A Critical Theoretical Analysis of Paul Da Princes Marketing Campaign - Term Paper Example

2. TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Title Page……………………………………………………………………………………1
• Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………………..2
• Executive Summary………………………………………………………………………..3
• Introduction………………………………………………………………………………….4
• Discussion…………………………………………………………………………………...5
  • Social Media Marketing, Fan Culture and the Music Industry………..5
  • Marketing Campaigns and Audience Segmentation…………………..6
    • An Understanding of Social Media Multiculturalism using Social Theories……………………………………………….8
  • The Effectiveness of Various Social Media Tools in Marketing………9
  • Limitations of Social Media Platforms in Market Campaigns………..12
  • Audience Overview to Maximise Marketing Campaigns ……………13
    • Corrective Practices to Improve Marketing Outcomes for a Social Media Campaign…………………………………….13
      • Create Personas……………………………..14
      • Invoke Action………………………………14
      • Optimise Campaigns on Devices with More Reception…………………………………..14
• Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………15
• Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………….16

3. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Social media is an important tool in the marketing business. It engages the clientele with their audience through a shared creation process. Marketers harness the potential of social media marketing through an understanding fan culture. Fans are the backbone of any artists, products and businesses. Their aggregate network supports the artists with a potential market. It can also aid artists to connect with secondary audiences, and expand the number of their consumers. Therefore, an understanding of social media marketing in the context of fan culture is a researchable topic that can generate better insights on marketing. This discussion entails the relationship between fan culture and social media. Yet, its applications and limitations in media campaigns is explicitly discussed. The aim of this paper is to shed light on the theories, applications and implications of social constructs in the marketing industry.

4. Introduction

Social media marketing is all about using online communities and other social networks to brand and market products or personalities. In the last decade, the social media phenomenon has exploded into a plethora of opportunities for businesses. Jones and Ryan argue that social media is not a new phenomenon; online social interaction has been around since they heydays of computer. In fact social media interaction predates the onset of the World Wide Web by some two decades. Bulletin board services (BBS) and online platforms such as CompuServe allowed consumers and businesses to interact albeit in small numbers. Nowadays, the platforms have become more sophisticated and the have successfully penetrated every social strata (Jones & Ryan, 2009, p. 150). This development does not look like it is about to grind to a halt; there is an incredible future as more people in the planet are connected to the internet. Global corporations have realised the power behind social media, and they are keen to tap this potential by reaching out to loyal customers as they compete to gain more consumers (Jones & Ryan, 2009, p. 13). Social media has become a form of popular culture, whereby its intrinsic value is realised through mass consumptions. Popular culture is ultimately created for commercial gain. Therefore, a theoretical exploration of social media marketing and popular culture becomes important since the latter exudes great influence upon every sphere of life (Hills, 2002, p. 31).

Though many companies are aware of the ability of social media to improve their business outcomes, some have largely been unsuccessful in initiating effective programs that make use of social media. People or businesses are undecided where to begin, and what social media platform accrues the most benefits for the company (Murthy, 2012, 1070). Furthermore, there is consensus that engaging the audience in social media marketing can make such a campaign successful. Social media users must be made to care for advertised products, not only at the consumer level but also at an emotional level. In order to engage the audience in successful social media marketing campaigns it becomes imperative that these campaigns cultivate on the imagination of the consumers (Lewis, 1992, p. 1). It is especially the case in the music industry, where fandom culture is inherent. Social media has become a forum for the development of a fandom culture, whereby the media audiences remain as passive and controlled as ever. The consistency of social media in enhancing the dominance of aesthetic mass media over the society then becomes an additional reason for discussing this matter (Lewis, 1992, p.1).

• Discussion

5.1 Social Media Marketing, Fan Culture and the Music Industry

It is historically accurate to assume that the mainstream media relies on superior aesthetic programming to promote mass consumerism. Social media also follows this path when it manipulates user fantasies to optimise business outcomes. John Fiske in Lewis’ book Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media, describes fandom as subordinate system of cultural complexities. In the context of a cultural economy, the cultural criterion of fans, say music fans is adversely different. According to official culture, music fans rely on aesthetic assessment of media to form diverse opinions of the products. This theory can be extended by adopting the precepts of popular culture, whereby it is hypothesised that fans form personal connections through interaction with music media. Therefore, fans can be distinguished from other audiences through their personal connection with produced material. While the broader audience engages in the production of audio-visual material, fans dwell on the same but at a personal level (Lewis, 1992, p. 3).

