Facebook and The Economist - Strengths and Weaknesses - Essay Example

?Media Analyse Table of Contents Overview 3 Compare and Contrast Uses of Facebook and The Economist 3 Strengths and Weaknesses of Two Media 7 Strengths and Weaknesses of Facebook 7 Strengths and Weaknesses of The Economist 9 References 11 Overview Marketing communication can be identified as a process whereby the transmission of the message from the sender to the receiver takes place. In the post-modern era, the digital communication has widely been stated to have altered the way marketers communicate with the external parties (Marketing Online, 2011). With this concern, the main objective of this report is to compare and contrast the uses of ‘Facebook’ as well as ‘The Economist’ from the perspectives of the marketers. It also intends to assess the strength as well as weaknesses of these two communication mediums from the perspective of marketing communication. Compare and Contrast Uses of Facebook and The Economist Current statistical findings suggest that Facebook has a greater influence upon the way people communicate. The main advantage of using Facebook is that it permits the marketers to be in connection with the people all around the day whether they are on their mobile devices, at home or at work, watching TV or shopping with their friends. It is because of this reason that the marketers are capable of generating rich social experiences, develop enduring relationships and enhance the strongest marketing strategies such as Word-Of-Mouth (WOM). Facebook has been one of the medium that permits the companies to learn regarding the customer behaviour having close observations of their actions and by involving with them directly. This social networking site is often considered as one of the best online places to learn about the potential customers and their perception about the company. It becomes easier for the companies to integrate their customers into their product development cycle along with the marketing campaign (Facebook, 2011). It is a well known fact that the magazines are not just read once but are read several times by the readers. The readers often prefer reading most of the pages repeatedly. This is one of the main advantages of print media in comparison to television or radio. It has been revealed from the JICNARS Reader Categorization Study that most of the readers of magazines view the spreads. Thus, the advertisements that the company places are at least viewed by the readers in the process of screening the content of the magazines. There are many evidences which prove that the magazine advertisement has the capability of selling the products (Consterdine, 2005). There have been favourable sales effects of campaigns which are focused upon magazine advertising. It is to be remembered that the magazine exposure do not take place at once the issue is published. The impact of the advertisement is basically evident after a week or even a month and therefore the advertisers need to consider these facts so that they can compare ad exposure as well as advertisement effect (Office of Commission, 2006). The weekly news magazine such as The Economist sells quickly because it is well written and covers almost all the issues of the world. It has also been observed that the magazine is aimed at those readers who prefer to remain informed. A good instance of a promotion that includes both consumer as well as business sector is generated by The Economist. There are four main components such as ‘Invoice me’ option, good use of colour, stronger offer and an easy order form that tend to help the marketers to ensure that the advertisements placed on The Economist will perform effectively in comparison to other forms of advertisements in UK (Subscription Strategy, 2006). The main advantage of reading The Economist is that each of the issues intends to discover domestic as well as international issues. It also offers its readers with news relating to science, technology, finance, business and arts. Each article published by The Economist is highly analytical. However, it is most often found that several issues related to political biasness take place in the media. Therefore, in such circumstances The Economist tends to take adequate steps on nearly every issue taking place which are stated and defended in simple terms and in structured manner (Amazon, 2012). One of the differences that exist between the Facebook and The Economist magazine is related to the advertising. Advertisers want to place their advertisement where the rate of audience tends to be higher (Locke, 2007). It is a well known fact that the rate of audience/users is relatively higher in Facebook in comparison to that of The Economist. Therefore, advertisers are turning their attention towards the social networking sites such as Facebook with more than 7 billion users (Locke, 2007). Therefore, it can be expected that the advertisements placed on Facebook shall be highly beneficial for the companies in the UK (BBC, 2011). The other difference is that the companies have the option to advertise their products in Facebook for free which is not possible in the context of The Economist. The biggest challenge for the magazines such as The Economist is to identify how to place their brands in the position where the online communities such as Facebook are happening (Fell, 2008). In addition, social networking tools such as Facebook are gaining huge attractiveness in the recent times. There may be rise in the migration of the content provider as well as the consumers towards the social networking sites as companies want greater effectiveness and efficiencies and consumers search for elevated value and lower-cost options. Therefore, it can be estimated that there will be reduction in the print subscription of the users where expenditure in advertisement may move from print media to digital media. Stating precisely, in the coming days, advertisers are most likely to allocate greater percentage of their budgets in digital Media such as social networking sites. As a result of this, magazines such as The Economist may face competition from Facebook and therefore the revenues of the magazines may be witnessed to decline (Evans, 2009). The Economist has nearly 4.1 million visitors in a month and the ad revenue that it generates was recorded to be around $131.5 million in the year 2009. The publication house is capable of successfully attracting business class people and presents global views on politics as well as finance. The magazine hopes that its coordinated approach will be capable of attracting the advertisers trying to capture the readers in different manners (Riedman, 2009). The Economist is also capable of providing its customers with current information