Social Networking and Enterprise - Essay Example

 Table of contents Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………3 Review of Social Marketing Tools and Terms…………………………………………………3 Common Online Marketing Tools and Associated Advantages and Challenges……………….5 Targeting………………………………………………………………………………………...7 Making a Facebook Page for My Children Books Business…………………………………….8 Building a social network presence for my children’s’ books business on face book…………..9 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………10 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………….11 Introduction Social networking is the convergence of technologies that enable individuals to easily communicate, share information and form online communities. With the emergence of social network marketing, agents have been induced to embrace social media marketing to achieve a better understanding of customer needs and build a better relationship with customers (Desai and Raju, 2007). Social marketing pursues in an elaborate manner the online marketing strategy a business can adopt, the opportunities and challenges associated with social marketing (Lake, 2003). Review of Social Marketing Tools and Terms Two distinct terms emerge when discussing online marketing: interactive marketing and internet marketing. Interactive marketing is the adoption of conversational skills and settings in marketing where marketing is a transaction focused process (Jain et al., 2005). It involves addressing the customer in their own language or way of communication and promptly responding to their concerns (Pride and Ferrell, 2011). The Internet in this case acts as a tool for facilitating interactive marketing by recording customers or potential customers’ information and easing the communication process (Wang, 2006). Internet marketing is basically marketing using the Internet. In this case, marketers exploit the fact that the Internet is inherently interactive in eliciting instant responses, and its omnipresence means that it attracts spontaneous responses. Internet marketing combines the innovative and technical sides of the Internet, which include design, development, advertisement and, eventually, making sales (Stewart, 2009). The methods of marketing vary from search engine marketing, displays, email, affiliate marketing to interactive advertisement, blogosphere and viral marketing (Scott, 2010). Affiliate marketing is where a website or online business is promoted through an affiliate or publisher who essentially through his/her site or other online service promotes the website or online business and is paid for every sale, visitor, subscriber, or customer provided via their system or effort. A web banner or a banner advert is a form of online advertising where an advert is embedded into a web page intended to attract traffic to a different website by linking them to the advertiser’s website. Banners are constructed from an image and are forms of gif, jpeg, png, utilising the Java script program or derivatives of Java, Shockwave or Flash technologies. A banner can be made more conspicuous through animation or sound effects and a high aspect ratio (Scott, 2010). Blogs are websites where entries are written in chronological order, usually in reverse order. They provide commentary, debate or news on a particular subject and are interactive with a format that allows visitors to leave comments (Benni, 2001). They provide text, images or links to other blogs or websites. Contextual advertising is where adverts appear on websites or electronic devices like phones, which is served through an automated system and selects recipients through segmentation. The cost per action (CPA) is a system where an advertiser buys online advertising with a direct response perspective and only pays when and where a direct action has occurred. Cost per impression is a concept used to evaluate the cost and worth of a particular marketing campaign and is applied to banners, text links, email spam and option email advertising. Email marketing is the use of electronic mail to communicate commercial or business oriented messages to an audience; it is used to enhance business relationship with a partner or client, wooing new customers via sites that use their email system to sell advertisers’ online business (Dawar and Pillutla, 2000). Pay per click (PPC) is used in search engines, advertising networks and websites or blogs; here, advertisers pay when a visitor of the website actually clicks on an advertisement that redirects to the advertisers’ page (Pride and Ferrell, 2012). Reciprocal link is employed between two or more websites in order to ensure mutual traffic and that each site advertises the other, thus reciprocating the favor. Viral marketing is the use of pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness through self-replicating processes. Common Online Marketing Tools and Associated Advantages and Challenges Banners dubbed “online billboards” are the most common form of online advertising where marketers and marketing executives purchase banners on popular sites. Most banners appear in JPEG, GIF or Flash formats. But due to the proliferation of banners on popular online websites or forums, with some having up to fifteen on one page, banners generally attract low response from visitors and thus have a low click count. On the other hand, banners are cheap to make and utilise when used in marketing (Pride and Ferrell, 2012). Search engine marketing (SEM) involves purchasing sponsored links for certain search engine keywords or phrases, and as the user searches for the purchased keyword, an extra listing displaying a marketing message pops-up. The advantage of this method is that the consumer is actively searching for the keyword and is already interested in the product or service (Corstjens and Lal, 2000). However, SEM is expensive and time consuming for small firms with a limited marketing budget. Email marketing is cost effective and direct in marketing and communicating with customers who have shown interest in the product. The recipient customers should have explicitly consented to the marketing advances. Special attention should be paid to the design, distribution and effectiveness of the message (Kabani, 2010). Sponsoring is another tool used where a marketer sponsors a section in a website or blog in exchange for an advert of his/her product on the space. Blogs, apart from providing the basic advertising opportunities, can also be used by marketers to enhance marketing programmes, public relationship programs, email databases and customer interaction (Kabani, 2010). On the down side, the openness and ease in accessibility makes blogging a cumbersome marketing tool and can be labour intensive. Podcasts are audio or video shows or records viewed on a portable media player. They offer marketers a cost-effective way to distribute information to a large audience. The challenge with podcasts is the limited audience, cost of content creation and delivery. Social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter offer an opportunity for banners and sponsorship while offering access to a community of users united by common interests and relationships (Barefoot and Szabo, 2010). These sites can harness the collective power of association to promote and sell a product. The advantage of using social media marketing is that when a customer endorses a business and shares it with their network, on a social media site, the