N502 Marketing Social Media : Assessment Answers
Social media is considered as the most trending tool for increasing brand awareness as well as customer acquisition of companies. Both multinational companies and small medium enterprises are using various social media websites for expanding their business growth across different parts of the world. It is found that almost 3 billion people uses social media among them 2 million people are considered as active users. Recent research have found that almost 80% of the customers in the near future will be inclined to buy products from the internet rather than visiting physical stores. Apart from that, the social media websites provide details of customers regarding their preferences and choices that help the companies in building marketing strategies that will hit the mind of the target customers. The companies use both traditional marketing approach and digital marketing approach in order to increase the brand awareness and customer acquisition.
The paper illustrates the effectiveness of the use of social media in the marketing approaches of companies compared to traditional marketing approaches. Enterprises nowadays can collect customer feedback from social media websites by introducing various promotional campaigns. It will not only help in collecting feedback, trust of consumers, but also it will help in attracting more customers by converting the followers of the websites into potential customers. Due to the immense opportunities available by using social media websites, companies are preferring more social media channels rather than legacy media.
Answer:
Introduction:
Contemporary marketing is related to the process of planning and executing the pricing and distribution of goods and services through co-creation, sharing values and other contemporary theories (Boone and Kurtz 2013). On the other hand, non-contemporary theory involves used of TV advertising, flyers and poster campaigns to pull customers towards their product. Several channels have developed from non-contemporary marketing such as digital media that provides approachable methods to capture audience attention (Salehi et al. 2012). Social media has become a new and effective tool to combine technology and marketing strategies to increase brand awareness and promote marketing of products in business. It gives marketers the opportunity to interact with peers, target customers, and personalize their brand. The numerous utilities of social media for business include creating an identity of product and company, developing business relationship, communicating with consumers and associating with peers. However, social media alone cannot help in the development of enterprises, it needs to integrated with different approaches of marketing to strengthen brand and image of the company (GOUD 2016). With this context, the paper explores the role of social media marketing for business and determines its effectiveness compared with traditional marketing approaches. It presents the key development and challenges posed to business due to the social media use.
|
Type of Marketing |
Advantage |
Disadvantage |
|
Contemporary marketing |
· It has competitive advantage as it is based on fast-paced and ever-evolving actions. · The expansion of internet use and smart phones gives adequate opportunity to engage with audience and deliver value to customers (Tiago and Veríssimo 2014). |
· As handling social media account requires time and effort, there is a challenge in posting and reposting the information. · Unrealistic customer expectation and lack of control over corporate component also pose risk to business (Boone and Kurtz 2013). |
|
Non-contemporary marketing |
· The level of risk is low as it is based on proven methods, which have high success rate. · It offers tangibility and personalized marketing to specific group of consumers who do not utilize internet (Srinivasan et al. 2016).
|
· Traditional marketing by means of television, radio and advertisement are costly and time-consuming approach. · It is inefficient as conversion rate of ads and consumer’s interest cannot be determined Srinivasan et al. 2016). |
Classification of social media
Social media are networking site to connect formally with people and share similar interest. Different types of social media used in marketing includes personal networks, internet-based-networks, social publishing, e-commerce, online reviews, discussion forums and media sharing networks. Relationship networks like Facebook and Twitter account offer an opportunity for brands to connect with their users on a personal level. It is useful in getting feedback and reviews about products. Similarly online review service helps an enterprise to make or break their business (King et al. 2014). The ability of a Company to leverage user review helps in getting knowledge about customer based and their opinion. It consequently helps in building client relationship and identifying the worthiness of the brand from the user perspective. The most important platform is the website to showcase the brand or service to the world (Brynjolfsson et al. 2013). Finally, e-commerce is the most emerging trend in business by which consumers get the convenience to shop and purchase products with the click of a button. It has highly revolutionized the marketing strategies of company with business shifting to e-commerce platforms. Hence, this diverse classification of social media marketing tools support brand recognition practices in organization. It acts as a mean to establish authority, facilitate online reviews and minimize total marketing expenditure on products (Scott et al. 2017).
Figure 1: Classification of social media. Source: (8 Types of Social Media and How Each Can Benefit Your Business, 2017).
Role of social media marketing for business
Social media marketing has the potential to reach to larger number of customers and correct implementation of marketing with social media can bring great success for business. The importance of social media is realized today because of the ability to connect with prospective consumers. Companies plan various strategies to engage their customer to their brand via online platforms and it promotes building trust with customers. Other two important benefits of social media to business are reduction in cost and increased in opportunity of revenue generation. They can evaluate their business prospects by the interaction with consumers and this opens the window to listen to customer’s grievances or feedback. Apart from this, social media marketing enables business to identify peer groups or competitors in the industry to continuously change business strategy and stay ahead in business (GOUD 2016).
