Marketing through social media platform

SOCIALMEDIAplatform

Using

for marketing

7047QCA DIGITAL DESIGN THEORY & PRACTICEFRED 03

MASTER OF DIGITAL DESIGN, GRIFFITH UNIVERSITYLECTURER: DAVID KEANE

NASTITI MAYAWULANS2822152

Businessman with the notebook 2[Image] was created by Ambrozjo, retrieved May 12, 2012, from Stock.xchng: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1362247

ABSTRACTSocial media has become the new norm. More and more people are spending their time on those sites. Companies, businesses and marketers are aware of this trend and embracing social media as a marketing tool. To be able to mar-ket their brands, products or services through social media, companies or businesses should do monitoring, respond-ing, researching, doing ongoing strategy and campaigns, integrating various social media channels that they have, and providing call-to-action. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are both on the top 3 of the most popular social media site and the most channel that marketers used for their social media marketing activity. Each platform has its characteris-tics and should be handled differently, but consistency in making an effort to engage with the audience is the key. To engage audience on Facebook, marketers are advised to include a giveaway on the Facebook welcome tab, create an Engagement Ad campaign, get active outside of Facebook, create chat-ups, ask questions the right way, stick around, and dreate easy calls to action (CTA). On Twitter, they have to act like a publisher, be a real person, create lists, and be consistent. On LinkedIn, companies should update/create and complete the company page, build followers, provide interesting and value-added company page updates, engage and network with people from companies that the business itself follow, and monitor and focus the efforts they make.

KEYWORDS

FRED REFERENCES“Friend”, “unfriend”, blog, traffic, tweet, Facebook fan page, friend, “like”, welcome tab, engagement ad, call-to-action (CTA), "wall", chat-up, niche-specific, microblogging. Twitter Search

Social media, online marketing

Social media: how companies see itSocial media has become a common thing in life. People spend less time watching television or lis-tening to the radio and more time online. Com-Score, a web measurement company, released a report in October 2011 which stated that social networking sites are dominating the worldwide on-line population with 1.2 billion users, which is 82% of the total population. People spent 19% of their online time on social networking sites. The rise of social networking transcends geographic and cultural differences, ranging from 53% penetration of social networking sites in China to 98% in the United States.

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Illustration by Nastiti Mayawulan based on Nielsen’s Social Media Report: Spending Time, Money and Going Mobile report, Q3 2011

Figure 1. Penetration rate of social media networking sites in various countries

Companies (or brands) see social media as a way to get closer to their customers. It enables companies to deliver mes-sages in a more individuated and credible form, while at the same time removes barriers and gives people the ability to create content and interact with each other through communication channels (Agresta & Bough, 2011). A current report released on April 2012 by by Social Media Examiner site indicates that:

Many companies, big and small, are already make use of social media to improve their relationship with their custom-ers. IBM has more than 100 blogs, several Twitter accounts, a forum called developerWorks, and a machinima series on YouTube. Burger King has a unique campaign on Facebook called “Whopper Sacrifice” where Facebook users can get a Whopper coupon when they “unfriend” 10 of their “friend”. Cable company Comcast and shoe retailer Zappos in the U.S. have a customer service account on Twitter that enables them to respond quickly to people’s difficulties and lead to positive press for the brand. As for public personas, U.S. President Barack Obama has one of the most popular Twitter account and Facebook page ever since he was a candidate. He was also present on YouTube, Flickr, LinkedIn and quite recently, Pinterest (Zarella, 2010).

Aside from increasing exposure, generate traffic and improving sales, social media also make the companies to reduce marketing expenses, improve search ranking, gain leads and grow business partnership. Social media also considered useful in acquiring loyal fans and providing market insight for both B2B (business-to-business) and B2C (business-to-customer) companies (Stelzner, 2012).

