Final Blog Post

Social Media, the hype and facination. How long will it last?

Overall I have found that in every blog post I have written, the idea of using social media as a way to market has been a recurring semantic field. Combining technology with communication is an idea that has been around for a long time. This concept has evolved throughout the years, to email, text messaging and now facebook and other forms of social media. Primarily used as a tool to communicate, many marketers are using web 2.0 as a ways to communicate on a global scale. Social media sites are one of the fastest growing profitable businesses to date, is it possible that marketers could facilitate web 3.0 or 4.0 in a similar way?

Marketing and New Media:

For many years now it has seemed that the best way of creating a buzz about a product or brand is to have an innovative advert on television. This costs hundreds and thousands of pounds. However advertisers can target their advertisements to a programme’s demographics.

Rowan (2002) suggests that switching to digital means the consumer is a lot more interactive. I agree, the digital age in which we live combines mass consumerism with mass communication; people get what they want, when they want it. By doing so this creates places online in which marketers can target their audiences.

The introduction of social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Bebo and Myspace has created a new channel to market. Marketers thrived at the chance to create online advertising via social media, which is relatively low cost and could be highly profitable. Many small and local businesses could potentially generate a lot of awareness via social media. The methods of using Facebook and Twitter to advertise need not cost money either. Simply by setting up a page for a business and posting messages, getting followers; all this is advertising a business.

Feedback from customers is now more often and readily available rather than sending a letter that takes months to process in the HR department of a firm, many people can discuss their likes and dislikes using the public sphere of social media sites.

Word of Mouth:

Social media itself creates a word of mouth scenario on many occasions, particularly what is currently in the press, especially voice political concerns. Twitter gives people a chance to micro-blog (Jansen et al. 2009).  This makes it very easy for people to express their opinions about matters of the moment via essentially what is an online word of mouth. The optimum way of using social media for brands would be to create a buzz about their brand or products and make it go viral.

Social media via Mobile.

On average, mobile users are more active in social networking than non-mobile users.

Minutes spent on social networking per day accessed by mobile device or desktop
Social Network	Mobile Internet	PC Internet
Facebook	45.2	32.4
Bebo (AOL)	39.6	22
MySpace	8.2	7.5
Twitter	19.6	7.2
Source: GSMA/ComScore, January 2010		via: mobiThinking

Engagement in social media via mobile has increased during the last few years; this is because of the advances in technology and smartphone. Balasubramnan (2002) suggests that there are great opportunities when it comes to using mobile, regional demographics can be targeted globally, where perhaps before they were not possible to reach. This opens new doors for marketing professionals, the more people that a company can target the more potential there is for sales, profit and growth.

Who uses it?

Thousands of companies have jumped on the social media ‘band wagon’ as a way to promote their businesses. The advantage of social media is that there is no discrimination; any company can use it. One organisation that is a successful user of social Media is Dell. Internet, as with many online organisations is a part of Dell’s infrastructure. Dell has fully embraced the participatory phase of Social Media Marketing by being actively involved as a listening company an example of a company who has great skill in marketing to consumers both on and offline. On the other hand Coca-cola created a ‘fans-first’ approach to social communities, deciding consumer involvement was the most important aspect of their social media sites, creating an extra service and higher level of customer care.

Youtube is another example of how companies can use social media effectively, to promote new products or ideas to consumers. This can be a market research effort along with creating awareness for the brand itself. Many television adverts (often extended) feature on Youtube. An example of a successful company doing this is Cadbury, their innovative adverts have created a buzz and were well received by the public. The word of mouth created from a good television advert can now be accessed fully by consumers digitally, so now a consumer never has to miss out on things that could only previously be seen between commercials. In addition to this companies can successfully use Youtube to create a cost effective teaser campaign to initiate interest in a product, months before its release (Crawford & Benedetto, 2008).

