social media marketing essay

social media marketing essay

The Impact and Strategies of Social Media Marketing in the Digital Age

1. Introduction to Social Media Marketing

Social media has experienced rapid development. Nevertheless, relatively little scholarly research has looked seriously at the effectiveness of the utilization of particular platforms, particularly when comparing the performance of social media advertising and traditional advertising. Although new discoveries continue to emerge, research to date has mainly occupied an exploratory method, measuring the attitudes, intentions, and other types of fuzzy data related to social media, such as likes, fans, and comments. But, strictly speaking, there are still relatively few scholarly papers that have studied data statistically or attempted corporate research physically for the benefit of strategy. The authors would hope this research would serve as a stimulus for future universal research that links academic and commercial research.

Companies and organizations have begun to spread and embrace social media marketing quickly. Of the scholarship and the industry that have been developed, participation in web-based social marketing has grown dramatically, with annual growth rates of over 10%, according to the survey. Advertisers in the Asia-Pacific region increased their budgets for social marketing rapidly in 2016, driving a surge in overall social media spending in the region. The research reveals that effective contacts with the target audience and considerable data analysis are the most critical components in the future for the social media skills set. With the blossoming of utilizing social marketing, the corporate ownership and the number of mature professionals who are actively engaged in the market are also expected to increase. During the next five years, what is even greater is that there will be a 65% increase in satisfaction with, attention to, and uses of other emerging social media.

In the past, companies have traditionally used mass marketing to reach a certain customer pool with common characteristics in the mass market. Very similar mass marketing tools and strategies have been used to send advertising messages to the entire population, but today’s companies can apply new technologies and platforms to categorize customers into narrower subgroups containing overwhelming amounts of user-detailed information. Marketers can then establish scores, send the right promotional message to the right customer at the right time, and speed up the so-called ‘precision marketing’ process. The result, in theory, should be increased sales, but companies will also be able to cut unwanted marketing costs through these targeted promotions.

Numerous social network sites have been developed and grown rapidly over the past few years, including not only big players like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, but also other emerging platforms such as Tumblr, Instagram, and Line, etc. Businesses should be aware of the capabilities of these platforms and the potential promotional advantages, which make it possible not only to acquire valuable and usable customer data but also to use customer analysis tools.

The digital age, characterized by the spread of the internet and communications technologies (ICTs), has created new opportunities for marketing and businesses. Social media marketing refers to the use of social media or social networks to promote products or services. Through social media, firms can generate content, exchange information, and enhance mutual engagement with potential customers, thereby potentially increasing sales. To pull potential buyers and further boost sales performance, companies can use an array of communication tools offered by popular social networking sites to optimize their marketing and promotional efforts.

2. Key Strategies for Effective Social Media Marketing

On platforms such as LinkedIn, the primary aim for users is to generate and establish a series of connections and relationships. Marketers need to be aware of this and generate content that will appeal to audiences on this platform. They can do this through publishing thought leadership in the area. There is some evidence that individuals feel that individuals who are ‘thought leaders’ are more credible in various ways, of increased trust. Such content also generates two types of benefits, relational and functional, for the individuals engaging with the content. Information exchange on Facebook and private lives based information exchange on Twitter also result in different long-term reputational effects for firms and products.

2.2 Encourage functional and relational benefits

Post content that communicates the long-term vision, objectives, or values of the organization that you wish to have conveyed. This can include content that speaks to the overall brand values or aspirational images that create an idealized version of the reality of the firm. Including such content can communicate to users what the organization stands for without needing to directly tell them. This can increase overall connectivity and the perceptions of the firm among those that consume their content. This effect has been found to be a general content effect as well since posts with a personal introduction from the author elicit a similar projected image. This personal connection is important as it facilitates interpersonal communication, which is vital given the social nature of these information exchange channels.

2.1 Communicate a vision

3. Measuring Success and ROI in Social Media Marketing

More needs to be known about how the use of social media by employees impacted performance outcomes to help executives in decision-making roles become more comfortable with their use. Although there is a significant dependence upon qualitative research to provide that guidance. If social media is going to be broadly adopted as business-to-business tools, it must be through a realization from executives that the communications and information skills possessed by individuals in their marketing and product development departments outnumber and outweigh those of the current social media expert(s) on their payrolls. Social media does have the potential to strengthen the empowered employee’s use of both personal and company brand activity, and very often, personal brands are preferred to companies for new products/services, purchase decisions, and reference groups. High employee-customer interaction is key in developing bidirectional communication between employees and clients.

Creating an effective social media marketing strategy requires careful consideration of business goals, understanding the target audience, and establishing measurable objectives and communication strategies. Social media supports virtually every communications objective in the organization, and when considering the creation of a successful strategy, marketers must think in terms of the organization’s unique communication action programs. These action programs should integrate the future technology of empowered employees and customers, relying less on the technical and tactical components of metrics and tools. Current and past metrics analysis, after the fact, should be used to provide objective measurement interpretations and the direction of changes required to achieve the strategic communications program goals.

4. Emerging Trends and Future Directions in Social Media Marketing

We see more advanced technology allowing experts to identify and summarize meaningful subsets of conversations beyond mere trend tracking or the volume of mentions. For example, by capturing the strength or polarity of expressions and facts. Such enhancements will allow companies to capture more valuable customer insight, and they would also facilitate the integration of social media information in real-time decision-making systems. The still expanding potential of social networks, like interactive live-streaming, more user-friendly conversation platforms, and chatbots with manipulation-resistant privacy options, are enabling and have been shown to build even more valuable customer relationships.

It is clear that SMM has had an enormous impact on firms and customers during the last decade, and that the importance of SMM in the corporate world is rapidly increasing. We expect continued evolution in SMM with several emerging trends. Some of these trends have already been identified in this chapter. We are convinced that SMM will continue to be a subject of major interest to scholars in research centers such as the GfK-Verein. Companies must listen to their customers, engage with them in relevant and meaningful conversations, and invite them to contribute product and service ideas and feedback. The majority of firms that we observe being actively engaged in these activities appear to be gaining a strategic edge over their competitors.