Sony's Experiments in Social Media Marketing - Assignment Example

?SONY’s Experiments in Social Media Marketing This paper gives specific focus to the social media strategies of the multinational firm Sony Corporation so as to evaluate the intensity of the new trends in the business world and how firms today utilize social media networks for their business campaign. The reason for selecting Sony for the completion of this assignment is that this corporation has been identified as the most important firm that utilizes the scope of social media marketing in its business operations for the past few years. Although there are several small and multinational firms which indulge in social media, Sony has its own unique style in performing this task and to be competitive always in the market. Introduction Social media has become an integral part of modern business management practices especially for the past few years. Most of the business firms have already appointed their own social media managers so as to pace with the emerging trend in the business communication tactics. The dramatic change with regard to business communication and business promotion strategies can be attributed to the increasing number of people using social media to keep in touch with their loved ones today. In other words, social media networks like facebook, Twitter, Orkut, Googletalk, etc have become the major platforms for millions of people across the world to interact with individuals from various cultures. Individuals obtain the opportunity to learn more about different cultural practices, norms, and beliefs this way. This is the context that forces business firms to perceive social media as the most innovative and rather potential podium for business promotion. Social media: An overview Internet has been explosively growing over the last decade, for this worldwide network was found constructive for the whole world to be connected always. Internet has greatly changed the way people live and the mode they transact businesses. Needless to say, it is unimaginable to live without internet because this technology is playing a key role in different areas of the daily life. According to Wilder (2006, p. 204), one of the most noticeable effects of increased internet usage is that it promotes socialization, which is a dynamic learning process through which individuals and organizations change over time. Since internet influences cultural transitions, this global network significantly contributes to the pace of socialization (O’Keeffe 2011). Evidently, such dramatic improvements in information flow have had tremendous effects on the way companies run their day to day operations. Social communication websites like Facebook and Twitter allow people to open their own personal accounts and communicate with their friends around the world. It also allows people to make new acquaintances. The form of interaction addressed here is the facility of adding photos and videos. The website allows account holders to add photos and videos, and the viewers of the profiles have the chance to ‘like’, ‘comment’ or ‘share’ the photo and video. When it comes to business perspective, ‘Twitter Business Profile’ allow business firms to communicate with an unlimited number of customers simultaneously. In the same way, ‘Facebook fan page’ also offers very good opportunities for businesses to build their brand image and communicate with their customers in no time. LinkedIn is another network that enables entrepreneurs to find out potential candidates directly. Sony and Social Media As mentioned already, Sony is one of the leading firms that utilises the scope of social media for the promotion of their brand image and business communication. At this juncture, it is relevant to quote the social media policy of the firm; “Sony participates in social media to listen, learn and share stories of the passionate people who help bring Sony to life” (Sony: Social Media). Among the companies that use social media and web 2.0 technologies, Sony holds the prominent position. They effectively communicate with customers and hold them with pictures, questions, videos, and various relevant posts (Lovell 2009). According to the reports, “fifty-eight percent of companies are currently engaged in social networks like Facebook, microblogs like Twitter, and sharing multimedia on platforms such as YouTube” (Ennes, n.d. ). The support section of Sony’s website itself is an excellent form of social media, for this allows users to post their feedback to rate how useful the support advice was. The site’s forum section is supported by web 2.0 technologies and holds user-generated content. Suppose a customer does not know how to operate an item they recently purchased, they can go to the Support page that contains multiple help options (Sony: Support for VAIO). In addition to the texts, pictures and video tutorials are available, from which the customer can find information. Evidently, the words and posts that customers use give Sony insight about how they perceive and respond to the products and services. This close feedback analysis helps the firm to learn exactly the essential strategies required further. 1. ROI Measures Like many other firms, Sony also uses the social media monitoring word trends for their decision making processes, content creation and marketing. For this purpose, company employs real-time social media monitoring and management tools like social media ROI (Return on Investment). According to the revelation of Sony’s digital marketing agency Harte-Hank, social media ROI has greatly helped the firm to redesign the marketing strategies of some of its products including Sony VAIVO. Although the company was keen to hear customers’ comments on the laptop with regard to memory, weight etc, from the social media word analysis, the company came to know that the customers are highly concerned about the product’s style, colour, and design (Holland 2011). Thereafter, the company has been giving specific focus to the key words like ‘style’ and ‘design’ in their email marketing campaigns. In the same way, greater emphasis is given to colour aspects in its retail displays of VAIO (Ibid). This shows the significance of social media monitoring validation in product development and promotion. 2. FAQ & Tips If this was the case of VAIO, there are instances when the customers urge for technical assistance and tips. In order to meet this requirement, the company has developed YouTube videos in which most of the headlines are the same questions customers used in their social media posts. Exclusively for the Sony CyberShot owners, the company has formed a Flicker community which allows the users of CyberShot help each other (Sony Cyber-shot). According to the survey results of Nielson (as cited in McMillan 2011), among the users of Sony e-reader, 61% are female while 30% are over the age of 55. It was the social media analysis that helped Sony to identify its potential customer market and thus gain early insight for a competitive advantage. One of the direct advantages of the company’s social media campaign was that Sony could reduce the costs associated with maintaining customer support, and this turn reduced product return. 