Social Media Networking and Mobile Application - Dissertation Example

work 2 Report Project Table of Contents Report 3 Social Media Networking for B2B Segment 3 Social Media Networking for B2C Segment 3 Work Cited 5 Report 2 6 Advice on How to Develop a Mobile Application 6 Factors to be considered for developing a Mobile Application 6 Benefits and Limitations of Mobile Application 7 Work Cited 9 Report 1 In report 1, the discussion would be on L’Oreal’s way of utilizing social media marketing for Business to Business (B2B), which targets the sellers, distributors, or salons, and Business to Customer (B2C) segment, which targets the end users or retail customers. Social Media Networking for B2B Segment L’Oreal wanted to increase the sales of their products through the salons, which will act as their distributors. Keeping in mind this aim, they offered access of the Buddy Media, the social marketing suit to more than 5000 salons. This social media suit has certain tools which will assist them to enhance the Facebook pages, and it will also permit L’Oreal to evaluate the transactions of the salons who have taken the distributorship of L’Oreal. These salons can also launch dynamic videos on their Facebook page, register appointments, bookings, and information sharing on behalf of the company (Thomson “Is B2B Social Media Marketing behind B2C"). The company also supplied their distributors and suppliers with various educational resources to enhance their social marketing strategy, and as a token of motivation each distributors were also given an advertisement credit of $25. The company received strong response from around 21 million supply points around the world (“L’Oreal, Salon Campaign by Buddy Media"). They were also successful in reaching out to more than 6000 salons and approximately 1.7 million clients (“B2B and B2C Brands Discovered the Value of Social Media marketing in 2012"). Social Media Networking for B2C Segment L’Oreal is even more active on social media for its B2C segment because this is for attracting the retail customers. The social media marketing vice president of L’Oreal said in an interview that L’Oreal is a big company, with different product lines, so social media chosen for every product line is based on the nature of the product and target customers. In terms of social media resources, L’Oreal experiments with various channels such as Instagram, Pinterest and even Tumblr. However, the major channel for social media marketing is still Facebook and Twitter obviously because of its huge user base. Facebook is a partner with L’Oreal for its social media marketing. Twitter is however, still a guide of innovation, and brands like Maybelline are being promoted on Twitter. Georges Edouard Dias, the vice president of the digital business at L’Oreal, said in his interview in “Marketing Week”, that in order to understand the needs and requirements of the customers, the company should have to reach out to their target customers through various means of communication (Handley “Q&A: Georges-Edouard Dias, L'Oreal”). He said that they get approximately 250,000 posts for their brands every day. The company also uses social media for cross selling in various countries like China. Beauty has been always regarded as a component of social conversation. YouTube plays a significant part in this context, where women get to see how the products are used or put on. The video content is being optimized regularly for this purpose. The company has also segregated the video division, which concentrates on social media marketing videos on YouTube (Edwards “L'Oreal Social Media Chief Rachel Weiss Tells Us Why She's Bored of Pinterest”). Work Cited “B2B and B2C Brands Discovered the Value of Social Media Marketing in 2012." Brafton Editorial. Brafton, Incorporated, 28 Dec 2012 Web. 5 June 2013. “L’Oreal, Salon Campaign by Buddy Media" International Advertising Bureau UK. International Advertising Bureau, 23 Aug 2012. Web. 5 June 2013. Edwards, Jim. “L'Oreal Social Media Chief Rachel Weiss Tells Us Why She's Bored Of Pinterest.” Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 7 Oct 2013. Web. 5 June 2013. Handley, Lucy. “Q&A: Georges-Edouard Dias, L'Oreal.” Marketingweek. Centaur Communications Ltd, Mar 2012. Web. 5 June 2013. Thomson, Natascha. “Is B2B Social Media Marketing Behind B2C?" Social Media Today. Social Media Today LLC, 6 Jan 2013. Web. 5 June 2013. Report 2 Advice on How to Develop a Mobile Application In order to develop a mobile application, the vocation training company should first conduct a survey for assessing the importance of mobile presence for the industry. This will assist in knowing whether it is really that important to develop the mobile application for the company or not. The second step after decision-making is to plan out the objectives of developing the mobile app, and the benefits that the company can generate within a specified time period. Basically, a cost benefit analysis is required. The third step would be to take quotations from different mobile application developers, and tally their price, and features they can offer in the app. This should be in line with the objectives. The fourth step is to choose an application developer and discuss with them the requirements, so that a customized app can be developed. It would be better to choose Android and iOS platform to launch the application. The last step would be to test the app in order to see whether all the web pages are working fine and the features are useful (Pattison, and Stedmon “Inclusive design and human factors: Designing Mobile Phones for Older Users”). Factors to be considered for developing a Mobile Application The company wishes to develop a mobile application in order to lure the customers through e-marketing. However, developing a mobile application is complex and there are certain factors that have to be considered for developing a mobile app. The company should have experts who have relevant experience to develop mobile apps. The decision to select the platform on which the app would be developed is important. The company can target iOS and Android platforms for developing the mobile app (B'Far 235-237). The third factor would be to assess and understand the usage rate that is an estimate number of customers who will use the app. Fourthly, evaluating the usability of the app is also important because unnecessary spending money on development of a mobile app is not relevant for a company, irrespective of its size (Weisler “5 Factors to Consider When Building an App"). Flexibility is very important, so that the company can regularly upgrade it in order to attract more customers. Apart from this, factors like efficiency and scalability are also a prerequisite for developing a mobile app because if it does not function smoothly, customers would be reluctant to use it. Further, robustness and availability is the must. Generally, when mobile apps are freeware, they are accepted by customers readily. Finally, the most important thing is that the quality of the software should be the best because this would form the basis for the application (“Vocational Training"). Benefits and Limitations of Mobile Application There are various advantages and disadvantages of developing mobile application, which are applicable for every company irrespective of industry, but obviously in different ways. Mobile application will act as a tool for linear processes in the vocational training company. The customers can access the information of the company, without even logging in through a computer. The company can even conduct market research through its application by inviting polls or votes. This will also be a mode of promotion for the company to grab customer attention. On the other hand, apps usually have short lifespan, which is a disadvantage for the company. 80 percent of the apps in the market by different companies are not downloaded by customers due to various reasons. Moreover, mobile applications need to be updated frequently, so it is not a onetime investment for the vocational training company (Petrova, and Qu “Mobile Gaming: A Reference Model and Critical Success Factors”). Work Cited “Vocational Training." Ejeevika. Ejeevika, 2012. Web. 5 June 2013. B'Far, Reza. Mobile Computing Principles: Designing and Developing Mobile Applications with UML and XML. Cambridge University Press, 2005. Print. Pattison, Matthew, and Alex Stedmon. “Inclusive design and human factors: Designing Mobile Phones for Older Users.” PsychNology Journal (2006): 267-284. Web. 5 June 2013. Petrova, Krassie, and Haixia Qu. “Mobile Gaming: A Reference Model and Critical Success Factors.” Idea Group Publishing (2006): 228-230. Web. 5 June 2013. Weisler, Marci. “5 Factors to Consider When Building an App." Mobile Marketer. Napean LLC, 26 April 2013. Web. 5 June 2013. Read More