Unit 2: Execute Social Media Marketing Strategy PDF

UNIT 2 Execute social media marketing strategy 1.1 Describe the types of traditional marketing strategy (audience, marketing objectives, media) Traditional marketing refers to any type of promotion, advertising or campaign activity that has been used by companies and organisations for a long time th...

UNIT 2 Execute social media marketing strategy 1.1 Describe the types of traditional marketing strategy (audience, marketing objectives, media) Traditional marketing refers to any type of promotion, advertising or campaign activity that has been used by companies and organisations for a long time that has proven success. Traditional methods of marketing include print advertisements, billboards, flyers or pamphlets, TV, newspaper, radio, and more. Print Print includes all advertisements and communications that involve the printed medium. This includes; Newspapers A list of common newspaper dailies in Singapore. o Straits Times o Today o The New Paper o Berita Harian o Berita Minggu o Lianhe Wanbao o Lianhe Zaobao o Shin Min Daily News o Tamil Murasu o Business Times Newspapers have been the mainstay of marketing strategies and activities for many years. Advertisers will purchase advertisement space from Newspapers and run advertisements selling and promoting their products and services. Currently, while newspapers are still a very strong and viable form of marketing strategy, it is undergoing a major transitional shift to digital strategies, as more people consume digital communication rather than traditional forms. In fact, one of the most common strategies nowadays is a “drive-to-web”, where traditional newspaper media is used to move their readership base to newer digital platforms. Magazines Flyers Direct Mailers Brochures Catalogues Billboards 19 Broadcast The broadcast medium includes anything that is broadcasted such as; o Television o Radio o Cinemas While streaming and social media platforms like Youtube could be considered as broadcast mediums, they are categorised as new media by the industry. The Broadcast medium is still considered a very strong traditional medium mainly because most broadcast owners create content for their respective companies, such as HBO with Game of Thrones, ABC with Grey’s Anatomy and NBC with Parks and Recreation. Netflix sits in between the old and the new. Given that Netflix is a digital streaming platform, many of its shows do end up on traditional platforms like the cinema. Telephone The humble telephone has undergone tremendous change since it’s introduction over a hundred years ago. It’s no longer just a communicative device for advertisers. With the introduction of smart devices, they serve as a gateway to the digital realm. Telephone campaigns, usually in conjunction with television, served as a viable strategy in traditional marketing, where callers are still encouraged to call to buy and donate to charitable causes. 20 2.1 Explain the principles of the social network for business Social Relationships Social network theory views social relationships in terms of nodes and ties. Nodes are the individual actors within the networks, and ties are the relationships between the actors. In the diagram below, the nodes can be seen as A, B and C, and the ties are denoted by the dotted lines and the solid lines. A and B have strong ties. This represents a relationship between A and B. It could mean they are friends. Node A and C have strong ties. This represents a relationship between A and C. It could mean Strong they are husband and wife. Ties Because A has strong ties with B and C, both B and C have a weak tie due both having a relationship (Strong-Tie) to A. The weak tie between B and C also means an association between two people who know each other, and sends each other a Chinese New Year greeting once a year or greet each other occasionally during Christmas. Weak Ties These networks provide ways for companies to gather information, deter competition, and even collude in setting prices or policies.6 Six Degrees of separation Six degrees of separation is the idea that all people are six, or fewer, social connections away from each other. As a result, a chain of "a friend of a friend" statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps. The Small-world Experiment The small-world experiment comprised several experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram and other researchers examining the average path length for social networks of people in the United States. The research was groundbreaking in that it suggested that human society is a small-world-type network characterized by short path-lengths. The experiments are often associated with the phrase "six degrees of separation". People were chosen in US cities as far away as possible from the endpoint of the chain correspondence. Letters were given to these people, and they were asked first if they knew the person at the endpoint and secondly if they knew somebody who may know the person at the endpoint. If 6 Social network theory. (0AD). Retrieved from https://is.theorizeit.org/wiki/Social_network_theory 21 they could meet with either of the criteria, they were asked to forward the letter, best as they can with their connections to try to reach the end. The Results Sixty-four of the letters eventually did reach the target endpoint. Among these chains, the average path length fell around five and a half or six. The researchers concluded that people in the United States are separated by about six people on average. Ageev Andrew 22 3.1 Describe the functions of relevant stakeholders Public Relations Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing the spread of information