business connects with new customers without having to spend more on marketing (Kotler, 2010). Hubspot reveals that businesses that use Twitter average two times more lead per month than those not using it (Scott, 2010). With Facebook having more than 1 billion registered users, Twitter with over 200 million, Linkedin with over 100 million, Google+ with over 20 million, chances are that many of the target customers are at least on one of these sites. A characteristic of social media user is that they spend a substantial amount of time on the sites; thus, Facebook users spend 500 billion minutes per month on the site and share 700 billion pieces of content. The users also tend to be engaged, conversing and participating in debate with other users (Barefoot and Szabo, 2010). The instant feedback system used on social sites implies that a marketer can get important real time information to make changes or put the spotlight on those services that are working and also detect trends using social media surveys. Most social networking sites offer free accounts for businesses and organisations (Dibb, Simkin, Pride and Ferrell 2005). Some sites offer businesses a chance to be personal and professional for example Facebook offers Pages which allow users to post messages to just people who ‘like’ a particular entity. The versatility of social media sites makes it possible for businesses to interact with customers on different platforms like phones, smart phone and ipods (Zarrella 2010). Targeting The most common online targeting methods are contextual and behavioural targeting (Raab, 2010). Contextual targeting, used in conjunction with a banner ad, ensures that a banner is only displayed on pages or sections with related content. For instance, in the case where there is a banner advertising a children’s book and a reader happens to be reading about a book fair, then the banner will be displayed on the book fairs page due to the contextual relationship. The behavioral targeting method pursues consumers indiscriminately gathering their preferences as they browse the web, building a profile of the consumers’ interest. Once the target is identified, the advert pursues them irrespective of context (Zarrella, 2010). Offline activation is critical to a successful online business where the marketer uses a specific URL or web address in print advertisement or mass media to boost traffic to the interactive campaign. It is advisable to include the web address or URL on business cards, letterheads, collateral and promotional materials (Jain, 2003). Measuring the effectiveness of an online marketing campaign involves testing, measuring and optimization (Egan, 2007). A tracking tool like Google Analytics can be utilised to track and record data, the processed data is called traffic report and should be analysed against set goals and key performance indicators. While social networks can help companies spread good news fast, bad news spreads equally fast and the immoderate nature of social networks gives individuals freedom to say anything about a company or a product (Chaudhuri and Holbrook, 2001). Thus, marketers should be prompt in handling these situations. Making a Facebook Page for My Children’s Books Business The basis for making this Facebook page is to interact with existing, and potential customers in order to increase loyalty and make customers recommend the books on offer to others. I first create a personal Facebook profile so that the Facebook business page will bear a similar login to my personal profile. The aim is to interact with the business page as a business and the personal profile as myself. Since I intend to engage the services of a few friends with experience in social network marketing or in the business of selling books, I will designate them amidst status on my business page so that they can have access to page-editing features. From my Facebook profile page, I click ‘Pages,’ then click ‘Create a Page’ and select local business type of page; then, I click the ‘Get Started’ button and follow the consecutive Facebook guidelines for the set up process step by step to the end. I then customise the public appearance of the Facebook page to a style that is appealing to customers of children’s books by posting photos of favourite titles and PowerPoint slides of the books in my catalogue. Initially, I intend to expand the reach of my business by providing relevant information, influencing potential customers, demonstrating authority in the field and engaging fans. I start by inviting contacts to become fans by going to the ‘Edit’ page, clicking resources and selecting ‘Tell your fans.’ I intend to inform more people about the page by embedding a link to my email signature and displaying it on my business cards, blog and other marketing materials like brochures and posters. To foster a strong relationship with other businesses so that they can recommend my page, I will add them to my ‘Favorites list.’ I proceed to add links to my blog, other sites with related content, and respond to customers inquiries promptly. To grow my fan page, I will utilise the ‘Reveal Tab’ to show specific content only to people who ‘like’ the page using Pagemodo. I will sell books online using the ‘Tab Juice’ tool initially on a three-month trial. Building a Social Network Presence for my Children’s Books Business on Facebook I start by inventing a catchy and memorable user name for my page so that customers and fans can remember it easily when they want to visit. The purpose of this fan page is to interact with customers, so I will spare one hour each day to interact and respond to visitors’ inquiries and complaints. By clicking on the ‘Create an Ad’ link on my Facebook page, I enter my business URL and then click ‘I want to advertise something I have on Facebook.’ Facebook will then feed in text and an image from my website, and thereon I can upload an image and edit a copy that is appealing and relevant to the business message. The next step is to click the ‘Continue’ button to get into targeting. Initially, I will target a wide range of Facebook users and later, maybe after a month, narrow down the list to a few categories. After the ad has run for sometime, Facebook will review my ad’s effectiveness, and depending on the outcome, I can decide whether to pay for impression or use pay per click mode of advertising. For example, if many people ‘liked’ my page, I can opt for pay per click. I will consistently change my targeting and tweak the ads sometimes to avoid fan fatigue. Among the people who have access to my admin is a friend who works in a baby daycare company, and another one works in a library. I intend to use their networks to target customers of their respective organisations; this will help grow the business brand. These tactics I have described in collaboration with other convectional marketing activities should help my business brand grow. Conclusion For a social network marketing programme to be successful and the business to achieve measurable commercial benefits, better control and measurement of social networks is critical, and social network marketing should be complemented by traditional marketing. It is critical that the programme should win important business discussions online. Bibliography: Barefoot D., and Szabo J., 2010. Friends with benefits: a social media marketing handbook. No Starch Press: San Francisco, CA. Benni, B., 2001. 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