Social Media Marketing

 

Social Media Marketing 

Structure 

6.1 Introduction of Social media marketing 

6.2 Tools techniques of social media marketing, 

6.3 various platforms of Social Media Marketing. 

6.4 Understanding online PR  

6.5 The rules of engagement  

6.1 Introduction of Social media marketing 

Social media is an internet-based form of communication. Social media  platforms agree to users to have conversations, contribute to information  and generate web content. There are many forms of social media, like 

(Forms of Social Media) 

Communal technologies, on a group scale, connect nation in ways that  smooth the progress of distributing information, thereby plummeting  the opportunities for marketplace utilization—whether by charging  added than a rival dealer for otherwise matching goods and services or  charging something at all for products that just don’t work. Sunlight is a  authoritative sanitizer, and the collective knowledge that powers. In  these new connected marketplaces Social web is the sunlight that shines  in current era. The Social Web severely levels the live ground by making  information abundant, presently the same as it also levels businesses 

and organizations that activate on the values of constructing in sequence  in short supply. 

Social media marketing helps to authenticate your variety. A company's  social media attendance, when done properly, tells clients that their  trade name is energetic and focused on booming announcement with  consumers. Social media marketing has the authority to enlarge  purchaser devotion. 

⮚ For Customers’ Feelings Social Media is a Direct Feed ⮚ Social Media Marketing emphasize the Brand’s background and  individuality 

⮚ Social media is easily accessible and it’s also the gathering point of  today’s internet know-how viewers. 

⮚ Most significant portion of younger age group, young people and  mid aged people, are key proportion of the total social media user  inhabitants. 

⮚ Social media opens potential of straight admittance to patrons devoid  of any third party involvement. 

⮚ Promotion through social media is attractive rate responsive as match  up to expenses incurred by publish, TV or other conventional media. ⮚ Social media also helps in search engine optimization and boost in  rankings of any company websites. 

In short, the importance of social media can include the variety of  communication way to reach at a target audience with a lesser time and 

lesser efforts. In this daily burdensome life, people diverted from the old  purchasing pattern to the online shopping activity. Here, they can get  the information about the product through social media search engine as  well as by the various forms of social media. Actually it is very much  useful for the society because it reduce the time, effort and money of the  customer. 

Generally the social media marketing was introduced in the mid of 20th  century. But after 2001 the focus on social media increased day by day  and now a day it is identified as a best practice of promotion as well as  selling technique. According to my point of view the terminology of  social media is used by many of the firms and industry to promote and  sell their products in an attractive manner. 

6.2 Tools for social media marketing 

What Are Social Media Marketing Tools? 

Social Media Marketing Tools are nothing but software tools and  technology that help companies harness the full power of social media  platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to conjure marketing  campaigns that lure customers. 

Most of these Social Media tools are focused on studying, and analyzing  the patterns they find in people’s behavior on the social media platform.

Everything like the Number of Likes, The Number of Shares, The  Number of Comments etc, helps these tools to design solutions to help a  company’s marketing team design  

Benefits Of Social Media Marketing Software 

The benefits of using Social Media Marketing tools entice many profit hungry companies towards them. From time flexibility to cost-saving,  here are some of the benefits of Social Media Platforms. 

∙ It helps businesses save time by offering automated tools that help in  generating valid, lucrative leads online. 

∙ It helps to save oodles of time, no more knocking door to door, or  flipping yellow pages. Everything can be found online, and these tools  will find it for you. 

∙ It helps to cut the firm’s operation costs by 60-70%. Companies don’t  have to spend money on hiring in-house marketing talents as the tools  do a much more efficient job of it. 

∙ It helps companies to achieve a competitive advantage by allowing  them to be one step ahead of their competitors. 

∙ Social media marketing help companies to understand their customer  base better, hence marketing campaigns can be designed catering to  their needs. 

∙ With the time saved, costs cut, and competition beat, the natural result  of all the above factors leads to increased profits.

campaigns that target their desired audience. 

Benefits Of Social Media Marketing Software 

The benefits of using Social Media Marketing tools entice many profit hungry companies towards them. From time flexibility to cost-saving,  here are some of the benefits of Social Media Platforms. 

∙ It helps businesses save time by offering automated tools  that help in generating valid, lucrative leads online. 

∙ It helps to save oodles of time, no more knocking door to  door, or flipping yellow pages. Everything can be found  online, and these tools will find it for you. 

∙ It helps to cut the firm’s operation costs by 60-70%.  

Companies don’t have to spend money on hiring in-house  marketing talents as the tools do a much more efficient job of  it. 

∙ It helps companies to achieve a competitive advantage by allowing  them to be one step ahead of their competitors. 

∙ Social media marketing help companies to understand their customer  base better, hence marketing campaigns can be designed catering to  their needs.

