Social media marketing
When using social media marketing, firms can allow customers and Internet users to post user-generated content (e.g., online comments, product reviews, etc.
The ability to rapidly change buying patterns and product or service acquisition and activity to a growing number of consumers is defined as an influence network.
[4] Social networking websites are based on building virtual communities that allow consumers to express their needs, wants and values, online.
[8] Some examples of popular social networking websites over the years are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Myspace, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and Threads.
Mobile phones have altered the path-to-purchase process by allowing consumers to easily obtain pricing and product information in real time.
For example, the Internet erupted with videos and pictures of iPhone 6 "bend test" which showed that the coveted phone could be bent by hand pressure.
However, Apple promptly issued a statement saying that the problem was extremely rare and that the company had taken several steps to make the mobile device's case stronger and robust.
In fact, brands are set to spend up to $15 billion on influencer marketing by 2022, per Business Insider Intelligence estimates, based on Mediakix data.
[22] With this in mind, TikTok is filled with rich content that include images and videos which can beneficially aid influencer marketing over platforms that are heavily text-based as they are less engaging for their audiences.
Social networking sites such as LinkedIn, also provide an opportunity for small businesses to find candidates to fill staff positions.
[38] To this aim, companies may also hire personnel to specifically handle these social media interactions, who usually report under the title of Online community managers.
To both this aim and to fix the public's perception of a company, 3 steps are taken in order to address consumer concerns, identifying the extent of the social chatter, engaging the influencers to help, and developing a proportional response.
[39] Twitter allows companies to promote their products in short messages known as tweets limited to 280 characters which appear on followers' Home timelines.
Joining Facebook in 2014, WhatsApp continues to operate as a separate app with a laser focus on building a messaging service that works fast and reliably anywhere in the world.
Started as an alternative to SMS, WhatsApp now supports sending and receiving a variety of media including text, photos, videos, documents, and location, as well as voice calls.
This process is "crowdsourced", allowing amateur social media network members to sort and prioritize links by relevance and general category.
[58] Companies that recognize the need for information, originality and accessibility employ blogs to make their products popular and unique/ and ultimately reach out to consumers who are privy to social media.
[59] Studies from 2009 show that consumers view coverage in the media or from bloggers as being more neutral and credible than print advertisements, which are not thought of as free or independent.
Blogs can be updated frequently and are promotional techniques for keeping customers, and also for acquiring followers and subscribers who can then be directed to social network pages.
[72] Through the influence of opinion leaders, the increased online "buzz" of "word-of-mouth" marketing that a product, service or companies are experiencing is due to the rise in use of social media and smartphones.
Businesses and marketers have noticed that, "a person's behaviour is influenced by many small groups" (Kotler, Burton, Deans, Brown, & Armstrong, 2013, p. 189).
Marketers target influential people, referred to as influencers, on social media that are recognized as being opinion leaders and opinion-formers based on the credibility of their following.
However, the reason influencer marketing works so well is that it uses real, shareable, and viral content to reach a large audience and provide a profitable return on investment.
For example, celebrity chef Paula Deen was criticized after she made a social media post commenting about HIV-AIDS and South Africa; her message was deemed to be offensive by many observers.
A flash poll done on 1225 IT executives from 33 countries revealed that social media mishaps caused organizations a combined $4.3 million in damages in 2010.
[97] With the invention of social media, the marketer no longer has to focus solely on the basic demographics and psychographics given from television and magazines, but now they can see what consumers like to hear from advertisers, how they engage online, and what their needs and wants are.
[98] The general concept of being ethical while marking on social network sites is to be honest with the intentions of the campaign, avoid false advertising, be aware of user privacy conditions (which means not using consumers' private information for gain), respect the dignity of persons in the shared online community, and claim responsibility for any mistakes or mishaps that are results of your marketing campaign.
Social-networking website Facebook Inc. is quietly working on a new advertising system that would let marketers target users with ads based on the massive amounts of information people reveal on the site about themselves.
Companies like Equifax, Inc., TransUnion Corp, and LexisNexis Group thrive on collecting and sharing personal information of social media users.
Google Analytics[106] is a free tool that shows the behavior and other information, such as demographics and device type used, of website visitors from social networks.
