Essay: Social Media – The New Pathways of Promotion in the 21st century

Abstract: From Obama’s success to the Arab spring, from kolaveri di in India to gangnam style, social media is everyplace. We no longer go to news, news finds us, we no longer visit merchandise, merchandise finds us, and social media has created the globe tiny. A world where spending an hour or more by users, changes the fate of the businesses, political parties as well as the celebrities’ success. The emergence of social media has created it doable for the shoppers to speak to thousands concerning any brand and any company. We are able to say that social media could be a new promotion destination of twenty first century. Social media channels embody a lot of or less those contents on which the seller has no control. The reach and frequency of those tools are uncontrollable. This communication between one to several additionally referred to as word of mouth selling, isn’t unaccustomed the selling, but the distinction is that currently these communications are on the far side boundaries. This paper highlights a number of the distinctive options of promotions via social media channels. The mentioned options are behavioral advertising or customized advertising, interactions happening on these channels, word of mouth selling and completely different metrics being employed to live the effectiveness of those promotions. These options altogether makes it possible for the businesses to initial reach the shoppers, then understand what they assert ,then move, then react, and eventually sell the complete to the proper person. Therefore social media is an increasingly necessary tool within the hands of the marketer’s to influence the customers. The paper provides some insights on however these network platforms are serving to the businesses to partake the purchasers, exalting them, connecting with them and finally changing them into their evangelists.
Keywords: Social media, social network sites, Electronic word of mouth, face book, blogs, Twitter.
1. Introduction
New Communication tools of social Media
It has been said that the age of interrupted marketing is over, with future marketing efforts taking the form of community creation and one-to-one relationship building to sell products and develop brand loyalty (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2010). Social media is the new hybrid element of the promotion mix (W. Glynn Mangold a, David J. Fauld, 2009) With the emergence of social media , companies have changed their tools and strategies to communicate with their customers .This new phenomenon ‘social media’ also known as consumer-generated- media includes in itself variety of sources of online information that can be created, circulated, published ,used, and initiated by consumers intent on educating each other regarding the products, services, personalities and issues (Blackshaw & Nazzaro, 2004). The 21st century is witnessing numerous internet based communication taking place through social media. Companies now days employ several WOM marketing programs through these social networking websites The user generated content posted on these sites by various online users not only helps in attracting and retaining visitors but also helps in obtaining revenues primarily from the sale of online display advertising.
Some of the communication tools programs implemented by the Companies through social networking websites:
1. Referral programs ‘ These includes tools used by the companies enabling satisfied customers to win several points by referring the products to their friends, relatives etc.
2.Community Marketing- By forming niche communities (fan clubs ,user groups) sharing information about companies latest products, reviews ,news ,offers companies are trying to reach millions of customer those are not only the existing one but also the potential customers.
3. Viral marketing – The best way to give your messages, informative videos is through forming Face book pages, designed to be passed on by each message receiver to the millions.
4. Blogs- A blog is a tool that builds trust, and, therefore, is the cornerstone for a social media platform. This is where a company can post any and all updates, in-depth company news, as well as creates solid ‘about us’ and ‘contact us’ pages, because blogs maintain a log of posts, consumers can search them to discern where the company has been in the past months or years, becoming more engaged and connected.
These communication tools has a major role in influencing the consumer behavior including awareness, collecting information forming attitudes, purchase behavior and post purchase communication and evaluation (giving opinion online). There are two role of social media as a promotional tool, In its first role it acts like a traditional integrated communication tool helping companies to talk to their customers through as blogs, face book and twitter However the second role of Social media marketing is somewhere different because it enables consumers to talk to other consumers (W. Glynn Mangold, David J. Faulds 2009).Traditional marketing said that a dissatisfied customer tells ten people, but in the new age of social media, the consumer has the tools to tell 10 million ‘other customers virtually overnight( The New Influencers, Gillin ,2007).One of the recent example is a customer of British Airways who used paid promotion on Twitter to get more visibility to his anti-BA grievance. Thus we can say that these tools play an important role in the 21st century to reach the customers, retain the customers and finally convert them into their brand advocates. By giving their positive or negative reviews through these tools customers can influence the attitude of millions. Now it’s the challenge for the marketers to get a positive attitude of millions towards their product by exploring these tools.
