Social Media Marketing - Essay Example

Social Media Marketing Executive summary Social media marketing is the latest trend in the field of marketing today. It can be described as use of technology and practices to share ideas, opinions, insights and perspectives with one another. The largest percentage of people in the world today are connected to one another through social media platforms such as Face book, Instagram, twitter among others. These sites are quite popular especially with the younger generation who spend most of the time on these sites as compared to the time spent watching television or reading a newspaper. As such, social media marketing should be embraced by every company that is looking to grow in short and long term (Singh & Diamond, 2015). Social media sites are easily accessible at any time and place using computers or at the mere click of a button via smart phone. These sites are here to stay and many organisations are shifting from the traditional methods of advertising to the new trend of social media marketing which is cheaper and easier to get more audience than in conventional advertising. Social media marketing should be adopted since it allows new communication methods between an organisation and its publics. There are new ways to communicate with the clients in a fast and efficient manner, where customers direct enquiries to the organisation and they are able to get answers faster as compared to print or television adverts. Social media does not limit marketers to a specific time or page or a particular newspaper or magazines where advertisements are displayed. Adverts can be placed on such networks at any time of day or night and potential clients can have access to them whenever they are on these social media platforms. As more people are shifting from buying newspapers and relying on social media and blogs for information, marketers should tap into this opportunity to place their adverts where they will be seen (Hay & Hay, 2011). Therefore, social media is pivotal to the world of marketing. This paper will focus on Samsung smart Phones and why the firm should embrace social media marketing. Brief overview Samsung smart phones continue to face several challenges in the market today. This is due to proliferation of cheaper brands of smart phones such as Huawei from china. Although Android phones are more popular than windows and other operating systems, high end brands which are sophisticated such as apple’s iPhones are also a major challenge. However, Samsung enjoys a huge social media presence with over twenty million followers on Face book alone (Evans & Mckee, 2010). This will play a major role in the transformation of print advertising to a more modern approach using social media platforms. The planned campaign will take a different approach from the usual advertising that Samsung places on social media. This is meant to attract more clientele and also as a way of retaining the loyal customers. The marketing plan entails doing things differently. First activity will be to identify the kind of consumers that needs to be targeted for a specific advert. Social media platforms are dominated by young people who are technology savvy and with insatiable tastes for new and sophisticated products. As such, they are always looking for new products which are more complicated and sleek. This is the perfect platform for marketers of smart phones and such like gadgets. The Planned marketing campaign on social media will give the important information on social media pages such as the splashy smart phone models showing their specifications and function ability. These will be accompanied with links which people can click on to get more information about the product as well as the organisation. Research shows that if you give people information, they are always looking for more details. Therefore, what will be displayed on social media will only be a part of more details which will be accessed through the links. The campaign will also make video a requirement for every advert placed on social media. With the advancement in technology, videos have become very easy and fast to create. They also provide more information than print adverts do. Therefore not using video would have serious ramifications especially if the competition uses short and interesting videos to market their products. To be considered in the transformation of print to social media marketing also is the fact that many people access social media platforms using their phones (Zarella, 2010). As such, there will be many people trying to access the firm’s website for more information through mobile phones. It will therefore be necessary to change the designs of the websites to accommodate this change. It will also be necessary to consider what other elements to add for those using their personal computers. Rather than trying to attract attention for being the loudest, being more informative is more important. Customers will always go for adverts that provide valuable information than the ones that are bold but with nothing much to offer. The competition, its presence in the social media and tactics used One of the biggest competitions for Samsung smart phones is the rival giant Apple Inc. Apple iPhones operate on an iOS system as compared to Samsung which uses Android operating