Combining social media with search engine optimisation. Youtube and blogging can be a way to create more traffic for a company website if the website is keyword friendly small businesses can use this effectively as a cost effective way of creating awareness, large companies also do it well. IBM is a great illustration of a company who embraces social media in an effort to be tech-savvy and in-tune with their clientele by using blogs and twitter to keep updated with new ventures and successions of the company.

Is social media here to stay?

Some scholars believe that social media is a fad that will decrease in popularity with time, some believe that it is here to stay forever, only to be improved. From a marketing perspective social media has great benefits for targeting the consumer and creating an extension to the originally purposed marketing mix (Brassington and Pettit, 2006). If harnessed correctly, social media combined with other marketing efforts could have a positive impact on brand reputation, enforcing brand values, providing interaction and could potentially increase volume of sales. The future for marketers could be the option of using web 3.0 and 4.0 as a way to generate awareness for a campaign or product, the reality is there, that the internet could take over the television all together (Baker, 2004).

Word Count - 1067

Balasubramanian, S., Paterson, R.A., Javenpaa, S.L., 2002.

Exploring the Implications Of M-Commerce For Markets And Marketing. Journal Of The Academy Of Marketing Science, 30 (4), 348-61.

Brassington, F. & Pettitt, S. 2006. Principles of marketing. 4^th edition. Harlow. Pitman Publishing imprint.

Crawford, M & A. Di Benedetto. 2008. New Products Management. 9th Edition.UK. Irwin: Mcgrawhill.

Jansen, B. J., Zhang, M., Sobel, K., and Chowdury, A., 2009. Twitter Power: Tweets as Electronic Word of Mouth. Journal of the Americn Society for Information Science and Technology, 60 (11), 2169-2188.

Rowan, W., 2002. Digital Marketing: using new technologies to get closer to your customers. London: Kogan Page

Stephen Backer, 0ctober 2004. Available from:

http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/blogspotting/archives/2006/10/web_30.html

Accessed on 24.04.11

Ethical Correctness

The issues regarding the ethical issues with social media are important to understand as a marketer and also as a social media user. Essentially you are advertising yourself online when you sign up to a social media website. It allows people to see photo’s of you even if you privacy settings are at their highest. For example if I was to type my name into Google it would come up with my facebook page.  Likewise facebook is available to everyone and anyone, only a few pieces of information required. You often hear about paedophiles stalking young girls and boys via facebook pretending to be somebody they are not.


Due to the increased awareness that people now have following the PR scandals of the inventors of facebook being taken to court after allegations that they were selling sensitive information onto big corporations. Boyd (2008) suggests that people have become more skeptical of the social media sites [1], which has lead to them increasing their privacy settings. Now it is well known that many employers check peoples social networking sites before employing them. Many people think it is unacceptable for employers to do this, what people do in their spare time is up to them. However employers argue that when you are an employee at their company you are representing the brand, therefor unequivocally associated with the company. Following PR scandals, many employers will make employees sign a clause regarding the do's and dont's of social networking sites [2]. 

The issue that marketers face when using something such as social media to promote campaigns, sometimes targeting becomes threatening. People want to be interested in what you have to offer but not to the extent that they start checking their bank statements for fear of identity theft. Facebook is to blame when the advertising is so directly targeted as they are the ones getting paid for these companies to have your information, what exactly are we getting from it? An occasional advert that we are interested amongst the traffic of adverts that quite frankly we don’t particularly care about. I feel that if a company is going to use the adverts within social media pages, please do us a favour and do it well.

But a brand doesn’t need to have an issue with ethics. Many brands use social media to enhance their corporate social responsibility. I think this is important not only for natural disasters affecting the millions, but also for the local community in which the corporation operates. This creates great PR for a company and will probably increase sales as a result, perhaps linking to the earlier blog discussing seamless brands, this should be a part of the process for a company to become faultless. 