94% of marketers use social media to market their business

of marketers indicate that social media is important for their business

83%

Illustration by Nastiti Mayawulan based on Michael A. Stelzner’s 2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, published on Social Media Examiner website in April 2, 2012

Marketing through social media

In order to use social media as a marketing tool, companies should do the following activities:

1. MonitoringThere are good possibility that people are already talking about a company/brand and their products online. To find out what they are talking about, businesses can make use of several tools. For example, Google provides Google Alerts where someone can set up alerts on certain keywords or names and receive e-mail notification when the words come out in various sites and forums. Paid monitoring tools can also be an option that will be useful for a big brand that gets a lot of mentions, since it can identify positive and negative press and delegate responding duties within the company.

Zarella, 2010

2. RespondingDecide if it is necessary to engage with the ongoing conversation that is found online, and what to do. Responding to negative comment can be done by the customer support or the public relation department, depending on the nature of the comment. Remain calm when a potential media crisis occurs, do the best to repair the damage and specify the things to do to make sure it would not happen again in the future. Answering negative feedback should be done in the same channel in which the publicity was communicated, e.g. responding a negative video on YouTube with the answer from the company representative also in YouTube.

6. Calls to ActionA call to action (CTA) is an invitation for the company’s website visitors to do some type of action that benefits the com-pany’s business aims. It has two goals:a. Stickiness : would turn the site’s temporary increasing traffic into regular visitors.b. Conversion : would turn a visitor into a customer

5. IntegrationEvery part of a company’s social media marketing effort should be able to integrate with at least one other part. For example, the company’s Twitter page can be connected to its Facebook fan page so that every tweet made on Twitter is also displayed as the status in the Facebook page. Since users of one kind of social media are likely to have another account on a different social network site, it is possible for brands to invite the audience in one social media channel to interact in another platform.

4. Do ongoing strategy and campaignsOngoing strategy is the company’s routine of blogging, tweeting, contributing to forums, posting videos, and so on. It should be used to build reputation and monitor negative feedback. Campaigns are done in order to launch specific of-ferings/programs and have certains goals and finite timeline.

3. ResearchCompanies should get to know their audience: who they are, where they can be found online, and how they use the web. There are websites that can help them find their audience, such as Quantcast.com that provides demographic information of a site and content preference of the visitors.

Companies should be creative in finding ways to convert social visitors into customers. For example, they can make a special promotion for Facebook fans at their stores.

Illustration by Nastiti Mayawulan

Using social media platforms for marketingAs for marketers, in his 2012 Social Media Mar-keting Industry Report, Michael A. Stelzner found that Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs and You-Tube were the top five social media tools used by marketers.

e-BizMBA.com, an e-business knowledgebase that helps people find the webs best answers to their online business questions, combines their eBizMBA Rank – a constantly updated average of each website’s Alexa Global Traffic Rank, and U.S. Traffic Rank from Compete and Quantcast – and rank Facebook, Twitter, LinkendIn, MySpace and Google+ as the top 5 of the most popu-lar social networking site.

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How do marketers use social media as a marketing tool? Let us take a look at the top three social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) and the way to utilise them.

Facebook is by far the most popular social networking site around the world with over than 845 million active users1, thus a perfect place to promote a brand and building relationships with the customers. Recent data shows that the penetration rate between age groups are quite similar (15-24, 25-34, 35-44, and 45-54 age groups shows 80-84% rate), although users age 55 and above shows the most growth2.

Businesses can create public profiles (“fan page”) where users can connect to it and become a fan. The page can have wall (a public messaging area), events, photos, and custom applications to make the page more interest-ing and encourage visitors to return. It is an important space for a company engaging in social media marketing, since it can be a central to integrate other parts of the campaign, such as using Blog RSS Feed Reader to pull posts from the company’s blog, Twitter app to send tweets to Facebook page and Static FBML to include special images or HTML on the page.