and communication between an individual or an organization such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization and the public. Sales and Marketing Sales and Marketing are distinct functions that deal with selling. Marketing focuses on the needs of the customer, while sales focus on the needs of the company. Marketing tries to find out what their customers needs and attempts to provide satisfaction to them by providing the type of products and services they require. Sales, on the other hand, deals with the daily requirements of the company and that is to provide constant revenue for the business. Media Agencies Media agencies typically get classified with Advertising Agencies, though their functions are distinct. Media Agencies deal with media purchases, such as advertising space from newspapers, building owners or other media agencies who own media property. Digital Media is a new form of media. The main difference is that digital media space deal with non-physical advertising space. For example, instead of purchasing media space from a newspaper, we would purchase media space, typically called display advertising on a website of social media platform. 23 A typical Straits Times Advertisement: A typical display advertisement on Facebook: 24 4.1 Describe the advantages and disadvantages of social media marketing Advantages Advertisers can now run advertisements to sell running shoes, targeted at special interest groups who are interested in running and participate in marathons as well as interest groups that like collecting special edition running shoes. Advertisers on social media platforms now know with a high degree of certainty who exactly they are communicating with. Global reach The advantage with Social Media Networks, companies are now able to reach customers globally easily. With the algorithms available on platforms such as Facebook, allows the advertiser to deliver targeted advertising to potential customers who are already grouped and segmented demographically. The following are the percentage of people in the United States using social media. o YouTube: 73% o Facebook: 68% o Instagram: 35% o Pinterest: 29% o Snapchat: 27% o LinkedIn: 25% o Twitter: 24% As of 6 January 2020, there are an estimated 2.4 Billion users of Facebook.7 Lower cost Social Media Marketing can be quite expensive if done at a global level. However, because it’s more targeted, and the target audience is better defined compared to traditional media, it’s cheaper for small companies and entrepreneurs to enter their respective markets and start selling and advertising. Trackable Most Social Media platforms have robust tools to help advertisers track their advertising campaigns on each platform. There are also external independent software tools that track social media like keyhole, hootsuite, and digimind. Measurable Social Media is Measurable. For example, advertisers can calculate the click-through- rate (CTR), which represents a ratio showing how often people who see the advertisement end up clicking it. It can also measure how much an advertiser will have to pay with (CPC) Cost-Per-Click. 7 Clement, J. (2020, January 6). Facebook users by country 2019. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/268136/top-15-countries-based-on-number-of-facebook-users/ 25  Cost-per-click (CPC) is calculated by dividing the advertising cost by the number of clicks generated by an advertisement. The basic formula is: Cost-per-click ($) = Advertising cost ($) / Number of Ads clicked (#) Build customer loyalty Companies can now communicate directly with their customers on Social Media Platforms, helping to build customer loyalty with direct engagement. Disadvantages Media Fragmentation Social Media platforms while relatively new is already heavily fragmented, there are many platforms all vying for consumer and advertiser attention. Some have like Facebook and Whatsapp, while many have not succeeded, like Google +. Facebook may currently have 2 billion users, but is losing their customer base, especially with the younger generation. Instagram is rapidly facing competition from the likes of Tiktok and Little Red Book 小红书. All this means that while there is more choice, it becomes subsequently harder to keep track and target the right audience because the customer may migrate to other platforms quickly and often. Negative feeback Once businesses get onto social media platforms, it is open to criticism. Customers from different countries, cultures and opinions may be opposed to the content a business may be selling, or their expectations differ from the country of origin. Managing customer expectations and feedback becomes a major challenge as negative feedback may tarnish the brand. 26  Time-consuming Managing the many various social media platforms is time consuming, and maybe ultimately costly as the need to hire experienced social media specialists and managers may be too expensive for smaller businesses if they are not careful. Keeping track of campaigns running on various platforms as well as deciding what platform to use may be too difficult for inexperienced and smaller to medium sized businesses. Privacy and Security issues Social Media platforms tends to have less security than the typical website. Consumer data can be compromised too easy. Moreover, customers may inadvertently release private information on the platform. A rise of cyber stalking crimes can be seen in many countries. Consider the case in Japan, where a man was charged when he used the reflection in the eyes of the victim to guess which train station she frequented as well as the surrounding landmarks from the victims many selfies. A heavy need to constantly engage the customer Customers need to be constantly engaged, which requires companies to hire content creators to create content to continuously engage the customer. Influencers see major drop off in engagement and awareness if they do not communicate with their followers constantly. This could lead to burn-out for Instagram celebrities and Youtube personalities. 