Marketing Communication through Social Media

Marketing Communication through Social Media

Abstract

People interact and exchange information in virtual communities and networks called social media which is different from traditional media. Internet users and social media users are increasing not only in India but worldwide.  This is a huge opportunity for marketers to connect with customers effectively. Initially social media were used only by business to business companies, but present scenario confirms that consumers validate the opinions of other customers through social media before they go for any purchase. Customers use social media not only for consumption of information about the products but also for interaction. They spread both positive and negative word of mouth using the interactive media. In fact they express their feelings and emotions to others who are online which has a high degree of credibility. Companies should give importance for these interactions and they can encourage the customers to spread positive opinions to others. This paper focuses on how the marketing communication can be effectively done through social media.

Keywords: facebook, youtube, social media

Introduction

In the first week of January this year, our prime minister’s ‘make in India’ Facebook page added one member every second.  His other digital communication efforts also had overwhelming responses. ‘Make in India’ had already reached 2.63 lakh followers in twitter within 90 days of its introduction and 5.7 lakh YouTube hits (source: business line). Emergence of social media has opened door for marketers to interact and understand the customers better. Social media, relatively a new terminology encourages customers to reveal their perceptions and opinions about the product, brand, company and the process. Social media marketing has become a catch phrase in recent years in the marketing arena. Understanding customers is no more a challenge if there is an active community presence in social media. Customer use social media to know the updates of products, offers and the brand. Observing customers closely is possible now for the marketers through social media like blogs, forums and discussion boards. Social media like Facebook, LinkedIn helps people for their personal and business needs. The popularity of social media in a short period is because it is not only one way conversation or one-one, but it is one to many and many to many. This has engaged the audience in social media. A study says small businesses with three or more years of experience in social media marketing get better results. Social media is an important platform especially for online business. People who are online are willing to buy online. If a business is having the art of bringing traffic to their site using their website or any social media, they taste success in present internet era. In this internet / digital era marketing is not only an advertising function or communication function but it has become the function of understanding the buyer’s beliefs, perceptions and motivations. Social media helps to understand them deeper. Business now need a personal touch in social media to be successful, customized messages can help them to achieve it. Companies like Harley Davidson, Lego, Nike and Starbucks encourages customers to co-create company’s new products and services by engaging them in digital media.

Importance of Social Media

Over half of the world’s population is under 30 years old. Most of them are digitally connected and engaged with internet. Facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in the United States. Social media has overtaken pornography as the number one activity on the web. One out of eight couples married in the US met through social media. These statistics and information on social media tells the importance of it. According to Hubspot an inbound marketing and sales platform, 92 percent of marketers in 2014 claimed that social media marketing is important for their business and according to Social Media Examiner a US based Media Company 97% of marketers are currently participating in social media. These data indicates the huge potential and great opportunity for the marketers to increase the sales by engaging and connecting the customers through social media. Understanding the importance of social media and knowing the ways of executing the communication strategies through social media is going to give them excellent results. Forbes has suggested the following social media marketing benefits. They are increased brand recognition, improved brand loyalty, more opportunities to convert, higher conversion rates, higher brand authority, increased inbound traffic, decreased marketing costs, better search engine rankings, richer customer experience and improved customer insights. Companies can keep the customers in touch and maintain a good customer relationship and their conversation can be monitored and as a result customer’s psyche can be understood to serve them better. By following the customers through social media their problems can also be known and addressed immediately. Proctor and Gamble the consumer products giant responded when a mother tweeted about a shortage of diapers through the social media in Mumbai, within a day Proctor and Gamble addressed this issue her a month’s supply of pampers. This kind of understanding and addressing the customers’ issues immediately can enhance the credibility towards the company.

Big Data and Marketing

Big data is data with sizes beyond the ability to handle easily. This is an evolving term that indicates any voluminous amount of structured and semi structured and unstructured data that has the potential to be mined for information. The term big data does not refer to any specific quantity. Gartner an American IT research and advisory company predicts that CMOs will spend more on IT than CIOs in the year 2017 to use big data and technology which are revolutionizing marketing. The future of marketing lies in integrating big data and marketing communications. Using the super-fast and super-smart technologies Amazon, eBay, Flipkart and many more online marketing companies understand the patterns of buyer behavior and communicate accordingly. Personalized product offering and customized messages are the advantages of having huge customer database. Big data which includes internet data, customer transaction data and social media data gives a different and new dimension to segmentation, targeting and positioning.  STP is done based on customers’ information not only on demographic but also based on their search interests and discussions in digital media. There is cost advantage also in connecting big data and marketing apart from engaging customer for customized advertising messages. Big Data is used for finding ways and means to predict consumer behaviour and demand, and to earn consumer loyalty. India’s largest car maker Maruti Suzuki uses big data to manage and understand their consumers.

