Trigger 8

Social media

(PBL session 9, closing trigger 8. 19.11.2014)


Social media use has grown rapidly during the past few years. It has become one of the most important communication - and marketing - channels. Companies can use social media to create awareness and conversation and form relationships with consumers. The ROI can be difficult to see but social media is indeed effective method to reach consumers. 

J. DeMeres lists the Top10 benefits of social media marketing on Forbes.com:

1. Increased brand recognition
2. Improved brand royalty
3. More opportunities to convert 
4. Higher conversion rates
5. Higher brand athority
6. Increased inbound traffic
7. Decreased marketing costs
8. better search engine rankings
9. Richer customer experiences
10. Improved customer insights

Some companies might have prejudices towards social media as it is still so new and complex. But the longer they wait to join the more they have to lose. Their competition has probably already done that. Social media marketing, when done right, can lead to more customers, more traffic and more conversations. 

Social medias

Social media is not just Facebook. It's versatile, constantly changing online world. There are several different channels a company can use. The most important thing is to find the right ones for you. The content posted to LinkedIn is different than the content produced for Instagram. This is the reason it's important to find the utilise the most efficient and convenient channels for your company. 

Using social media requires constant updates and presence, otherwise you might get lost in the constant information flow and people'll forget you. There's not really any real disadvantages in social media, but of course there are some risks involved. When there's conversation with the consumers, there's also chance for negative issues to come up. Negative or bad reputation grows fast in eWOM and can harm the business for a longtime. 

Facebook is usually the first channel that comes up when talking about social media. It's the widest used platform in the world and an efficient marketing tool. for companies it is not completely free if you want to reach all the consumers, but it easy and simple to use. There is some talk that Facebook will lose its "power" and in a few years it'll be useless. For now though, it is still the biggest channel. 

Twitter is one of the most important ones, too. The hashtag (#) was created by Twitter and has now spread to most of the other channels. With the hashtag pictures and messages can be connected with ones with the same hashtag and also searched for. Twitter is used for short messages and is efficient for "breaking news" of commenting something. 

Youtube has become more and more used channel as video content has increased its popularity. Videobloggers, vloggers, are very popular with millions of subscribers and fans. They're channels are widely used for marketing. Just last week, few of the UK's biggest youtubers were chosen to take part in Bob Geldof's Band Aid 30, charity song "Do they know it's Christmas". They are not professional artists but they have more than 10 million subscribers between them which gives the song a huge audience. 

LinkedIn is a "professional Facebook", a platform for business users. LinkedIn is used in b2b-marketing, job seeking and other professional matters. 

Blogs, like vlogs, are more and more used by companies, either by their own blogs or via bloggers who promote products etc. 

Sources

DeMeres, J. 8.11.2014. Forbes.com. The Top 10 Benefits of Social Media Marketing.

Band Aid 30. 17.11.2014. Do they know it's Christmas

The Hubb. 21.4.2014. How to market your brand on every social media channel.