What is social media in marketing communications? What are major social media platforms and how they are used as marketing communication tools? This paper explores the role of social media in marketing communications, provides an overview of different kinds of social media platforms as well as discussing how these platforms are used for different communication objectives and can be used by marketers. Find out more on the following pages.
Social media has been used as a marketing tool to promote products and services to the targeted audience. Other than this, social media platforms are also used widely in marketing communication. Research studies on social media as a marketing communication tool have revealed its’ potentials. The study also highlights possible ways to use social media platforms for different communication objectives.
These days, everyone from small business owners to some of the biggest companies in the world is using social media to spread the word about their brands, products, and services.
Whether it’s Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, companies use these low-cost tools to combine technology and social interaction with the use of words, images, and video. Social media gives marketers a voice and a way to communicate with peers, customers, and potential consumers. It personalizes your brand and helps you to spread your message in a relaxed and conversational way.
The downfall of social media, if you could call it that, is that it must be a part of your everyday life to keep the momentum and attention you need for it to be successful. Let’s look at who is using social media to promote their brand—and what you can learn from them.
Companies That Use Social Media
Here are just a few examples of brands you may have seen actively using social media:
- Absolut Vodka: The popular vodka brand has used online videos on YouTube and hosted bartender fan pages on Facebook.
- BMW: The iconic car brand has turned to Facebook to promote its 1-Series Road Trip and created a Bimmerfest Page for fans.
- Dunkin’ (formerly Dunkin’ Donuts): The ubiquitous doughnut brand is now everywhere online, with its microblogging Twitter account and National Donut Day social media blasts.
Social media is something any kind of brand can leverage. It’s not about whether your brand is a fit, but whether you can find the right way to engage your audience digitally.
.
The Benefits of Social Media Marketing
What role should social media play in your marketing? Marketing is a tool we use to inform consumers about our products, who we are, and what we offer. Social media accomplishes all of these goals. Here’s how:
- You can use social media to define your brand identity and the products or services that you offer.
- Social media allows you to create relationships with people who might not otherwise know about your products and services or what your company represents.
- Social media can make you “real” to consumers. If you want people to follow you, don’t just talk about the latest product news, but share your personality with them.
- You can use social media to associate yourself with peers that may be serving the same target market.
- Social media makes it easy to communicate and provide the interaction that consumers look for.
How to Use Social Media for Your Marketing
Social media clearly carries a lot of potential value for your business. But gaining that value isn’t guaranteed unless you do it right. Here are a few tips:
- You cannot just depend on social media; you must integrate it with other vehicles of marketing. While social media will create awareness, it won’t usually help you sell $1 million worth of product right out of the gate. That’s not to say that it can’t one day, once you’ve built up your social media “stardom,” but it probably won’t happen tomorrow.
- Be yourself and reflect your personality. There are no written right or wrong rules when it comes to social media. Only you can determine what will work for you and fits your brand.
- Be consistent. Social media requires ongoing engagement. If you don’t plan on being consistent, don’t do it at all.
Social media success stories are abundant, from headhunters that find job applicants to new businesses that want to introduce a new product, as well as established Fortune 500 companies that want to strengthen their brand.
The role of social media in your marketing is to use it as a communication tool that makes you accessible to those interested in your product and makes you visible to those that don’t know you yet.
Use it as a tool that creates a personality behind your brand and initiates relationships that you otherwise may never have gained. It creates not only new customers but builds existing customer loyalty. The fact is, social media is so diversified that you can use it in whatever way best suits the needs of your business.
What Is Social Media Marketing (SMM)
The term social media marketing (SMM) refers to the use of social media and social networks to market a company’s products and services. Social media marketing provides companies with a way to engage with existing customers and reach new ones while allowing them to promote their desired culture, mission, or tone. Social media marketing has purpose-built data analytics tools that allow marketers to track the success of their efforts.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Social media marketing uses social media and social networks to market a company’s products and services.
- It allows companies to engage with existing customers and reach new ones as they promote their culture, mission, or tone.
- Sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are commonly used to execute social media marketing.