Fandom can be described as distinct ‘sensibility’. A special relationship between the audience and the cultural aspects of a media product develops. Their emotions and moods become reorganized in such a manner that objects or personas take on significance. The audience further constructs identities which empower them to wade of oppressive ideologies and other unappealing circumstances in life. Fans simply create illusions of grandeur in which their lives and actions have new vital meaning (Lewis, 1992, p.3).

Fans become subjective consumers, which is immensely important for them since it marks their distinctiveness. It portrays them as knowledgeable to certain products, trends and activities associated to the media products. In relation to consumers, fans possess more expertise and knowledge. In that way producers and marketers do not aim to sell music or any other media to mere consumers, rather it becomes their fulltime job to use their skills to feed the fans with information that is consistent to their fantasies. It could be a tedious job to keep fans happy since producers could get out of touch of their culture. Hence, fans can easily become cultists, if naïve marketers and producers try to sell them new forms of products.

Contemporary marketers rely on a collection of open-source and interactive platforms to expand their interaction with the consumers and fans. These platforms are what most people call social media. These tools are informal networks through which entrepreneurs can brand themselves, or businesses can improve customer-experience. Additionally, they facilitate an efficient generation, dissemination of customer data. Marketers of consumer products develop marketing strategies that target a certain demographic groups in order to promote mass consumerism and brand awareness (Jones & Ryan, 2009, p. 150).

Social media has enabled fans to connect more and become members of a global community. This online society can further more interaction by promoting the awareness of existing products and brands to new users through personal connections. Smart advertisers, marketers, and promoters know how influential fandom can be; therefore, they fine tune their methods to enhance interaction with their brand or products. Music artists and their promoters are using these tactics in growing numbers; it has become a norm for any musician or recording artist to connect with his/her audience through social media. There are a variety of social media platforms where such artists can engage with their fans and cultivate on their fantasies; from social media pages to YouTube accounts. The marketing business and the music industry have never been finely intertwined than in this age (Jones & Ryan, 2009, p. 150).

5.2 Marketing Campaigns and Audience Segmentation

It is essential not to study social media as a homogenous market but as an interaction of heterogeneous and discrete market segments. Identifying target audiences is vital for marketers in order to be successful. Social media can be further looked upon as a multicultural phenomenon, where the analysis of cultural needs is suggested and recommended. More, often than not individuals who are most visible on social media become the target market for marketers. Jones and Ryan argue since these persons have gained the trust of their peers, they can affect the broader online reputation of any modern marketing campaign (2009, p. 169). Through an analysis of the target market’s social conversations, marketers can understand consumer needs and incorporate their views in the creation or modification of new products. Therefore, these influencers and their networks of peers can be seen as important sub-cultures and entry point through which marketers can engage with the wider audience (Hills, 2002, p. 60).

Advancing technology has enabled many music producers and marketers to develop multicultural marketing initiatives. While other mass media tools did not as much utilize the power of consumer characteristics due to limited diversification; social media harnesses these differences to influence interaction and a participatory culture. Marketers must take into consideration the behaviour of their audience. Advertisement characteristics, consumer characteristics and product characteristics interact with one another and influence a marketer’s decision to embed cultural concepts in advertisements and branding campaigns (Lisa, 1992, p. 24& 25; Brennan & Croft, 2014, p. 14).

Advertisements and other social media campaigns ought to connect with the audience since they have a variety of perceptions about media campaigns. A music promoter should determine whether the products he/she is trying to sell is intended for a subset of the audience, in that was he/she can naturally determine an appropriate targeting approach. Additionally, an understanding of consumer characteristics aids the social media marketers to optimise marketing campaigns. Therefore, marketers should have considerable knowledge of the targeted subculture. Moreover, they must determine the strength of ethnic identification and the power of situational ethnicity governed by identification and distinctiveness to realise the full potential of their work (Jones & Ryan, 2009, p. 32). In the olden days of advertising, marketers relied on a combination of multiple techniques and tools to address consumers’ cultural differences. However, contemporary marketing campaigns might rely on social media alone to promote brand awareness because of the sheer number of members in these platforms. The latter guarantees marketers that there is a substantial representation of many media cultures(Brown, 2010, p. 8).