3. Most successful campaign #Catch The Tablet was Sony’s most successful social media campaign in history that considerably increased customer awareness of the tablet and enhanced their engagement through social media platforms. The company announced its ‘#CatchTheTablet cross-country tour contest’ prior to the launch of Sony Tablet S and ensured its most active customers’ engagement mainly via twitter and Facebook pages (Macale 2011). Catch the tablet info tab on its Facebook page was really helpful for the customers to know what exactly needed to catch the tablet. The social media team of Sony arranged several get-togethers across the globe with intent to enhance the customer participation in ‘#CatchTheTablet cross-country tour contest’ (Ibid). The firm could easily identify the potential locations where they had to meet with their fans analyzing the intensity of customer responses to their posts on Facebook (Sony, FB Timeline). This campaign really enabled the firm to increase its following on Facebook and Twitter pages. Another success story of Sony’s social media campaign lies with its photo contests like #SonyX picture and #Sonylove (DiReporter 2013). To illustrate, for the #Sonylove contest, the company asked the people to follow them on ‘instagrsm’ and post images of anything that represented love in order to win prizes. Through this campaign Sony remarkably increased its follow on Instagram and thus became a model to other firms in this regard (Sprung 2013). Analysis Evidently Sony identified that social media is more than having a Facebook page or a Twitter account for the company. And, through its several campaigns it proved that social media monitoring has much more value than detecting positive or negative trends in the industry. Sony’s tactic was that it counted social media as a source of data that could transform the traditional marketing strategies into appropriate content, using the same words and traits of its own consumers. They could effectively inform consumers about their marketing through social media. They made content out of things their customers said about the products and services online. The firm counted every measureable result of its campaign valuable for its future decision making on campaigns and investments. Through this strategy, the firm enhances its customer databases and the social data acquired in turn improves the firm’s campaign performance. This does not mean that Sony’s all social media activities are big success. There are incidents when the firm invited criticism toward its social media initiatives. Among them, Sony’s PS4-the next generation console-was an example. As Kain (2013) points out, Sony’s campaign on PS4 was highly ambiguous that the social media promotion could convey little information to people regarding the game’s costs or features. Another mistake lies with Sony BMG copy protection scandal when “Mark Russinovich broke the story and launched a wave of bloggers and criticism against” Sony’s XCP protection on its CDs (Parr 2009). Sony failed to be upfront by being resistant to bloggers, and the result was that it lost millions in law suits (ibid). Why selective? It is always advisable for firms to be a bit selective in choosing social media platforms for their business promotion. There are certain things that the social media team should consider before selecting the media. For instance, it is important to identify where the customers are and their social network needs. In other words, the firm must consider if the proposed social media is relevant to the target segment. This involves two things; knowing where the customers spend most of their time, and identifying the networks where the competitors are mostly spoken about. Admittedly, the strength of the social media is an important factor to be considered while choosing the social media. Other factors include but not limited to the user-friendliness of the site, its costs and affordability, and demands. Sony’s Playstation 3 has grown from a gaming destination to a retail powerhouse with 20,000 retailers, 31 million fans on Facebook and 1.7 million followers on Twitter (Boorstin & Taylor 2013). This clearly indicates Sony’s potential in social media campaign despite the few above said failures. Recommendations It seems that Sony has been all about feeling indebted to form active presence on every social media platform for the past few years. Therefore, in order to pace with the changes, the firm has to pay higher attention to identify the specific platform that makes most sense to the business and industry environment. Undoubtedly, this will make the firm more confident and will make the social media integration more effective and flawless. The current trends in social media marketing indicates that hyper connectivity is giving way to simple marketing strategies in a way to simplify consumer’ life and product experience . Also companies are likely to focus more on real time marketing through social media and websites other than real time consumer engagement in campus based marketing and excessive social media integration. Considering the latest statistics, as of June 2012, Facebook had more than 955 million active users while Twitter had over 500 million active users (Rosenblatt 2012). Data indicate that the time an average user spends on social networking sites has been increasing for the last two years (as cited in McGarry 2012). Hence, social networks like Facebook and Twitter are the best platforms where Sony can integrate paid online multi-player gaming facilities into its website in the future. Since social media campaign has grown to be a crucial part of marketing strategy, firms are striving to meet several new challenges associated with it. This has become an area where ongoing research and innovation is required so as to pace with the new trends. ROI assessment is essential to ensure the potential of resources and efforts of social media campaign, and this will cost additional time and charge. Hence, in order to maintain a competitive advantage over its competitors, Sony has to pay more time and money on social media marketing though return on investment in this regard is uncertain. This situation clearly indicates that playing on social media is a risk rather than a hopeful opening for companies today (Shullich 2011). In order to excel in social media marketing, Sony has to develop a good team of experts especially for ROI analysis. It has to seek external assistance for planning better campaign if necessary. Evidently, Sony has decided to carry on with the social media marketing experiments, for it recently announced that it has been seeking a Director, Social Media to join its Communications & Public Affairs department. The Director will be responsible for developing and implementing integrated social media strategies while working closely with the Vice President, Corporate Communications & Public Affairs, and senior SCA and Communications leadership (Sony: Director social media). Conclusion Social media has become an integral platform for current-day business promotion tactics regardless of the size and structure of the firms. A close analysis of the industry reveals that companies in general have been struggling in the field so as to cope up with the trends and changes related to social media marketing for the recent years. Sony along with its all subsidiaries has remarkably gained from Social media networks, namely from Facebook and Twitter. The company has clear outlook regarding the scope and challenges of the social media marketing, for it has decided to deploy its own Social Media Director to address the possibly more intense challenges of the future. References Boorstin, J & Taylor, H. 2013 “Sony Gaming Seeks a Power Surge From Social Media”. CNBC, April 14. [online] available at [accessed 5 May 2013]. DiReporter. 2013 Photo-Imaging Contests : Sony Follows Up #SonyX Contest with #Sonylove Instagram Contest. [online] available at [accessed 5 May 2013]. Ennes, M. (n.d.) “Social Media: What Most Companies Don't Know”. Harvard Business Review. [online] available at [accessed 5 May 2013]. 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