[1] Boyd, D. (2008) Facebook's Privacy Trainwreck: Exposure, Invasion, and Social Convergence, Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. Volume: 14, Issue: 1, Publisher: UNIVERSITY OF LUTON, Pages: 13-20
[2] http://www.fastcompany.com/1692172/how-social-media-and-big-brother-are-hurting-your-job-chances

What goes around...

Public Spere?? A posh word for a lot of people gossiping. Many scholars have looked into the Public Sphere, what it means, who is in it, can we profit from it? Freedom of speech and democratic societies is something that people have fought for in the past. Although controlled greatly by political correctness many people feel it is their right to say what they want, public spheres have been around for sometime now.  The digital public sphere, could be classed by some as relatively new media where people are brought together through something they find interesting and feel should be discussed amongst others, perhaps debated, some scholars describe this as an extension of the public sphere rather than a different phenomenon.

Facebook and Twitter the hype of the moment. I myself cant go a day without going on facebook, the same goes for many of my friends. Primarily a way of communicating, however the introduction of pages to ‘like’ sparks interests from indiciduals that create discussions and creates a platform for a public sphere. An interesting view is purposed by Zeynep Tufekci  (2010)[1]. She views facebook as a quasi-public sphere, where things private are made public.

 I believe that a public sphere can be highly beneficial to marketing professionals. Many would agree that the most influential marketing tool is essentially word of mouth: It is free after all. Therefore by using a public spheres a buzz can be created about absolutely anything at all… Combine this with a PR stunt and bobs your uncle you’ve gone viral in seconds.. Bravo!! Creating a buzz on twitter could be an example of this.

On the contrary, have a bad product or service and people are very much inclined to discuss this negatively online. People are much more likely to discuss something bad that happens to them as the emotion linked to this is uncomfortable for them and they will feel as though they have been treated unfairly. So it is much harder to get something good said online, but if a company is good and as it were ‘does as it says on the tin’ for a lack of words then there should be no reason for negative comments.

Bearing this in mind, many companies are reluctant to draw attention to their products or services, as they are worried about the repercussions [2]. I say throw caution to the wind! The people and companies that are most successful and well known are the ones that take risks: Take Richard Branson and the succession of Virgin, if he never took the risks he did he wouldn’t have been mentioned in this blog…I bet he feels lucky!!

           

[1]^http://technosociology.org/?p=35

[2]^http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/may2009/ca2009058%5f089

But its Private

In the post-modern era in which we live we have unlimited choice, the consumer has the power, and this has created a ‘want it now’ culture[1]. Not only do we desire things and want them straight away, once we have them, we want them improved, an upgrade or improvement, a warranty or tax-free.

Within the culture we have seen and witnessed the birth of online sites, such as E-bay where almost anything can be purchased with that one touch of a button, not only this but you can get it for the price you want to pay… even better! Especially bearing in mind the current economic climate.  Promotions online will usually consist of using advertising online mainly via SEO and regularly via social media pages. The debate forms as to whether this is invading peoples privacy, I believe it is just clever marketing.

However it is understandable that some people may feel that their privacy is being invaded when marketing does become so personalised. I believe there is a line between targeting and making people feel targeted. Companies need to be clever especially when wording their advertisements. However I do believe if you are going to put information online you need to be aware that there will be people trying to use this to their advantage and you are letting them.

[1] Denegri-Knott, J. 2010.  ‘I Want It Now!: Ebay and the Acceleration of Consumer Desire. European Association for Consumer Research, Royal Holloway June 30-July. 

SEO/Google

SEO is something I am greatly interested in. I believe that SEO is key to many organisations success. When integrated into a pre-established marketing plan and strategy will have optimum effect on a company’s turnover.

However companies cant just have this, integrating short term and long term marketing efforts will clearly be more effective and profitable for organisations to be successful brands. Google has taken the art of marketing to the next level by creating adwords and pay per click advertising. By using google and other forms of SEO marketing strategies brands can create more awareness. SEO itself needs a strategy, using links and keywords to be advantageous on search engine sites can be the difference in sales by the million.