Amy Porterfield, the co-author of Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies, in her presentation at Facebook Success Summit 2011 advised that there are seven actions that companies can do to grow engage their customers through Facebook fan page, which is:

Facebook

1Bullas, J. (2012, April 23). 48 Significant Social Media Facts, Figures and Statistics Plus 7 Infographics.2ComScore, Inc. (2012, January 04). People Spent 6.7 Billion Hours on Social Networks in October.

1. Include a giveaway on the Facebook welcome tabA welcome tab is where the non-fans will fall for the first time if they have never clicked the Like button on the company’s page. A well-designed giveaway works as “like/like” exchange. The company “likes” the visitor by giving them some valuable content for free. In exchange, the visitor is expected to reciprocate the “like” by clicking the Like button. Having this all on one welcome tab really works to the company’s advantage.

2. Create an Engagement Ad CampaignEngagement Ads are the ads the company create when they advertise something inside of Facebook (such as their FB Page). When creating this kind of ad, the Like button will be included in it. Users click the Like button inside the ad and will see the company’s posts in their news feeds, thus getting exposure to the company even though they have never even visited the company’s page.

3. Get active outside of FacebookBeing active outside Facebook will drive people’s interest and increase traffic to the company’s page and grow the fan base. Types of activities that can be useful are: Participate in webinars and teleseminars Be interviewed to get exposure to a new audience Participate in online and offline training courses Blog more often Guest blog on popular sites Create more videos

4. Create chat-upsCreating chat-ups means creating conversation to grab the fans' attention and get them involved in a discussion with the company and with the other fans on the Facebook page. Frequency is important, because it will make the fans familiar with it and they will be more engaged the more often they see a chat-up. Several suggested chat-ups

Figure 2. A giveaway on Amy’s Facebook page

are 'Question of the Day/Poll of the Day', 'Did You Know', 'Guess The Caption' and 'Fill In The Blank'. Porterfield quoted Mari Smith, a social marketer from Intel, saying that companies should do 80-20 rule, whereas 80% of the time should be focused on the company's niche and catered their needs with information related to the product or the service that is valuable and genuine. The other 20% can be made completely not customer-oriented and simply fun, trivial matters, such as "What's the latest movie you saw and do you like it much?". Mixing niche-specific questions and fun trivias would encourage people to take about themselves and is a great way to strengthen the relationship between the company and their audience.

5. Ask questions the right wayPeople move fast on Facebook. Questions are the best way to increase engagement, but crafting it should be with care. The question asked by the company has to able to be responded in a short, easy, and sometimes enter-taining answer if possible. They should make it about their fans and not about their brand, products or services.

6. Stick aroundDo not post something and leave. Respond back to the fan that posts a question or simply comments on some-thing. If they happen to give a good answer or a useful tips, the company should thank them. Posting is the fans' way of connecting with the company, so they should show gratitude or appreciation for that. It is what is common in real life, and real-life behaviour should be brought onto the Facebook page.

7. Create easy calls to action (CTA)A CTA creates an opportunity for the fans to take an action. Companies should give great value with small CTAs, such as: “Click Here” – link to the company's latest blog post “Watch This” – link to entertaining video “Check This Out” – post an interesting statistic

Twitter is a microblogging site, which is a form of blogging that limits each post to 140 characters. Twitter is use-ful for companies as it is easy, time-efficient, and proven to be able to increase popularity, sales, and consumer insight. It can be used to announce offers or events, promote new blog posts or give links to important news.

Mark Schaefer, the writer of The Tao of Twitter, spoke at the Social Media Success Summit 2012 about Twitter strategies for bussiness success. He said that the important things that businesses should pay attention on using Twitter are to have meaningful connections with their followers, contents that are not only interesting and engaging but also humanly, and authentic helpfulness. Many benefits on Twitter are qualitative, not quantitative.