∙ With the time saved, costs cut, and competition beat, the natural result  of all the above factors leads to increased profits. 

Img source: https://heidicohen.com/social-media-platforms-2014-research/ 6.3Tools for Managing Social Media 

Since social media marketing is an important aspect of marketing in  modern businesses, there have been a number of tools created and  developed for helping with social media marketing. There are both free  and paid tools. The goal of this chapter is to point out the features you  need from certain tools that will help you with tasks within social media  marketing. These features can be found in many different tools, so the  decision of choosing a perfect tool that you will use for your company  will depend on your own analysis and comparison of different tools that  provide the same or similar features. Since even the paid tools  frequently offer a free trial period, you will be able to test each tool  before you make any decision. Social media tools can be divided into 

three major groups, based on the type of social media marketing task the  tool can help with. Tools for planning The first type of tools includes the  tools for planning your social media activity. The main feature of this  kind of tool is to help you with creating a plan of your social media  presence. This includes the plan of the content that is going to be  published, a calendar of events and promotions that you will organize,  etc. Since planning is an important part of marketing as a discipline, it is  advisable that you plan every aspect of your social media marketing.  The tools that provide options necessary for planning include: • Google  Calendar - A tool that allows you to create interactive calendar, where  you can schedule your daily activity, and monitor the weekly or  monthly schedule in order to diversify posting activity on social  networks. 121 

• Post Planner – This app is especially designed for Facebook and it  offers content suggestion based on the reach and analysis of the content  you have previously published. You will save a lot of time by using the  suggested content which will help post more consistently. Post Planner  offers additional features for scheduling posts, analyzing reach and  engagement, etc. Tools for managing After the initial phase of planning  is over, it is time to conduct social media marketing strategy. This is the  task that you also might need assistance with, as you might be in a  situation to manage several social media accounts simultaneously. When  it comes to tools for managing, you need options for scheduling posts,  URL shortening, etc. In this way, you will be able to automate some 

parts of your social media marketing, which will help you reduce the  time you need to spend on social media. Here are some of the tools  offering management features 

: • HootSuite–HootSuite is an online management dashboard that helps  with posting activity on several accounts, as well as with scheduling  posts. With a free version of 122 this tool you can integrate up to three  social media accounts, in order to manage all of them from HootSuite  dashboard. Paid accounts offer additional features, such as analytics,  tracking brand mentions, additional team members, etc. 

• TweetDeck – This tool helps with managing account on Twitter. With  data distributed in the form of columns, you can track the activity of  your Twitter account, organize and schedule the posts and monitor the  engagement. Tools for monitoring In order to make sure that your social  media account provides good results, you need tools for monitoring that  will help you analyze the performance of your account, as well as the  results of your social media marketing. The main options of monitoring  tools will help you track the statistics, analyze your target audience, get  alerts, etc. Some of the tools that are frequently used for this purpose  include the following tools:  

• Google Alerts Monitor the web for the content you are interested in.  Besides topics, you can get alerts when your brand is mentioned on the  web as well. 

123 • Google Analytics This is a very in-depth monitoring tool that  should be an essential part of your marketing, but since we are  interested in monitoring the social media activity, we will highlight the  importance of a particular option inside Google Analytics. Choose the  group “Acquisition” from the menu on the left and find the option  “Social”. This is where you can access referrals from social networks,  landing pages, etc. You will also get insights about the visit which  resulted from someone clicking on the link of your website posted on a  certain social network. In this way you can monitor the performance of  each social network and compare reach and engagement of different  social networks.  

• Social insights Insights available on social networks can also help with  monitoring the activity of a specific social media account, in terms of  visits, referrals, engagement, etc. 124 Since all of these tasks, planning,  management and monitoring are inseparable parts of social media  marketing, you will need at least one tool from each group to help you  with your daily tasks. Regardless of the tools you choose, regardless if  you choose one of these suggestions, or you decide to use tools you find  more suitable for your business, the goal of using those tools is to help  you reduce the time necessary to invest in social media activity. 

6.4 Understanding online PR 

Defining online PR In 2007 the Chartered Institute of Public Relations in  the UK defined online PR as: ‘Communicating over the web and using 

