Social Media in Marketing Essay

Submitted By doman69
Words: 830
Pages: 4

The purpose of this report is to provide an insight into the role that social media marketing can play in a business’s marketing strategy and hence should organisations employ such a strategy for a competitive advantage over other competing firms? According to Douglas Idugboe building a social media marketing strategy is one of the basic building blocks to leveraging social media for your business.(6) There is an ever-growing interaction between networks and business’s and increasing participation of users on global social net-working sites, Facebook statistics show that at the end of June 2012 there were 552 million daily users(4), this has opened a new window of opportunity for organisations to build strategies to advertise themselves on these websites which boast many new opportunities and advantage’s over typical marketing methods with 82% of Facebook users finding it an effective marketing tool.(5) it is important with today’s trends that you build an optimized social media presence to increase your awareness online (2) Reaching more customers and increasing public awareness of a brand has long been one of the primary objectives for any competing firm in a market, In Michael A Stelzner’s report on social media marketing he states that the number 1 benefit of social media marketing is generating more business exposure (1) an obvious advantage which arises from the huge participation in these websites is the increased exposure and brand recognition compared to offline alternatives. Not only do users gain knowledge of the brands existence, social network marketing will interconnect past, current and prospective future consumers. Even with minimal time invested the vast majority of marketers (85%) indicated their social media efforts increased exposure for their business. (1)
Building and having a positive brand personality can be a major driving force behind consumers purchasing behaviours, social networking allows organisations to reinforce and create their own personal brand personality in the form of interactive Facebook pages, YouTube videos etc. By having an effective marketing strategy around brand personality organisations and entities can engage customers in the form of opinions, pictures, videos and updates, keeping potential consumers interested. Michael’s findings stated that of those who had been using social media for at least 1 year, 65% found it useful for building a loyal fan base(1) This arises from having a positive brand personality.
A very important element in product development and marketing is learning about your target audience and their needs, if these needs can be established and satisfied it will increase demand for a business’s product, leading to greater profit and sales. Through social media businesses and entities can post questions, polls, surveys, share opinions, insights and experiences to gain better knowledge about their target markets, 65% of marketers found social media to be a helpful tool in understanding the market place (1)
One of the greater benefits of having an online marketing presence is the potential for product development through the form of customer service and feedback, but why use social media? An advantage of social media compared to traditional marketing techniques is the ease of communication and accessibility; customers query’s and questions can be directly enquired through the products social media page, breaking down barriers between communications while making it easier and more direct for both parties involved.
Although social media is a new revolutionary marketing