Twitter can be a media for networking, education, service and business intelligence. In networking, a company can use Twitter to pre-populate the business relationship with their audiences and counterparts before finally meet them in person. Companies can also educate their audience by sharing news and tips related to their products and services or simply catching up with the latest technology and knowledge. Many marketing people today consider Twitter Search to be one of the most powerful marketing tools around today for research and marketing insight. By using Twitter Search, companies can find out what people has been talking about them and tackle potential problems before too late.

Good content strategy and a network strategy result in influencing the audience. The best practices in using Twit-ter are as follows: Act like a publisher – provide content that has proper structure and relevant to the industry, post it regularly. Be a real person – humanise the brand, show the people that actually tweet for the company. Create lists – make a list of certain followers/counterparts that matters or insightful to the business. Be consistent – respond to as many message as possible to engage people consistently.

Twitter

By March 13, 2012, LinkedIn has 150 million members worldwide, whose more educated and affluent audience than some of the other popular social media sites for business. LinkedIn is mostly used by business professionals for networking, so by nature it is often used by job seekers and recruiters. Even so, companies can also look for business contacts and build their networks here through LinkedIn company page. Currently, there are over two million businesses with LinkedIn company pages.

To create a good company page, Stephanie Sammons, founder of Wired Advisor (a turn-key blogging and social media platform for financial professionals), shared tips on Social Media Examiner site. Companies should: Update/create and complete the company page:

a. Fill the overview page with informative descriptions about the customers of the business and how the busi-ness serves them. Insert the company's blog feed URL to pull the posts to LinkedIn page.

b. Build the Products and Services pages with image, description, list of key features, landing page URL to the company's site, a link to a special promotion or even embed a YouTube video.

c. Enable status updates for the page. Build followers:

a. Encourage existing employees to link up with the page.b. Follow the company pages of industry peers, vendors, current customers and prospective customers.c. Send an announcement to the appropriate LinkedIn personal connections and existing database of cus-

tomers.d. Post a “call to action” to follow the page within relevant LinkedIn groups.

Provide interesting and value-added company page updates – provide interesting and value-added updates that can help the audience to succeed in business

Engage and network with people from companies that the business itself follow. Monitor and focus the efforts – regularly check the company's landing page and see who has engaged with or

commented on any of the company updates, provide time for "company" networking on LinkedIn and regularly update the content of the page with special promotions, images or video.

LinkedIn

People's tendency in connecting through social media is getting more prevalent. Companies, businesses and marketers are aware of this trend and embracing social media as a marketing tool. Things that companies should do in market-ing through social media are monitoring, responding, researching, doing ongoing strategy and campaigns, integrating various social media channels that they have, and providing call-to-action. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are on the top 3 of the most popular social media site and the most channel that marketers used for their social media marketing activity. Each platform has its characteristics and should be handled differently, but consistency in making an effort to engage with the audience is the key.

Conclusion

Agresta, S., & Bough, B. B. (2011). Perspectives on Social Media Marketing. Retrieved April 5, 2012, from Books 24x7: http://library.books24x7.com.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/assetviewer.aspx?bookid=34484&chunkid=366417545&rowid=18

Ambrozjo. (2011, August 26). Businessman with the notebook 2[Image]. Retrieved May 12, 2012, from Stock.xchng: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1362247

Bullas, J. (2012, April 23). 48 Significant Social Media Facts, Figures and Statistics Plus 7 Infographics. Retrieved May 12, 2012, from Jeffbullas.com: http://www.jeffbullas.com/2012/04/23/48-significant-social-media-facts-figures-and-statistics-plus-7-infographics/

ComScore, Inc. (2012, January 04). People Spent 6.7 Billion Hours on Social Networks in October. Retrieved May 8, 2012, from ComScore: http://www.comscoredatamine.com/2012/01/people-spent-6-7-billion-hours-on-so-cial-networks-in-october/

e-Biz MBA. (2012, May). Top 15 Most Popular Social Networking Sites | May 2012. Retrieved May 12, 2012, from e-BizMBA: http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/social-networking-websites