5.2.1 An Understanding of Social Media Multiculturalism using Social Theories

Social identity theory explains that a person’s identity is a result of comparison of similar traits prevalent in the society. Other than distinctiveness, other factors affect the way people perceive certain behavioural traits and cultures. Social stigma, perceived exclusion and preference for certain lifestyle can influence how individual perceive certain cultures in a societal context. Ethnicity also becomes an important aspect of an individual, since almost every person has the need to belong to a certain culture. Marketers greatly benefits from the understanding these factors since they can target minority communities with great ease (Van der Graaf, 2014, p. 6). Especially for emerging musicians, there is a need to identify with racial and cultural identities.

George Siemens and Stephen Downes’ Connectivism is also a theoretical framework that can be used to explain social media and its multicultural aspects. At the heart of Connectivism is the concept that knowledge is distributed across social networks. Additionally, Connectivism assumes that learning takes place when persons obtain the ability to construct and traverse these networks. The theory suggests that learners conceive knowledge through understanding their experiences in social networks. In social networking, personal knowledge is not as important as the knowledge obtained from other users. Thus, there is more affinity to gain knowledge from others in order to create one’s personal networks or integrate with existing networks. An analysis of social media reveals aspects of Connectivism. Social media users participate in online conversations so as to keep up to date with trends that elevate their status in the online society (Ravenscroft, 2011, p. 140). As a result, social media rely on existing cultures to develop subjective sub-cultures that are not entirely similar but are influenced by other networks too. Take an example of the hip hop culture, though its original can be traced to American urban culture it has been largely differentiated across all social strata. Other cultures adore American urban culture and therefore seek to adopt its principles into its culture as a form of learning. South Africa, for instance borrows aspects of lyrical poetry from main stream hip hop to develop its own hip-hop genre of music known as Kwata.

In the case of Da Prince marketing campaign, the target market includes people from his ethnic background in Namibia and generally Africa. This is important because it would be utterly impossible to market the client in different continents, say Asia because they are other dominant music culture with control over the market. Although, Da Prince’s music transcends ethnic and racial borders, it would be futile to market him outside without first maximising brand awareness in his home countries, UK and Namibia. Ethnic groups tend to have high brand loyalty. Hence, they are more likely to buy and participate in conversations about a brand or a product. Moreover, they initiate a contagion effect, whereby fans sponsor the brand to their own social groups increasing the number of followers as more products are released to the market. This marketing paradigm divides the market into segments and gathers important cultural information. This data helps the marketers in capturing the attention of specific cultural minorities. The information collected might include customs, relationships, and rituals in regards to ethnic and cultural groups (Brown, 2010, p. 18; Jones & Ryan, 2009, p. 104).

Multicultural marketing has seen companies specialise their marketing departments by introducing new dockets to deal with cultural marketing. An example would be Coca Cola who have urban marketing departments to capture the rise of urban culture among young people today. Additionally companies attempt to reach ethnic consumers through differentiated marketing strategies, focused advertising and development of new product lines. In the music industry, musicians collaborate with other musicians from other genres and cultural backgrounds in order to gain access to their markets. Although, multicultural marketing advertisement is potentially advantageous, this approach must be used with caution. It is all too easy to generalize the traits of cultural groups.

5.3 The Effectiveness of Various Social Media Tools in Marketing

Social media tools vary in effectiveness. Social media users are attracted to specific social media platforms based on the methods they use to interact with others. Additionally, these users look for avenues they can gain information more about their interests such as music, gossip and latest fashion trends. Even though there is much emphasis on the effectiveness of popularity and fandom culture, content also affects the frequency of access by social media users. One has to consider that contemporary internet users have a high bounce rate. This implies that their attention span is low and their ability to retain incredible amounts of information is limited. Therefore, they tend to use social media platforms where the information streams are direct and simple. Facebook and Twitter are among a number of popular social media networks where considerable investments are made to increase user retention. One of the methods used is the use of newsfeeds and timeline stories, where only the most important and entertaining information is presented to the users to keep them attracted and entertained. Based on the user access information, social media companies integrate influential information in user timelines. Therefore, influencers are used to grab the attention of consumers to increase the probability of reaching potential customers (Brown, 2010, p. 141).