Building a brand image was a time-consuming process with lot of expenditure in money too. With the shift from traditional marketing approach to social media marketing, the mode of communication with consumers has drastically changes. Currently about 47% of the world population is using the internet and the rise in smart phone sale has further increased the penetration of internet in various geographical region of the world (Taylor 2017). Although social media marketing has an impact on brand building, it also challenges business companies consistently as consumers regularly browse various online sites before buying products. It highlights the need to adapt new age marketing strategy to enhance brand image and sustain the reputation in the business market (Singh et al. 2017).
The advent of social media platform along with digital marketing is also leading to rapid change in consumer behavior and it means business firm needs to rethink their marketing strategies. The opportunity present to consumers due to social media includes broader choice in selection of products, getting diverse product and competitive pricing. Hence, firm needs to develop promotional strategies in the world that emphasize on content and the more a business firm understand digital marketing, the more they can benefit from it. Firms are facing several internal and external pressures to have a presence in the digital world. However, correct implementation of social media marketing gives them the chance to engage in customer support, market research and boost online sales.
Comparison between social media business and traditional business
Traditional business engaged in promotions of their products through advertisements on billboards, magazines and radio. Traditional business marketing was all about broadcasting business through television and radio. It involved waiting for considerable time to understand the response of the consumers. However, the advantage of social media business is that it has promoted transparency in business as consumers rely on informative content and reviews online reviews to take decision on buying products. The response is rapid and social media marketing immediately catches attention of target consumers (Aral et al. 2013). Hence, traditional business could not target specific consumer group, while social media business could achieve accuracy by targeting desired users. Investigation into impact of brand equity through social media compared to social media showed traditional media has impact on brand awareness and social media strongly influenced brand image of companies (Bruhn et al. 2012).
The need to adapt to digital social media means certain investment for the company. It may involves strengthening the world with special digital characteristics such as setting internal digital infrastructure, deciding media choices and recruiting staffs for management of websites. However, its advantage from the point of investment is that very low investment is required in digital infrastructure compared to traditional promotion methods (Tiago and Veríssimo 2014). Currently sales through social media have significantly increased in the world and companies continuing with traditional media had a dip in their sales figure.
Figure 2: Increase in sales figure worldwide
Figure 3: Steep decline in traditional media compared to social media. Source: (2017 Edelman Trust Barometer - Global Results 2017).
Business development and challenges
Social media presents several opportunities and challenges to business executives. They are constantly seeking ways to engage in profitable use of social media tools like Facebook, twitter, discussion forum and other tools. The rise in internet and smart phone users worldwide has contributed to the massive transition from traditional marketing methods to social media marketing. It has revolutionized the way people work and has lead to business development in many ways (Leonardi et al. 2013). Some of the opportunities for business firms include the ability to directly target customers, efficiently promote new products or services, enhance brand awareness, interact with potential customers, analyze influence of referrals, and review in boosting sale figures (Quinton and Wilson 2016). Hence, social media network is the opportunity to promote business relationship development.
Many firms are also challenged by the advent of social media as they are not clear about the most effective platform to use and how to go about using social media tools for marketing. Although it gives a chance to promote brand awareness and customer loyalty, it also creates many issues while participating in discussion in public forum. Handling negative feedback or reviews may be difficult. There is a need to judiciously handle websites and post to avoid any misconception or legal issues in business. The main priority for business executive will be to carefully choose social media platforms bases on the target consumers to reach. Once this is clear, social media or own business applications can be used to engage in straightforward advertising and selling. Alignment of activity will also be important to resolve ambiguity and uncertainty issues (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010).
Conclusion:
The paper illustrates the ways by which social media has changes the mode of business marketing and explains its role on brand recognition and building relationship with consumers. Both small and big business firms are now shifting to social media marketing in place of traditional marketing to ensure that they reach to the target consumers and identify markets trends and consumers interest. The rise in consumer’s choice about products and information related to products also puts business at sharp end and business executive have the challenges to understand digital market to maximize profitability in business. The drastic change in social media sales figure worldwide compared to traditional media itself is a reflection of how social media facilitates business development and growth.
Future work
The social media can become prominent tool in business because the focus of the next paper will be to help business executive understand the correct approach to implementing social media marketing strategies. It will help to overcome current challenges in marketing by means of research on current trends and changes in customer practice.