system. Apple is known to shy away from social media. Since the advent of social media, the company has had very minimal input in social networking. It could be argued that the company social media strategy is creating high end products and to let consumers carry on talking about them. It takes a lot of time for customers with queries to be addressed by the company officials via social network. Case in point, it took the company’s CEO, the Late Steve Jobs three weeks to address the issue of poor signal for iPhone 4 after its launch (Safko, 2012) in 2014, Apple paid twitter for an expensive advert for its iPad. However, the company wasn’t really interested in leveraging the platform at no cost. Apple does not even have a twitter account for its smart phones but only a few accounts for its other brands like the Apple stores and iTunes. The company uses these accounts to just push messages but rarely gets in touch with the customers for example answering their questions. Ironically, much of the marketing happens online on these social platforms as the fans create a buzz over the launch of new products on twitter or on blogs. Apple launches are always trending topics on many social networks even with the company staying away from them. Samsung on the other hand enjoys millions of followers on the many pages it has on face book and also on twitter and actively engages with customers on many levels on social media. Apple was seen as taking a step in embracing social media when it made an appearance on Tumblr for the iPhone 5c (Safko, 2012). This did not last long as the company has continued to steer clear of social networks from that time. The company capitalises on rumour mills as their public relations and marketing tool as it maintains silence letting people speculate. The contrast between Samsung presence on social media versus Apple is phenomenon. Samsung places hundreds of Adverts on almost all social media platforms and always engages customers, old and new. This social media ignorance could serve as a competitive advantage for Samsung as some clients may feel ignored by the zero response policy the company has towards social media communication. Customers want to engage on a non-official level where they feel valued and not ignored (Funk, 2013). They are always looking to find value for their money on all levels. Therefore, Samsung can use this as an opportunity to engage further with their customers assuring them that they always have time for their queries and any other information that needs to be passed. Samsung should roll out even more short and enticing adverts for their smart phones to ensure the customer is always informed of every product and its availability. Traditional Advertising Traditional advertising can be described as use of old forms of communication such as newspaper and bill board adverts. It is still quite popular especially with companies who prefer to maintain originality by avoiding platforms such as social media or online marketing (Jenkins, Ford & Green, 2013). For this paper, I have selected an advert that was placed in many newspapers and magazines by Samsung to show its superior qualities in smart phone specifications as compared to its rival Apple. The Advert was seen as discrediting the function ability of apple iPhone 5 with a contrasting long list of specifications for galaxy S3. This was meant to show that the galaxy phone is better performing and with a long battery life among other things painting a bad picture of the iPhone 5 smart phones. The advert was received with mixed reactions by the lovers of such sophisticated gadgets. It received equal measure of admiration and criticism from the customers. This was a bold move as by doing so, Samsung was also creating attention to the iPhone. As scholars assert, no publicity is bad publicity. https://www.google.com/search?q=samsung+print+adverts&tbm=isch&imgil=ez2E52f0e0riZM%253A%253BM6XbnNkwA9kz0M%253Bhttp%25253A%25 Body of the plan a) Goals There are a few objectives that this campaign seeks to achieve. The main goal of using social media for marketing is to build and strengthen the brand. Such a platform is the most powerful tool for building a brand. Social media offers the most broad and strongest opportunity to find a target audience and allows a marketer to engage in conversation with them (Kabani, 2012). With the stiff competition in the smart phone field, there is need for a brand to stand out otherwise very low sales will be made since products will be sold at very low prices. It would be wise for a firm to target a specific audience and build a strategy around that. Secondly, social media drives conversations. Whether a company is looking to drive up sales, acquire new customers or drive people to act, social media is the best to get people talking. Apple has thrived on this by simply launching superior products and letting people market the products through trending topics and hash tags. Finally, social media is useful for increasing presence. The realm of social media is the only platform where consumers worldwide talk to one another and companies can be tracked (Golden, 2011). This is a good platform for companies driven by public relations to get to know what their publics are saying about them. Samsung should use this medium more than traditional advertising especially