new technology to effectively communicate with stakeholders.’ That’s a  broad statement that encompasses a huge array of different disciplines.  From a digital marketing perspective some of the things it would  typically include are: λ raising the profile of your business or brand  using online channels; λ monitoring conversations and managing your  online reputation; λ developing online word of mouth and creating  ‘buzz’; λ identifying online advocates and detractors (fostering the  former, minimizing the impact of the latter); λ identifying online trends  and issues in your industry; λ managing information flow; λ seamless  integrations with the other elements of your digital marketing  campaign. Essentially it distils down to two key things: raising the  online profile of your business, products and services by contributing  positively to the online community; and managing your reputation by  monitoring, assessing, responding to and influencing online  conversations about you. Promoting your business through online  channels When it comes to getting your business and brand out in front  of online consumers, there are a number of tools you can use. First and  foremost, of course, you can and should use your own website as a  vehicle to make your PR-related content available to both media  professionals and consumers. It’s perhaps the only place online where  you have direct control over every aspect of your content: how it looks,  how it’s presented and how people interact with it. Your site is also the  ideal place to host addedvalue content that supports your broader off site PR campaign, enticing people to click back to your own online real 

estate, where you can track and measure their engagement. But having  compelling content on your own site is only a very small part of the  online PR story. The whole point of online PR is to raise awareness of  your business and brand among the broader online community and  Online PR and reputation management 179 to generate interest that  exploits the viral potential of online social media. When word-of-mouth  marketing meets online social networking, the result is massive latent  potential – a groundswell that savvy online marketers can tap into. To  do that effectively, of course, you need to know who your customers are,  where they congregate online and what turns them on – all the strategic  stuff we covered earlier in the book. Use your knowledge of your  customers to find them online; then join them. Engage with them on as  many different platforms as you can effectively manage. Your ultimate  goal may be to guide visitors to your site but, rather than relying on  them coming to you, go out to them. Seed your best creative content and  put it to work for you in the places where your customers are already  engaged. By adding genuine value to the conversation on sites that your  customers frequent regularly, you not only raise your online profile but  you also establish a willingness to enter into a productive two-way  relationship with them. That in turn builds trust and makes them far more likely to engage with you. As your network of contacts grows and  your relationship with the community develops, you can begin to  generate a bit of buzz around your brand, build advocacy and develop  that groundswell of positive influence we mentioned earlier. Getting the 

word out with online press releases Just like their offline equivalent,  online press releases are a way of getting prominent, newsworthy stories  about your product, brand or company out in front of as many eyeballs  as possible. In many ways they are similar to the standard press releases  you’d submit to offline media contacts to announce significant  developments and/or news in your business. When writing your online  press releases bear the following points in mind: λ A story worth  reading: If you’re going to pique the interest of online publishers and  make them want to pick up and run with your story, you’ll need to do  more than simply announce a new product, website or special once-in-a lifetime offer. Your press release needs to be compelling, interesting and  relevant. Tell a story – this is no place for a sales pitch; that can come  later when the reader clicks through to your website. Your press release  is designed to inform publishers about your story and encourage them  to write or comment about it online. Think beyond your immediate  readership, and write your press release to appeal to the publisher’s  readers. 180 Understanding digital marketing λ You need a strong  ‘hook’: Your headline and first paragraph should capture the readers’  attention and draw them in. As with any other form of online content,  you literally have seconds to catch them before they click on something  else. λ Story first, detail later: Use an ‘inverted pyramid’, journalistic  style of writing. Distil the main elements of your story into the first few  sentences; then use the rest of your press release to elaborate on specific  and relevant details. As a guide, your readers should be able to break off 

at any point and still get the gist of your story. λ Keep it concise,  objective and to the point: Keep your press release short and to the  point. Don’t over-elaborate, and avoid excessive use of adjectives,  descriptive prose and flowery language. Keep it balanced and objective,  and steer clear of promotional spin. Be ruthless. If a sentence doesn’t add  to the substance of your story, strip it out. λ Use active, compelling  language: Your press release should zip along at a healthy pace. Use  short, snappy sentences to keep it moving. Make use of the active voice  in your PR writing – instead of statements like ‘The ground-breaking  report was commissioned by Company X’, try active-voice equivalents  like ‘Company X commissioned the groundbreaking report’ (for more  examples of active/passive voice take a look at Purdue University Online  Writers Lab page: http://tinyurl. com/6lowp). λ Accessible and jargon  free: Remember, you don’t know where your press releases are going to  be picked up. Your story should be instantly accessible to a broad and  general audience. Write your press releases in plain language, steer clear  of industry jargon wherever possible, and when it is necessary give a  brief explanation. λ Contact details: Your press release should always  provide details of how to contact a real person in the organization, who  is ready to provide any additional information or direct input required.  This information should include your web address, contact telephone  number and an e-mail address. λ Be keyword optimized: Your press  release is going to end up on the web, so you should treat it as a piece of  web content. Write your copy to maximize its search visibility (see 