Different Social Media Tools
(W. Glynn Mangold, David J. Faulds, 2009)
‘ Social networking sites (MySpace, Face book)
‘ Video sharing sites (YouTube)
‘ Photo sharing sites (Flicker)
‘ Content sharing combined with assistance (Piczo.com)
‘ User-sponsored blogs (Cnet.com)
‘ Company-sponsored websites/blogs (Apple.com, P&G’s Vocal point)
‘ Company-sponsored cause/help sites (Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty)
‘ Business networking sites LinkedIn)
‘ Collaborative websites (Wikipedia)
‘ Invitation-only social networks (ASmallWorld.net)
‘ Business networking sites LinkedIn)
‘ Collaborative websites (Wikipedia)
‘ Virtual worlds (Second Life)
‘ Commerce communities (eBay, Amazon.com,
‘ Podcasts (”For Immediate Release: The Hobson and Holtz Report”)
To drive awareness round the launch of the new merchandise and to extend the fan followings corporations do heap of campaigns on face book. The thought is to come up with some buzz around a brand new product that’s presently to be launched .Recently there was a campaign by KFC in Mongolia before launching their Hot and Spicy Cob and Strips. The plan was to make a fun campaign round the Mongolian winter and the way fans keep themselves heat. KFC told its customers to travel with a photograph demonstrating the fun ways in which they keep themselves heat. Sounds straightforward enough ‘ however the campaign offered such a lot additional. – The App saw many participants participate within the contest. Before the competition started, KFC Mongolia’s Face book page had near thirty two thousand fans. Post the competition; they’d fifty two thousand. That’s a twenty thousand fan increase! The Dove Makeover campaign was a move to update Doves original campaign to real beauty into a digital age, that main plan was telling lady that they’re lovely in each form or kind. With over a billion monthly active users, no surprise Face book is high on the company’s radiolocation. However one more reason why The Ad Makeover was effective was as a result of it modified social expertise of the Face book user. They really felt like they were creating a modification, a social modification towards vanity and positivism. The ability to select and choose the correct medium of social media underlies the success of a campaign. Dove worked towards their women’s positivism movement by choosing the proper medium of social media. but social is over face book and twitter there also are sizable amount of third party net forums, blogs, wikis and podcast these social media tools are distinct from company’run-or sponsored activities however are quite effective in impacting firms each completely and negatively.
In the automotive industry, Toyota is regarded as one of the innovative user of social media not through face book or twitter but through the online community. It started a campaign called ‘The Hypermiling campaign’ for the brand awareness of iQ city car .The campaign was a great success and Toyota blogging site got an explosive growth in the incoming traffic by 212 percent. This promotion strategy adopted by Toyota on social media tool gave it a large number of new audiences through the positive coverage.
Role of social Media in the Marketing process (Refer Table: 1)
Social media is gift all over among the mercantilism functions of the company’s. Right from lead generation to prospecting the tools of social media are invariably in methodology. Once finding the shopper the foremost important job is to retain them. Social media tools do this job of marketers really with efficiency. Through uploading videos on you tube, reading the tweets of the followers giving tweets on Twitter, sharing stories in Face book, and giving reviews on blogs social media tools reach numerous customers and influence them. Virtual communities are the common platform for every customer’s and companies to exchange their thoughts .companies are harnessing the flexibility of crowd sourcing for getting new ideas from the purchasers. Dell possesses 12000 ideas in 2009 through its internet site www.ideastorm.com out of that it implemented 372.