Reference:
2017 Edelman Trust Barometer - Global Results. 2017. Slideshare.net. Retrieved 18 March 2017, from https://www.slideshare.net/EdelmanInsights/2017-edelman-trust-barometer-global-results-71035413
8 Types of Social Media and How Each Can Benefit Your Business. 2017. Hootsuite Social Media Management. Retrieved 18 March 2017, from https://blog.hootsuite.com/types-of-social-media/
Aral, S., Dellarocas, C. and Godes, D., 2013. Introduction to the special issue—social media and business transformation: a framework for research. Information Systems Research, 24(1), pp.3-13.
Boone, L.E. and Kurtz, D.L., 2013. Contemporary marketing. Cengage learning.
Bruhn, M., Schoenmueller, V. and Schäfer, D.B., 2012. Are social media replacing traditional media in terms of brand equity creation?. Management Research Review, 35(9), pp.770-790.
Brynjolfsson, E., Hu, Y.J. and Rahman, M.S., 2013. Competing in the age of omnichannel retailing. MIT Sloan Management Review, 54(4), p.23.
Eland Digital Marketing | SEO | PPC | Social Media | Mobile |Analytics. 2017. Eland Digital Marketing | SEO | PPC | Social Media | Mobile |Analytics. Retrieved 18 March 2017, from https://www.elanddigitalmarketing.com/single-post/2016/04/16/Digital-marketing-Its-value-to-a-business
GOUD, P. S. 2016. Role of Social Media in Marketing. Indian Journal of Applied Research, 6(8).
Kaplan, A.M. and Haenlein, M., 2010. Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media. Business horizons, 53(1), pp.59-68.
King, R.A., Racherla, P. and Bush, V.D., 2014. What we know and don't know about online word-of-mouth: A review and synthesis of the literature. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 28(3), pp.167-183.
Leonardi, P.M., Huysman, M. and Steinfield, C., 2013. Enterprise social media: Definition, history, and prospects for the study of social technologies in organizations. Journal of Computer?Mediated Communication, 19(1), pp.1-19.
Quinton, S. and Wilson, D., 2016. Tensions and ties in social media networks: Towards a model of understanding business relationship development and business performance enhancement through the use of LinkedIn. Industrial Marketing Management, 54, pp.15-24.
Salehi, M., Mirzaei, H., Aghaei, M. and Abyari, M., 2012. Dissimilarity of E-marketing VS traditional marketing. International journal of academic research in business and social sciences, 2(1), p.510.
Scott, M., Scott, M., and Scott, M., 2017. Understanding the Basic Categories of Social Media Marketing. SEO Blog by Ahrefs. Retrieved 18 March 2017, from https://ahrefs.com/blog/understanding-basic-categories-social-media-marketing/
Singh, S., Sao, A., Nagare, T.B. and Dharmarajan, A., 2017. Role of Social Media Marketing In Brand Building: The New Age Marketing Strategy. International Journal of Scientific Research, 5(9).
Srinivasan, S., Rutz, O.J. and Pauwels, K., 2016. Paths to and off purchase: quantifying the impact of traditional marketing and online consumer activity. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 44(4), pp.440-453.
Taylor, A. 2017. 47 percent of the world’s population now use the Internet, study says. www.washingtonpost.com. Retrieved 25 March 2017, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/11/22/47-percent-of-the-worlds-population-now-use-the-internet-users-study-says/?utm_term=.f6ff75507d69
Tiago, M.T.P.M.B. and Veríssimo, J.M.C., 2014. Digital marketing and social media: Why bother?. Business Horizons, 57(6), pp.703-708.
Trainor, K.J., Andzulis, J.M., Rapp, A. and Agnihotri, R., 2014. Social media technology usage and customer relationship performance: A capabilities-based examination of social CRM. Journal of Business Research, 67(6), pp.1201-1208.
Buy N502 Marketing Social Media : Assessment Answers Online
Talk to our expert to get the help with N502 Marketing Social Media : Assessment Answers to complete your assessment on time and boost your grades now
The main aim/motive of the management assignment help services is to get connect with a greater number of students, and effectively help, and support them in getting completing their assignments the students also get find this a wonderful opportunity where they could effectively learn more about their topics, as the experts also have the best team members with them in which all the members effectively support each other to get complete their diploma assignments. They complete the assessments of the students in an appropriate manner and deliver them back to the students before the due date of the assignment so that the students could timely submit this, and can score higher marks. The experts of the assignment help services at urgenthomework.com are so much skilled, capable, talented, and experienced in their field of programming homework help writing assignments, so, for this, they can effectively write the best economics assignment help services.