A relative of mine Matt Blay is a director of a very successful SEO company, companies will go to him for their SEO strategy and he can dramatically increase their sales figures and has many a time transformed a relatively small company into a multi-million pound organisation. So SEO is powerful!!

Using google adwords can be expensive and should really only be used as a short term marketing effort to generate awareness for a company or business. For a company such as PSM Electrical Services ltd, using such an advert can be justifiable in the short term if there are new products or services that need to be communicated to the customers and can extend this companies product life cycle. However for long term effectiveness an overall SEO strategy would be more beneficial to a company such as this.

Seamless Brands

A seamless brand in my eyes screams repetition. If everything is the same each time you invest in a brand then they have done their job. It all boils down to trust. I trust that Tesco’s prices will always be lower than most other superstores, so on a budget Tesco will take the number one spot. However if I am looking for high quality, Marks and Spencer never fails me.

Seamless should mean that you cant pick faults…. On the topic of faults following an error on a website, many companies are now personalizing the message given on the 404 page, many of which link back to the website so that a consumer need not seek another site for their purchase. Making a seamless brand clearly takes time effort and money. Companies take years building up a repertoire with consumers, creating a loyal customer. Clearly these companies feel that keeping customers is an asset and are valuable to their business. Therefore reinforcing the Brand message and value is crucial to maintaining their clientele. If a company manages this in all aspects they have then created a seamless brand and a seamless brand in itself can create a unique selling point and competitive advantage.(Verganti, 2009). An example of a seamless brand could be that of Tesco, continuing to increase their market share in the UK and worldwide. Firstly due to their low prices, secondly for their promise and brand values (trust), attracting both new customers and keeping old ones by offering great rewards for using their products and services. 


[1] Verganti, R., 2009. Design Driven Innovation – Changing the rules of competition by radically innovating what things mean. US: Harvard Business Press

Mobile Marketing - The Future?

The Use of mobile is one of the fastest growing commodities worldwide. The use of mobile is seen not only amongst the younger generations as stereotypes portray, studies have shown that although demographic, socioeconomic and political factors are involved in the adoption of mobile, adoption rates are still high amongst categories which we might not expect (older generations, developing countries). Therefore this gives us the perfect audience to be able to connect with anytime, anywhere. From a marketing perspective this is an opportunity for very targeted mass communication where tracking is simplified. A lot of users are now on 3g and even 4g which gives us an even higher platform for which to target with high-speed wireless mobility. However mobile is still in its infancy [1]. In order for marketing to be effective through the realm of mobile there needs to be a good strategy.


In addition to this there is the fear that using mobile to target people could be too personalised and seem like an invasion of privacy to the consumer. This is an ethical issue that companies cannot afford to get wrong. I would suggest that a company with a good reputation and a high level of loyalty and trust from customers should take on mobile marketing but with caution. I highly doubt a new or improving company could take on this method of marketing. However I do believe that if used correctly, it could become an integral part of an already well established marketing plan. 

Mobile apps are already a big thing, only to get bigger in the future. However instead of merely creating a fancy dressed up app in the app store or different channel. The brand identity, image and values need to be embedded in the app in order to create more loyalty from users. Failure to do this can mean that a mere SMS would suffice and this would be at a fraction of the cost. Because lets face it, there is no point producing and marketing a mobile app if it is not profitable. In addition a poor app could be detrimental to a business and create bad PR as a result. 

The lecture on mobile marketing was fascinating to me. I myself believe that new media such and this and social media is the future of marketing. It is exciting. To hear the figures for the number of people who use mobile in China and India is astounding. One website quoted the number of mobile users in China as 900 million [2]. So if harnessed correctly, mobile could quite easily take over the PC in many countries as the main form of accessing the internet, it is more affordable, convenient and fast. 


[1] http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/research/4101.html
[2] http://www.mobilemarketingwatch.com/