27 5.1 Describe the types of content marketing strategy What is a content marketing strategy? Definition - Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action. Authority content Authority Content is the act of consistently creating and distributing helpful information and stories to gain attention, engagement and trust, for a clearly defined audience, with the objective of identifying who will benefit from your products and services. For example, the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) has been broadcasting the news since 1922, on Medias such as the Radio, Television and Digital Media. Wikipedia is an online encyclopaedia since 2001, providing information on almost everything. Both examples have provided consistent, quality and helpful content to users. Over time, they become authorities in their respective fields. BBC for quality news from around the news and Wikipedia as an authority content provider for information. Influencer outreach An influencer is a person who is able to reach and deliver a message to a large group of people (followers). Influencers are relatively new and engaging the right audited influencer is a powerful alternative to traditional advertising and very effective in developing the credibility of a brand. Influencers are also very good at promoting awareness of a brand through social media. Influencer outreach is a powerful alternative to traditional advertising and a very effective strategy for developing credibility and promoting awareness of your brand. Influencers work by creating specific content for a target audience. They gain a followership of people who consume the content created by the influencer. 28 Viral Content The word “viral” is a piece of content that is circulated rapidly and widely from one web user to another. Viral content is material, usually an article, an image or a video that spreads rapidly online through website links and social media platforms. Advertisers and content creators are constantly looking to create the next piece of viral content. It spreads across social networks rapidly, like a virus. Some recent viral content: Gangnam Style by Psy - Youtube The Ice Bucket Challenge - Youtube Tiktok – An app that went viral with over 1 billion downloads world-wide 29 6.1 Describe ways to align different social media platforms to marketing strategy Currently, there are many social media platforms available. These are the following popular platforms. Digital adoption around the world. Top Social Media Platforms in Singapore 30 The top platforms in Singapore are; 1st – Youtube 2nd – Whatsapp 3rd - Facebook The popularity of platforms constantly changes, as consumers move between platforms consuming content. The popularity of Youtube is not strange as we see this happening around the world. In some ways, we could say that Youtube has replaced the humble television. The difference between Youtube and Television is that the content created on Youtube is by individuals, while corporations create the content on television. 31 3 Steps to align your goals to the Social Media platform Step 1 – Always determine your marketing Goal What do you intend to do? This is very important as a goal must be set to optimise the use of your budget. No matter how big an organisation is, it is near impossible to try to achieve multiple goals at the same time with the same amount of money allocated to the campaign. Common marketing goals 1. Increase engagement with customers 2. Increase the recruitment of new customers 3. Increase sales of your product 4. Build Brand Awareness Step 2 – Choose the right social media platform Once you determine what you want to do, decide which social media platform is the best. Some Social Media platforms are more suitable for certain Industries. For example; Instagram – has many younger users and is best used for products and services that are very visual in nature, mainly videos and images. Facebook – has 2 Billion users and is suitable for any company. You can send videos, audio, images, short messages, attach files to individuals and to selected demographical groups according to your marketing requirements. Whatsapp – is good for one-to-one interaction with customers. You can send video, audio, images, attach files and short messages. Youtube – currently the best platform for Video advertising. 32 Step 3 – Track your campaign Track the campaign to determine your Return on Investment. Campaigns can be tracked depending on the platform chosen as many current social media platforms have built-in campaign trackers. Web Analytics This tracker tracks the visitations to a website. It shows the marketer Who is visiting the website Where they are from How long they stay on each page 33 Conversion Tracking This is used and built into most platforms like Facebook, Google Adwords and Instagram. This shows the Marketer whether their paid campaigns are working by tracking such information as; New Sales Number of times the app is downloaded New sign-ups CRM Tracking CRM software is widely used in companies worldwide. Popular software like Salesforce and Deskera allows organisations to track potential and current customers with detailed information about the individual or organisation, providing the marketing professional useful insights. The software allows detailed tracking of Leads Opportunities Referral programs 34