The choice of social media platforms in marketing is also affected by user attitudes towards online advertising formats. Across age groups, user preferences for certain advertising medium vary a lot. Consequently, these advertising mediums are viewed in different light by various social media users. Users between the 18-28 age groups have strong preferences for blogs, video formats and brand channelled ad format because they perceive them as attractive, informative and amusing. Generally, online advertising campaigns with positive attributes are eagerly consumed by users. However, intrusive marketing formats have negative receptions. Pop ups, floating advertisements and expandable formats are largely considered as intrusive and irritating (Brown, 2010, p, 112; Jones & Ryan, 2009, p. 58).

Social media marketing in the music industry is prevalent due to the presence of video sharing tools or widgets. One advantage of video marketing is that although artists deliver their content they can still brand themselves using the same medium. Social media platforms with video sharing platforms have the highest retention ability since users have a number of visual content that can keep users entertained. Moreover, the ability to comment and share views on about the media gives fans the opportunity to interact with the musicians. Ideally, musicians can rely on these trust relationships between them and their fans to increase the audience (Jones & Ryan, 2009, p. 169). Platforms such as YouTube, Tumblr, Flickr, MySpace and Soundcloud are perfectly suited for streaming music videos at fast rates. This is an attractive amenity for users who are bombarded with countless information of the web. Moreover, in most video platforms one can find music enthusiasts who belong to specific genres. Companies have optimised search algorithms which guarantees consumers obtain the content they want. Marketers can also benefit from these features if they use search engine optimization tools to increase their visibility on the social media platforms.

Additionally, the number of social media users in platforms determines its viability in media campaigns. In the case of Da Prince marketing campaign, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter come across as the most viable platforms since they have the most users. Additionally, demographic representation is a critical concept in any marketing campaign. Consequently, if the number of users is high, then the probability of representation of minority groups is also high. Facebook’s large user presence is suited for Da Prince’s media campaign since there are interconnected social networks that facilitate the transfer of Da Prince music to its fans all over the globe. This implies that no matter the physical location of his fan base, users are able to acquire his music and events in real time. Additionally,

Moreover, YouTube has viewer channels where fans can concentrate and build user networks. Nevertheless, media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter provide plugins that can be embedded in the client’s own network. These plugins drive traffic from social media platforms to his personally branded website, where they can further access his music videos. The beauty of this design is that, social media opens new revenue streams through cross networking with other website platforms (Brown, 2010, p. 38 & 49). Whenever, the client updates these platforms with new music, fans can access them in a variety of ways. It is equally important that access to branded products becomes redundant; failure of one platform will not affect user access to other platforms since there is redundancy.

An aggregation of a fan base across the social media platforms creates what are known as Virtual Brand Communities (VBC). Their common interest and interconnectivity becomes a critical marketing tool for the any musician. The musician can regulate the user experience and evoke participation that increases their loyalty to his brand. Additionally, these communities enhance trust and security through group awareness which in return strengthens user satisfaction. Satisfaction and positive attitudes from a fan base guarantees the survival of Virtual Brand Communities. The same concept would apply to Paul da Prince’s marketing plan.

5.4 Limitations of Social Media Platforms in Market Campaigns

One of the problems of social media marketing is that there is no guarantee that engaging fans in virtual online communities will make them buy more products. Estimates suggest that only 10% of all Facebook and Twitter users are passive. Both primary audiences and secondary audiences have varied reasons why they engage with brands, marketing campaigns and artists in particular (Brown, 2010, p. 100). Moreover, it is not easy to identify how much value marketers can get from their campaigns. Social media is just an aggregated mesh of potential consumers whose personal data cannot be relied upon to determine the buying potential. Additionally, not all fan base users are influencers. Considering the case of Paul Da Prince’s market plan, one can see that of all 20000 followers, only a number of them have connections to more than 500 followers. Nevertheless, there is no rationale for identifying potential consumers or even their demographic data using information guarded through privacy laws.