with the popularity the company enjoys online. b) Target audience It is necessary to first establish who it is you want to reach through your advert. Research shows that young people who are aware of the latest technology trends seem to be more present in social media platforms as compared to the older generation. As such, the adverts should be made to cater for both the adolescents who spend most of their time on these platforms and also young professionals who are always engaging in trending topics all over the world. Twitter is popular with professionals and face book most popular with the younger clientele (Evans & Mckee, 2010). Therefore, it would be in order to present different adverts for these two sites. c) Developing strategies and choosing tactics First activity is to treat each medium as an individual channel (Gillin, 2011). This is because every entity seems to target a different kind of audience. For example, LinkedIn tends to have an audience that is more business focused searching for an in depth educational contents, completely the opposite of instagram with an audience looking to engage with visual content. Secondly is to treat everybody who posts as a potential customer. It would be business lost if a visitor for example tweets but never gets a response. Always engage the audience in conversation to make them feel valued and appreciated. Next is to set a target limit for example the number of face book posts the marketer should put up in a week. Stick to the game plan as the followers will always be expecting latest news and offers from the company. Finally, embrace mishaps as they are part of being human. It would be better to acknowledge them rather than deleting a post because of a typo. Pro actively respond in a polite and apologetic manner in case of bigger problems such as overcharging for a product error. Always send out apologies through the accounts and assure the customers that the problem is being handled (Kabani, 2012). Never ignore them. d) Creating content Content developed for social networks is always designed to be shared across media networks and to create a buzz. First, will be setting up attainable goals as having goals is a way of measuring success at the end of a marketing plan. The goal goals should be reasonable with a time limit. For example, a reasonable and attainable goal like increasing the number of face book likes by a thousand or having a particular number of mentions a week. Such realistic goals will be useful in measuring the progress of your marketing campaign. Secondly is to be aware of the customer needs and working towards satisfying them. Creating content that will be in tandem with what the customers’ need will lead to a successful marketing campaign (Evans & Mckee, 2010). Creating useful information is also necessary. Customers always go for adverts that offer useful information. Useful content will arouse the audience’s attention since they could use this information to change how they do their work or how they use their smart phones. Finally, creating content that is easy to share with other people on the same network or across networks. e) Measuring and monitoring It is important to measure and monitor social media campaigns so as to know what is successful and what is not. There are two types of monitoring a company or an individual marketer can use to measure the success of the company (Hay & Hay, 2011). These are ongoing analytics that involves tracking activity over time and campaign focused metrics that entails analysing an event from beginning to the end. Ongoing analytics is important for keeping up with daily ongoing conversations about the brand and the company. Conversely, campaign focused metrics aids in understanding the impact of targeted marketing initiatives that vary with every campaign (Golden, 2011). Social media remains one of the largest and most influential platforms to push the brand to success. Reference list Singh, S., & Diamond, S. (2015). Social media marketing for dummies. Golden, M. (2011). Social media strategies for professionals and their firms: the guide to establishing credibility and accelerating relationships. Hoboken, Wiley. Zarrella, D. (2010). The social media marketing book. Beijing, OReilly. Hay, D., & Hay, D. (2011). The social media survival guide strategies, tactics, and tools for succeeding in the social web. Fresno, Calif, Quill Driver Books. Safko, L. (2012). The Social Media Bible Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success. Hoboken, John Wiley & Sons Jenkins, H., Ford, S., & Green, J. (2013). Spreadable media: creating value and meaning in a networked culture. New York, New York University Press. Kabani, S. H. (2012). The zen of social media marketing: an easier way to build credibility, generate buzz, and increase revenue. Dallas, TX, Benbella Books. Funk, T. (2013). Advanced social media marketing: how to lead, launch, and manage a successful social media program. [Berkeley, CA], Apress. Evans, D., & Mckee, J. (2010). Social media marketing: the next generation of business engagement. Indianapolis, Ind, Wiley Pub. Gillin, P. (2011). Social marketing to the business customer: listen to your B2B market, generate major account leads, and build client relationships. Social Marketing to the Business Customer. Hoboken, N.J., Wiley. Read More