion Journal of Australia, Vol. 11. No. 1. Barry, K., 2009. Ford Bets the Fiesta on Social Networking. Autopia. [Online] Available at: http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/04/how-the-fiesta/ [Accessed September 09, 2011]. Blunden, A., 2003. Negri & Hardt’s Concept of Immaterial Labour. Blackwood. [Online] Available at: http://home.mira.net/~andy/blackwood/empire03.htm [Accessed September 09, 2011]. Clemons, E. K., 2007. The Future of Advertising and the Value of Social Networks. Wharton University of Pennsylvania. [Online] Available at: http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/~clemons/blogs/socialnetsblog.pdf [Accessed September 09, 2011]. Fisher, L., 2011. How To Run An Effective Social Advertising Campaign. Advertising. [Online] Available at: http://www.simplyzesty.com/advertising-and-marketing/advertising/how-to-run-an-effective-social-advertising-campaign/ [Accessed September 09, 2011]. Fraim, J., 2000. Friendly Persuasion: The Growing Ubiquity of Advertising, or What Happens When Everyone Becomes an Ad?. Journal of Media and Culture 3.1. Klein, N., 2000. Culture Jamming. 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