The same network can be a reactionary force against the marketer and even the brand owner. One infamous case stands out as an example of how Virtual Brand Communities can destroy a product’s reputation and fortunes. Netflix, an online streaming media company based in the United States revised their subscription rates for popular media up by 60% in 2011. It fan community, aggravated by the change in pricing initiated a contagion effect of negative publicity, which affected its stock prices within a very short span of time. As a result, Netflix was forced to revert back to its initial pricing model. Social media marketing can expose personalities and brands to negative influence from fans and other secondary audiences. At times fans and the marketers might be in very different pages of the same business; whereas the latter strives for increased productivity and profits, the other just want to be entertained. The music industry is especially prone to these effects, whereby quality of music is intuitively judged and its dominance as a branding tool is very temporal.

Established brands also risk losing the value of their brand equity if they engage with substandard fan base. There danger lies wherein marketers choose weak social media platforms or the content is inconsistent with the user’s current needs. The current deterioration in quality of some social media platforms such as Twitter can be detrimental to marketers who want to use these platforms to conduct marketing campaigns. Other platforms such as Sound Cloud are not performing any better, big music producers and distributors such as Sony are pulling out of these music platforms because they make no profits for them. Media platforms and marketers might have conflicting strategies. In the case of Sound Cloud, the company wants to increase its user base so that it can earn more advertising revenue. Sony on the other hand holds the rights of a large database of music, which it does not want to market at lower consumer prices.

5.5 Audience Overview to Maximise Marketing Campaigns

5.5.1 Corrective Practices to Improve Marketing Outcomes for a Social Media Campaign

Social media platforms have rules of engagement for any marketer. In order to maximise ROI for the client, there are strategies marketers can consider for their marketing campaigns. The following are examples of ground rules that can be followed to make successful social media campaigns.

5.5.1.1 Create Personas

It is important for marketers to build personas that reflect what the fan base and the consumers need. Marketers should use persona as the foundation of any social media marketing. These personas should reflect the specific target audience and their demographic qualities. Additionally, personas and the structure of marketing campaigns should be determined prior to releasing them to the platforms. It is easier to juggle around existing personas than to modify a tired social media campaign. Moreover, prior development of marketing campaigns based on formulated personas will enable marketers to optimise costs and productivity of marketing campaigns. Social media branding should be sensitive, touching on the inner fantasies of fans and potential consumers. The music industry, especially in the hip hop genres, promoters appeal to their audience through depiction of violence, nudity and sexuality ((Schelfhaudt, 2015, para 1).

5.5.1.2 Invoke Action

In order to engage the audience, marketing campaigns should allow the audience to react to them. Marketers should include unique call-to-action widgets such as ‘like’ and follow’ buttons, and comment lines and tag options. Feedback gained from followers can be used to analyse the type of music content that appeals most to the audience. Moreover, subsequent marketing campaigns will only be directed to fans and potential consumers who are likely to convert ad campaigns into profits (Schelfhaudt, 2015, para 2).

5.5.1.3 Optimise Ads on Devices with More Reception

Fans can access music media from many devices, the emergence of different smart devices has led to the diversification of marketing strategies. Smart phones are increasingly used to access content more than any other internet device out there in the market. However, marketers frequently forget to optimise their content on these platforms. Consequently, user experience becomes bad if users cannot access quality content. Marketers should therefore monitor the performance of their campaigns across all internet devices to ensure that they get maximum consumer reception (Schelfhaudt, 2015, para 5).

• Conclusion

In light of this discussion, it is evident that marketing campaigns are vital for any business venture. In the music industry, fans are fundamentally important for marketers since they engage in the creation process and give feedback on the quality of the products. The relationship of fan culture, music business and the social media can be explained through fan culture and other social theories. Basically, fans enhance brand awareness through participation. Additionally, they attract secondary audiences through their social networks. In this sense social media networks are used to increase brand awareness of artists to their fans and cultures. Although a fan base drive enhances artists’ brand outcomes, they could be also potentially dangerous if they are not furnished with satisfying products. Consequently, it becomes vital for any marketer to realise that any social media campaign should have target audience that defines the persona of the artists.