McDonald, M. (2011, July 14). Google Plus[Image]. Retrieved May 12, 2012, from Xanapus: http://www.xanapus.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/google_plus_logo-e1310645552616.jpg

REFERENCES

Nielsen. (2011, Q3). Social Media Report: Spending Time, Money and Going Mobile. Retrieved May 08, 2012, from Nielsen Wire: http://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/corporate/us/en/reports-downloads/2011-Reports/nielsen-social-media-report.pdf

Porterfield, A. (2011, October 5). 7 Proven Strategies to Grow and Engage Your Facebook Fans. Retrieved May 12, 2012, from Socal Media Examiner: http://www.whitepapersource.com/socialmedia2012/bonuses/PDFs/AmyP.pdf

Safko, L., & Brake, D. K. (2009). The social media bible : tactics, tools, and strategies for business success. Re-trieved April 4, 2012, from EBL - E-books Corporation: http://reader.eblib.com.au.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/(S(jewoa1qd4wubbgj004wvtzlj))/Reader.aspx?p=433737&o=109&u=e%2ft4r%2b793%2fjoxdkTeHLanQ%3d%3d&t=1333494108&h=7A83919823577FCA982ABCB3BE091E3AD36F57B4&s=5585616&ut=412&pg=1&r=img&c=-1&pat=n#

Sammons, S. (2011, November 18). 5 Tips for Using the New LinkedIn Company Pages. Retrieved May 12, 2012, from So-cial Media Examiner: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/5-tips-for-using-the-new-linkedin-company-pag-es/Strickland, J. (n.d.). Top 10 social networking sites. Retrieved April 5, 2012, from Discovery News: http://news.discovery.com/tech/top-ten-social-networking-sites.html

Search Clinic. (2011, August 20). MySpace logo[Image]. Retrieved May 12, 2012, from Search Clinic: http://www.search-clinic.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/myspace-logo.gif

Stelzner, M. A. (2012, April 3). 2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report. Retrieved May 7, 2012, from Social Media Examiner: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-marketing-industry-report-2012/

Weber, L. (2007). Marketing to the social web: how digital customer communities build your business. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Zarella, D. (2010). The Social Media Marketing Book. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly.

Social media trend in Indonesia, how the companies can take advantage of the growing Indonesian Facebook and Twitter users, how designers and artist can use social media as a channel for to promote themselves.

Question 1: I sometimes bump into tweets from various brands or companies that is using pictures to promote their product. Sometimes it is appealing, other times it just drives me away. Should companies promote products using pic-tures, or should they not do that?

Answer: The key is to create an interesting content that is relevant, timely and entertaining. It does not matter whether the content consists of images, blog posts, videos, or just a simple information, if it is formulated correctly, then it would have a good opportunity to go viral.

POSSIBLE FUTURE INVESTIGATIONS

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

Question 2: Some businesses have their own blog and I often see a Facebook's Like button and Twitter's Retweet button on the page. Are there any relevance in putting those buttons in a blog post?

Answer: Definitely. It is a form of call-to-action, aside from integrating social media marketing efforts that is made on different platforms. It makes the audience easier to share the content to their network, which will increase the business' exposure. Those buttons can also function as a form of recognition. If you stumble upon a blog post that has been retweeted 30 times and receives 100 likes, you would see that there has been some sort of social validation happening there, and it makes you think that particular post is something that deserves your attention. But some companies are kind of overdo it; putting 2-3 or even more tweet buttons and Like buttons in the same page but on different positions (at the top near the title, above an image, and at the bottom of the article). This is not the best practice. Just keep it simple and put it at the most comfortable position for your audience to take action.

Question 3: What if I am the admin for several Facebook and Twitter accounts? How can I provide quality contents for each account?

Answer: Managing multiple accounts is not actually easy, but there are third-party tools that can help you manage multiple accounts and blogposts. HootSuite might be the best option for that, since you can really see a good representation ofall your pages on your screen when the settings are right.

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