Chapter 4). Target specific, searchrelevant keyword phrases in your  writing – but not at the expense of human readability. Think people first  and then search engines. Wherever it ends up, your press release will  serve as an additional opportunity to rank for your chosen keyword  phrases in the SERPs. λ Link back to your site: Some online press release  distribution services may restrict the use of links, limit their number, or  allow them only in the company boilerplate text (‘About us’ stuff) at the  end of the piece. Where possible, aim to have at least one and possibly  two or Online PR and reputation management 181 three active back  links to your website (but no more: too many and your carefully crafted  press release will start to look like link spam). Links will direct traffic to  your site and can potentially help with your SEO link-building efforts. If  you want to track the responses to a particular press release, make sure  you ‘tag’ your links so you can identify click-throughs using your web  analytics solution (see Chapter 5). λ Stick to the guidelines: Whatever  distribution service you choose to use, make sure that your press release  adheres to its published guidelines for formatting, links, length, content,  etc. Doing so will ensure your press release passes the editorial  requirements and will maximize your chances of being picked up by  content publishers.

6.5 The rules of engagement 

Social media, then, offers a wealth of opportunity for consumer  engagement and building brand awareness, but in such an open and  dynamic space it’s critical to consider what you’re doing carefully. Social  media is consumer driven, and the very characteristics that makes it  such an enticing proposition for marketers – the interconnected nature  of online consumers, and the staggering speed at which information  traverses the network – can just as easily backfire. The ‘rules’ of social  media are really about applying a bit of common sense to what are  essentially human relationships. The key thing to remember is that this  is social media – people are going online to interact and exchange  information and content with similar, like-minded people. They’re  unlikely to be interested in your latest sales pitch, and they’re certainly  not interested in promotional hype. They want interesting, fun,  informative, quirky, addictive – whatever turns them on. When it comes  to social media, you’re not just sending out a message; you’re inviting a  response, and what you get might not be quite what you’re expecting.  You need a plan to engage in social media marketing, but you also need  to be flexible and respond to the community. λ Draw on what you  already know: You already have a wealth of knowledge about your  customers – who they are, what they like to do and where 170  Understanding digital marketing they hang out online. OK, so one of the  main reasons you’re getting involved in social media is to get to know  them a little better – but the point is that you’re not going into this blind. 

Use that knowledge: apply what you already know about your  customers, your business and your brand to your social media strategy.  As you learn more, refine what you’re doing accordingly. λ Don’t jump  in unprepared: Have a clear plan before you start – know who you’re  trying to engage with and what you want to achieve. Define ways to  gauge and measure your success, with frequent milestones to help keep  you on track. But remember to be flexible, and modify your plan as  necessary in response to community feedback. λ Look, listen and learn:  Before you engage in social media marketing, spend some time ‘lurking’  (hanging around without contributing). Familiarize yourself with the  different types of social media sites that you plan to target. Go and use  the sites; read the blogs; immerse yourself in the media. Look, listen and  learn. Just as in real life, every online community is different. Familiarize  yourself with the various nuances before you dive in. λ Be open, honest  and authentic: Nowhere is the term ‘full disclosure’ more appropriate  than in social media. Don’t go online pretending to be an independent  punter extolling the virtues of your brand. You will get found out, and  when you do your company will go ‘viral’ for all the wrong reasons.  There are some high-profile examples of companies getting this  spectacularly wrong, with disastrous results. Never pretend to be  someone or something you’re not. λ Be relevant, interesting and  entertaining: Everything you do should add value to the community, as  well as moving you towards your business goals. Be helpful; be  constructive; be interesting and entertaining. Join the conversation, and 

offer valuable, authoritative and considered advice. Make a real effort to  engage with the community on their terms, and you’ll usually find them  more than happy to engage with you in return. λ Don’t push out a  spammy message: Don’t join social media sites just to submit a mass of  links and push information about your own products or flood the  community with posts on why your company is the best thing since  sliced bread. It smacks of spam and adds nothing to the conversation. At  best, the community will ignore you. At worst, well, we’re back to the  negative viral effect again. λ Respect ‘rules’: If the site you’re frequenting  has policies, guidelines and rules, read them and abide by them. λ Respect people: Always be respectful to your fellow community  members. That doesn’t mean you always have to agree with them;  healthy debate is good in any community. When you do disagree,  though, always be Social media and online consumer engagement 171  polite and respectful of other people. They have as much right to their  opinion as you do to yours. Don’t get personal. λ Respond to feedback:  If users give you feedback, that’s invaluable. Let them know that you  appreciate it and that you’re interested in what they have to say. Be  responsive, and show them how you’ve used that feedback  constructively. 

Summery 

Tool – In terms of social media, a tool is an application or software that  helps you with performing a certain task, such as analyze the  performance of your social media activity, automate posting, etc. There 

are different types of tools, depending on what kind of task they can  perform. The purpose of using different social media tools is to help you  conduct certain social media tasks and ultimately improve the  performance of your social media marketing strategy 

References 

Understanding Digital Marketing by DAMIAN RYAN & CALVIN  JONES