across numerous subjects as possible. The company’s circulation business was performing quite well and was also profitable which permitted them to invest heavily for the purpose of brand building and in the process of acquiring customers even at times when the advertising market was quite challenging (Fell, 2009). One of the similarities between The Economist and Facebook is that both the companies invest heavily in brand marketing. The biggest challenge for both The Economist as well as Facebook is to keep pace with the changes and to make most of the market opportunities as enjoyed by both of the brand (Fell, 2008). Strengths and Weaknesses of Two Media Strengths and Weaknesses of Facebook The main strength of Facebook can be considered as the huge number of users who tend to use the social site everyday all around the world (Facebook, 2011). It is worth mentioning that the company has over 350 million members worldwide and who are connected through the network of this social site for 24 hours in 7 days a week. Therefore, its greatest strength is the number of subscribers assisting the company to develop its customer base. The company finds it easier to customise their products since they can obtain huge amount of required data from the customers regarding their tastes and preferences through the social site of Facebook. The discovery of its new open format platform can also be considered as one of its major strengths. It permits the customers to generate third party applications as well. Its collaboration with the third party not only permits Facebook to reach the potential subscribers but also offers the users with a rewarding experience. The website is quite easy to use and its relation with the companies such as Amazon as well as Microsoft makes it one of the leaders in the social networking sites. Since the time the company started its operations, the company has been capable of presenting itself as one of the most elegant social networking sites. The company comes up with advanced features and therefore it is capable of providing its customers with highest value in comparison to its peers (Arthur, 2011). E-Commerce also helps the company to create revenues. Facebook is considered as a web based organisation. The media is well-known as it supports social interactions and it is the network though which the communication process takes place serving as the basis of ecommerce and makes Facebook popular (Allvoices Incorporation, 2012). Various companies can be observed to take the advantage of Facebook in order to gain vast amount of information regarding the users, who are also the customers of those companies, as well as their preferences for the products served so that they can develop an efficient marketing plan to promote their services. The site is considered as attractive by the companies to those it has proved to be one of the most powerful marketing tools in the contemporary era. It has also assisted the UK’s online display advertising market to progress by approximately ?1bn in the year 2010 (Sweney, 2011). However, critiques doubt that the attractiveness of Facebook as a social networking site and also as a communication tool can prove to be unsustainable in the long term as it may be hampered due to the introduction of any other better social networking site. It is also doubtful if the company will be capable of turning its huge site traffic as well as the personal information that it gathers into new revenue streams (Slideshare, n.d.). However, the main weaknesses of the company are related to concerns over privacy. It has received negative publicity in relation to the risks of posting personal information online that in turn gave rise to identity theft as well as loss of privacy. Such a bad reputation is quite likely to restrain the partner companies from using Facebook as they may fear loss of their significant information by the intruders. Therefore, weak privacy policies can be considered as one of the significant weaknesses of the company from the perspective of marketing communication (Clark & et. al., n.d.). Strengths and Weaknesses of The Economist The strength of the magazine like The Economist lies in the manner in which the readers make choice of the magazine and make use of it. Magazines are considered as an active medium where the reader can be in control. The Economist is widely considered to be capable of adapting itself to the requirement of the readers. It has also been observed that the reader gets indulged with the magazine so much that it leads to the development of strong relation between the reader and the chosen magazine. Identification of the reader with The Economist can go well ahead as the magazine intends to serve with a well-structured and simply documented information which is easier for the readers to attain. When a magazine is capable of creating a favourable image in the minds of the reader, it can strengthen the reader’s own image. Therefore, this creates a positive and trusting relationship between the reader and The Economist. The other strength of the magazine is that these are considered as most effective marketing communication tools to provide the relevant and up-to-date information which are to a large extent reliable and authenticate. The reason behind this is that magazines have wide reach in consumer markets possessing the ability to influence the thought of the reader or consumer directly (Thinktrade, 2009). The main weakness of The Economist is that it requires longer lead times which reveal that the marketers need to make plans for weeks or even for months in advance. It has also been observed that there is inadequate flexibility in relation to advertisement placements as well as format. Due to this reason, the marketers find it quite costly to put their advertisements in magazines. The main weakness of The Economist is that it has little contents which are actually useful to the traders. In addition to these its economic content are long-term in nature and it focuses more upon the theories rather than being practical in nature. Those traders who want to invest in foreign stocks do not obtain relevant content and the content tends to be fragmented and random by its nature. This indicates that The Economist, as a news magazine, witnesses the lacuna of serving with inadequate information as required by its readers. It is also noted that magazines such as The Economist may offer bias information depending upon the media group that it belongs to and the degree of control held by the government. Loss of value is another weakness of the magazines which refers that the customers do not prefer reading the magazine as soon as the next issue is released (Thinktrade, 2009). 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