Social Media Platforms

Tim Grahl in his post, “the 6 types of social media” categorized social media into six types. They are social networks, bookmarking sites, social news, media sharing, micro-blogging and blog comments & forums. To keep the customers up to date texts, videos, photograph are posted in social media. There are various platforms for each mode of communication. Regular post and updates on social media keep the company live and gives better results. Some of the other social media marketing platforms are depicted in Table 1.

        Table 1

S.No	Social Media Platforms
1	Blogs & Forums / Discussion Boards
2	Consumer Review Sites
3	Social Networks / Online Communities
4	Social BookMarking Sites
5	Social News Sites
6	Social Music Sites
7	Video and Photo Sharing Sites
8	Wikis

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest   are some of the most popular social media in India. Facebook is the most popular and most browsed social network on social media with 100 Million users. In India. More than 80% of those users access Facebook via their mobile phone. There are 33 Million Twitter users in India and 76% of users access it via their mobile phone. 26 Million Indian use LinkedIn out of its total 300+ Million users. People share videos in the mode of film or movie trailers in YouTube.

Traditional media vs. Social Media

The operating style of traditional media most of the time is one to many (mass communication). Personalizing the   communication is not possible and it has not been tried also. Creating engagement among audience and noticing the engagement level and getting feedback regarding the communication is impossible. People become immune to marketing messages sent through traditional media. The credibility has also reduced drastically because of clutter and availability of innumerous brands. Television, radio, newspapers, magazines and billboards are traditional media and these are dominated by social and digital media like websites, networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, blogs, YouTube and Instagram. Social media encourages community and audience interaction. Tracking the dialogues and their opinion is easy because of the availability of the technology.  Social media is a two way communication channel and it encourages one to one and many to many interactions. Marketers can know the feedback immediately and the address the problems of the customers.

Opportunities for Marketing Communications through Social Media

The internet users and the social media users population is increasing and they can be easily tracked. Using big data the profiles of the customers can be easily and immediately analyzed and marketing communications can be customized. Marketers need not send the unwanted messages to the customers since they know their needs, tastes and preferences.  The needs are identified by tracking the customer’s search results and sending some personalized e-mails to the customers. Social media encourages word of mouth communications and encourages their peers also to do advertising for the brand on behalf of the company.  According to a study by Nielsen 92% of the customers believe word of mouth communication, and this can be achieved through engaging audience through social media. Increased exposure, increased traffic, provided market place insight, generated leads, loyal fans, improved search rankings, business partnerships, reduced marketing expenses and improved sales are some of the benefits of socials media. Forms of communication is social media are in the forms of text, photos and videos. Some of the videos goes viral and create great impact. For example, the Volvo ad appeared in YouTube enacted by Van Damme had reached 77,079,212 views in YouTube so far.  This shows the strength of social media.  In a study conducted with product managers on the usefulness of social media, the product managers felt the following benefits. The benefits are to manage customer expectations in an environment where customers are increasingly able to share their views and opinions, to understand customer needs and wants by gauging opinions and to finding new ways to connect satisfy and engage with customers. The tools and technologies of social media tools are used to enhance collaboration, engagement and innovation both within an organisation and across the boundaries. The following are the marketing opportunities and advantages through social media,

• Brand promotions and microblogging
• Strong and powerful relationship with customers
• Create awareness – new product details
• Memebers (customers) can be followed and monitored
• Personal relationship as well personalized relationship
• Brand Building
• Cross selling
• Details on upcoming products, offers, promotional codes, discount coupons to the members and group.
• Use faves (internet terminology for favourite) for promoting new products with images.
• Customers read, review and rate the prodcuts
• Will result in more sales for the marketer

Conclusion

People are more receptive to the messages sent through social media; they feel they are the part of communication process. User generated content which is also called as consumer generated media delivers messages by the customers and for the customers. This advantage is impossible in any other media. If the marketers use the internet and social media network carefully and tactfully they get results beyond the expectations. Relationship management and reputation management become easy in social media. Taking the brand closer to the customer and making customers to endorse the brand for other customers is possible only through social media. The messages appearing in the discussion forums are permanent and create an impact and act as a reference material for audience. Social media will become a standard media in future. If marketers take care of social media well, customers will take care of your marketing communication.

References

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/features/smartbuy/social-media/make-in-india-facebook-page-adds-one-member-every-3-seconds/article6753706.ece

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/08/11/the-top-10-benefits-of-social-media-marketing/

(This Paper is presented in a conference held @ SNMV college - Coimbatore)