How Social Media Marketing (SMM) Works
Social media has changed the way we function as a society, including the way we connect with one another. As platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram took off, businesses also took notice. They began to use these sites to further their interests through social media marketing. That’s because these sites are able to change consumer behavior.
Social media websites allow marketers to employ a broad range of tactics and strategies to promote content and have people engage with it. Many social networks allow users to provide detailed geographical, demographic, and personal information, which enables marketers to tailor their messages to what is most likely to resonate with users.
According to Buffer, there are five key pillars of social media marketing:
- Strategy: This step involves determining goals, the social media channels to be used, and the type of content that will be shared.
- Planning and Publishing: Businesses should draft plans of what their content will look like (i.e. will there be videos? Photos? How much script?) and decide when it will be put out on the platform.
- Listening and Engagement: Monitoring what users, customers, and others are saying about the posts, brands, and any other business assets. This may require the adoption of a social media engagement tool.
- Analytics and Reporting: Part of being on social media is knowing how far posts are going, so reports of engagement and reach are very important
- Advertising: Purchasing ads on social media is a great way to promote and further develop a brand.
The explosive growth of social media in the last few years has been well documented, and for many, a life without Twitter and Facebook is inconceivable. It’s hard to believe that social media as we know it has only been around for little longer than a decade and it has already fundamentally changed the ways people communicate and interact with each other. This is not only true for conversations with friends and family, but also, increasingly, for companies looking to discover the value that social media can add to their marketing operations.
For many businesses, using social media to market their brand has been a challenge. In recent years, the public has not only grown savvy to established marketing techniques employed by companies, but has also almost become immune to these tactics. Ads, leaflets, direct mail and email just don’t have the same impact as they used to have. With this awareness increasing amongst target audiences, companies have to come up with new ways to make an impression and differentiate themselves from the competition.
One thing’s for sure: by using social media, brands have the chance to create a strong media presence by interacting with customers online. Social tools can also help to strengthen brand perception by communicating core values to a wider audience. This, in turn, opens up the opportunity to start conversations, grow business partnerships and expand the online community to win new followers and potential customers.
To do that however, it is key not to fall in the same trap as with traditional marketing tactics – repeating the same old strategies over and over again. Businesses need to harness the possibilties online platforms have to offer and present the audience with fresh and original ideas. It is important to consider that, after several years of social media, people have grown accostumed to the new media.
Today, one of the most characteristic traits of both social media, and its users, is its fast-moving nature. Organisations today know that is no longer enough to tweet every so often or update their Facebook page with their latest press release. The audience consistently craves news and innovation.
What’s clear is that as part of the ongoing quest to stand out from the competition, companies must listen and learn from their audience and have to map their findings against what else is going on in the social media sphere. They have to go above and beyond what already been there and translate their corporate objectives into exiciting and original social media activities.
For example, at HCL we’ve recently used as an online recruitment tool, not only to uncover new talent, but also to build brand awareness. Another campaign saw the launch of a LinkedIn application aimed at encouraging users to go above and beyond the scope of existing contracts. The application allows users to log in and acknowledge professional relationships that they feel have gone ‘the extra mile’ by adding a personal note of appreciation.
This shows the direct impact social media tools can have on modern businesses and is a creative way of demonstrating digital savviness and innovativenes to a large audience. It also shows how thought leadership on social media can take B2B engagements to the next level and help forming meaningful business relationships via social media.
Actively using social media is one of the easiest ways to reach a large audience and get the company or brand name in the heads of exisiting or potential customers. Not only does an already established network help to create new contacts, it will also help to deepen connections that have been formed. Even though this sounds very familiar to traditional marketing techniques, social media has given them a new twist. Companies that fail to adopt to a new more connected and interactive market, will inevitably fall behind.
Conclusion
Social Media is a platform where people can connect with people and share their views on different issues. Social media has changed the way people used to communicate. Lack of time and resources are the common problems faced by business owners or any other person while marketing their business or brand. So, social media platforms help in overcoming these hurdles and have become the best marketing tool for business marketing functions.