How Social Media Impacts Advertisement - Essay Example

Impacts of Social Media in Advertisement Student’s Name Course Professor Date Title A study of impacts of social media on advertisement in Beginning Boutique Introduction Social media is a great advertising platform with its potential risks and benefits. The most important characteristic of social media is giving both large and small business an opportunity to interact with potential and existing customers and promote their products and services. Most of channels used by most business includes; Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. However, advertising on social media is not just putting a brand there and expect positive reaction from customers. This study attempts to critically look at the impacts of social media in advertisement by looking at critical ways in which business design brands and messages on social media, monitor pages, respond to comments and interact with customers. According to Deloitte Media Consumer Survey 2014, Australia has over 10 million Facebook accounts. Major companies like fast-food outlets like Coca-Cola, McDonalds, mobile phones companies like Sony, Huawei noting high level engagement on social media. There is something amazing about social media advertising as ads are seen by prospective customers fitting a certain strict criteria. Advertisement is great way that drives new leads to a company and improves the rates of conversation between a company and its customers. Early this year (2015), an existing Brisbane-based fashion retailer beat international brands like Audi, KFC and BMW and took position one in social media brand in Australia. The women fashion brand named Beginning Boutique was on top in engagement and can help measure the effectiveness and performance of online channels. Preliminary researches conducted revolve around the success of marketing activities on social media. However, there is little in information when it comes to understanding the factors that lead to brand popularity, liking and commenting trends. Most management studies about post popularity are more descriptive without any theoretical foundation of testing the activities that improves the popularity of a brand. For instance, most study recommends that business using social media should familiarize them and experiment with various characteristics of contents like videos, texts, images and questions. An extensive literature review will ignite knowledge and understanding of impact of social media in advertising. It will further lead to development of research methodology and specific questions to help understand how brands like Beginning Boutique (BB) ensure impact to online customers. Rationale The research looks at impacts of social media advertising specifically in Beginning Boutique advertisement. It will possibly note the core steps and approach they utilize to promote access of their brands in a regular manner by the customers (Robb 2015). The reasons I choose to conduct this study is to specifically understand various methods that can be used by general company while using social media as an advertisement platform. Some of companies using social media struggles and experience myriad of challenges and end up wasting a lot of time looking for customers. In turn, it social media might be risky for some companies and mostly the beginners if they have not identified the challenges and ways to underpin the benefits through social media marketing. This study is timely and important as it will identify and highlight the effective ways of social median advertisement. It will aim at identifying the way leading brands set advertisement goals, identify target market, develop ads, monitor ads and carry out monthly refinement and reporting. It will in turn recommend specific measures to e taken by different companies in various industries and reveal the skills to avoid high expenses, time wastage and irresponsive search for customers. Ultimately, it will encourage the use of social media and help companies overcome the negativities of using online channels for advertisement while letting others become familiar with the social media advertisement. Research objectives To investigate the important aspects used by Beginning Boutique for successful social media presence, To analyze the effectiveness of social media advertising at Beginning Boutique by comparing with a general advertisement Make appropriate recommendation for other companies based on the findings Literature Review According to Naylor, Lamberton & West (2012), social media constitutes excellent platforms for businesses to foster relationships with customers. One major way companies do this is by creating their brand fan page on different sites. The brand post placed by companies may have messages, videos, information, quizzes or any other information. Interested customer then become fans of such pages and continuously indicates their likes of a brand of commenting on their opinions about the brand. The liking and commenting is one way to show the brand popularity. There are more than 50% of social media users agree that they follow brand through online sites. In turn, companies have set aside a lot of time and resources to invest in social media with worldwide spending on social media rising to $4.3 billion (De Vries, Gensler & Leeflang 2012)). Managers utilize social media as a way to foster relationships as well as interact with customers. The major way to hit the aim of advertising is to create a brand community through brand fan pages where fan like and comment on a brand (Kaplan & Haenlein 2010). According to Evans (2012), the impact of social media specifically look at the effect, influence or the ways of altering consumers decisions and impacting on their demand for a certain brand. Kaplan & Haenlein (2010) further observes that, there are key feature that must exist in social media ad management. Prior to commencing on putting a brand on different sites, the companies need to work on it social media campaign and how it will work to bring tangible goals. Targets facilitate the costs, roles and responsibilities while helping to communicate with others, monitor and evaluate whether the results are aligning to the business targets. Specific goals may comprise of emails on a company’s website, e-commerce sales, exposure and sign-ups, increased brand or impressions of strategic content and other goals. Once a company has identified the various goals, it can begin to develop the campaign. Fig 1.0 different social media advertising goals, Adopted from Google images. On the other hand, Evans (2012) looked at how identification of a target market impact on social media advertisement. Posting an ad for a brand online require a vivid identification of a target market where the ad will appear. Social media has unprecedented ability for companies more so if they focus on a certain target market. As Stephen & Galak (2012) puts it, the cost of advertising must look at clear outcomes in terms of sales and its utmost priority to seek for markets that will generate instant reaction and demand. Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy & Silvestre (2011) study looked at the centrality of ad refinement, monitoring and reporting. The company setting up ads in social media must set reporting goals; fortnightly or monthly. The ongoing work helps to facilitate meeting the set goals in an effective manner. Understanding the social media nature requires a clear understanding of how a certain demographic users expect to consistently see interesting and new contents. A business cannot rely on one ad running for months and expect great results (Chu & Kim 2011). Ads targeting require more of constant split-testing and content creation. The company must refine, review and report on every ad to hit the targets on weekly or monthly basis. Previous details in advertising should be used to direct the continuous ads creation. Challenges of social media advertising Many studies have identified various challenges which face both small and larger business entities. First, monitoring ads and pages on social media require a lot of time and especially for a brand sold to distanced geographical markets. Interacting with customer in most cases is around the clock. However, Weinberg & Pehlivan (2011) elaborates that, the amount of time spent monitoring ads on social media depends majorly on the size of the company and the number of followers or fans a company has. The nature of social media require commitment as it operates 24 hours a day and in many cases, consumers interacting with brands use social media after normal business hours or mostly on weekends. The company has to be prepared with sufficient resources like staffs and sophisticated systems that can be used anywhere and anytime. In turn, they can act on false, deceptive and misleading posts or comments on a page soon after it is posted or act promptly to remove it. Michaelidou, Siamagka & Christodoulides (2011) observes that, social media advertising carries great risk and particularly for a brand that makes statements worth a suit concerning other companies. Most companies require monitoring pages as required by regulatory authorities. It also requires clear rules to marketers, applying necessary action on fans, followers and friends when using social media pages. Some companies ensure that the rules are featuring on their social media pages or block users who breach such rules. Social media advertising exposes a brand to customers with dissimilar interests and some make false, deceptive and misleading comments on a brand. It is the responsibility of the company to remove or respond appropriately to comments to override a false impression made. Many companies oppose social media marketing due to tradeoffs between marketing on one hand and legal and tarnishing brand image outcomes on the other hand. Benefits of social media advertising As Qualman (2010) points out, most companies using social media platforms report benefits different depending on the products and geographical markets. However, the immediate benefits trickle down to the bottom line of advertisement. Through social media advertising, a brand gains increased exposure, increased traffic and providing marketplace insights. Ads generate leads, develop a base for loyal fans and improved search ranking. In turn, companies can use social media to grow their business partnerships, improve sales and reduce marketing expenses. Variables The research has various variables that directly affect the outcomes of the study. Dependent Variable Independent Variables Impact of social media in advertising Campaign goals Target market identification Ad development Monthly monitoring and reporting Conceptual framework The determinants of impact of social media advertising are representing in fig. 2.0 below. We argue the content; information and entertainment, interactivity, vividness and valence of comments relate to a greater extent to social media advertising. Additionally, daily and weekly control place a brand at a better position, determine the message length and effectiveness of a product. Fig. 2.0. Conceptual framework Methodology The study will apply a qualitative method to get data, specifically opinions and viewpoints from Beginning Boutique marketers on key factors that they use to facilitate massive response and impact on their brand on social media. Ritchie, Lewis, Nicholls & Ormston (2013) observes that, a study conducted in a natural setting offer the basis to understand issues which promote a common phenomenon. Qualitative method of data collection will focus on understanding the perceptions, thoughts and means used in social media advertising and effectiveness. The study questions will be elaborate and look at different factors that give participants from Beginning Boutique to respond to questions based on their stand point. Silverman (2013) observes that, a qualitative method is more applicable in conducting a market research in various contexts as it helps to gather in-depth understanding of people’s behaviors. Qualitative method will help to collect information that is specific to a certain brand category and make informed conclusion based on gathered assertions and information. Research Design The research has build on vast exploration of secondary data to gain a literature review on the issue of impact of social media advertising. The research questions will be developed from key themes and will be conducted to get a clear picture of how those aspects are used at Beginning Boutique. The questions cover elements and aspects of social media interactive approaches and will help to get information on set hypothesis. Interviews are preferred for this study as an instrument that will have a series of open-ended questions to gather information from a number of respondents. MMMM argues that interviews are useful tool to explore different research problems and confirm some set hypothesis. The open-ended nature of interview helps to get wide-range ideas, relevant and subjective information that ignite new information on a certain topic. Advantages of Interviews Interviews ensure reduced fallout from research as researcher interacts with the respondent face-to-face for a short or agreed time. In this study, researcher seeks to identify specific people and collaboratively set time for interviewing. Interviews collect specific data and gives respondents an opportunity to give subjective and unique answers to a study. It is easy to develop research questions as it does not require structured wording or brevity. The researcher aims at explaining the meaning and core aspect of each question to the respondent. (Marshall & Rossman, 2010) Population and sample The study will use random cluster sampling to identify marketers at Beginning Boutique. It will involve a total of 5 respondents; one from executive level, two at managerial level and two who carry out posting and reviews. Data Analysis and theoretical approach The study will use phenomenological approach to analyze data where opinions will be analyzed purely on respondents’ opinions and observations. The viewpoints will in turn indicate specific aspects used in Beginning Boutique that made them rise to top position in social media advertising. References Chu, S C, & Kim, Y 2011, ‘Determinants of consumer engagement in electronic word-of-mouth eWOM in social networking sites’,  International journal of advertising, 301, 47-75. De Vries, L, Gensler, S, & Leeflang, P S 2012 Popularity of brand posts on brand fan pages: an investigation of the effects of social media marketingJournal of Interactive Marketing, 262, 83-91. Deloitte Media Consumer Survey 2014 Why Advertise On Social Media The Web Showroom Retrieved [15 April 2015] from http://wwwthewebshowroomcomau/social-media-advertising/. Evans, D 2012, ‘Social media marketing: An hour a day’, John Wiley & Sons. 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