Social Media offers unassertive promotions. In an exceedingly 2008 survey done by Razorfish seventy six % of the one thousand and six folks surveyed say they didn’t mind seeing ads after they logged-in to face book, MySpace, or alternative social media sites. Razorfish additionally found that forty % of the respondents say they created purchases once seeing those ads (Erik qualman, 2011).Promotion through traditional methods like TV never provide such flexibility to the merchandiser as they get in promoting through social media. Varied promotional tools utilized by the corporations on these channels not solely facilitate in reaching the correct client however additionally in knowing whether or not that promotional tool has been useful in attracting the customers attention.. The success of Promotions on these channels is significantly dependent on the interactions happening on these channels that interactions may be between companies to client, or client to client. Additionally the distinctive feature of networking helps in reaching and provoking others read. It’s additionally simple to live the effectiveness of those promotions not solely in quantitative terms however additionally in qualitative terms. So social media has modified the role of advertisers from the content publisher to content reader. Sensible firms are exploiting these information for up their public relation e.g. Trip adviser sees in Gregorian calendar month that eighty % of males in the age group of fifty five to sixty five like Machu Picchu as an area they prefer to visit. Before a corporation commits resources to observe and move with customers on social media there are some basic queries that’s required to be asked- What information do the merchandiser presently lack however and the way they’ll use the data, they need how the businesses ought to manage the communication between the corporate and social networks, do their social media efforts cause bigger sales, bigger purchase intent & most important at lower price (Alice M.Taybout, 2010). Promotions on social media sites are being adopted by the marketer’s at large scale because it gives an opportunity to the marketers to measure their effectiveness very easily, it has a younger audience, users cant TiVo through the commercials, users are willing to give you valuable demographic information like name, age, and so on (Erik qualman,2011).This helps the companies to adopt target advertisement, by knowing the demographics of the customers and giving the ad increases the means more eyeballs (Erikqualman, 2011).
(Refer figure: 1)
2. Research Methodology
This paper attempts to throw light on relevant benefits of social media platform as a promotional tool. The authors have attempted to give a synoptic view of perceived benefits of various social media avenues across diverse markets.
2.1 Research objectives
The purpose of our study is to examine the various promotional activities being adopted by the 21st century marketers on different social media sites and to give an insight on how the uniqueness of these activities can help the marketers to reach the millions The paper also tells how the promotional activities on these networks influence the purchasing intent of today’s consumer to a great extent. Through this paper we have tried to analyze the various characteristics of these tools which can help a marketer in making his advertising more effective.
3. Unique features of communication via social media tools
1.Customization ‘ With the emergence of worldwide net firms are moving ahead within the race of ‘Behavioral targeting’ that’s the power to tailor the web advertisements to the folks possibly to shop for .Instead of one ad for ten million people, firms are heading into an era wherever the message are going to be custom-built for every and each shopper. once being accustomed to addressing one communication to a homogenized audience, marketers are pulling out all stops to interrupt down such huge clusters into as tiny units as possible. This successively helps them improve their come back on investment (ROI) and increase conversion rates (the strike rate of individuals shopping for a product or service once seeing the ad) Nikesh Arora, 2013, Google Inc’s). So as to own a good net ad, advertisers progressively admit targeting techniques that invade a user’s privacy. several of the industrial sites on the globe Wide net recently agree on providing info regarding their customers’ searching, reading and amusement habits into their central system, of that user’s has no information.
Current approaches
There are four existing classes of on-line advertisement
Untargeted.
Early systems and plenty of tiny scale operations in use nowadays merely target the broad net audience normally. Ads are either mounted on an online page for a precise period of time then manually updated, or a straightforward, random sort of banner rotation is employed (Marc Langheinrich , Atsuyoshi Nakamura , Naoki Abe1, Tomonari Kamba ,Yoshiyuki Koseki ,2009)
Editorial
Ad banners are targeted to a precise web site or page for instance, advertisers on the Gmail. Computing machine will target their ad to any of the quite a hundred thousand classes featured within the net directory.
Targeted (filtered)
The most popular form of professional Web advertising. Advertisers can specify targeting parameters such as the user’s operating system or browser software, time constraints, country or even the Internet service provider (ISP) used ( Marc Langheinrich , Atsuyoshi Nakamura , Naoki Abe1, Tomonari Kamba ,Yoshiyuki Koseki ,2009). The selection mechanism on the ad server analyzes the request and selects only those advertisements for placement that match the current situation.
Personalized
Next generation advertisement systems use neural networks and other proprietary learning methods to allow personalized advertisement selection based on the browsing and interaction history of a particular user, and their demographic information like age, gender etc.
Operational Benefit
Mass customization and matched promoting methods have greatly compact business practices within the last decade. These customized advertisements are nice weapons within the hands of the advertiser that not solely helps them in giving management over who ought to read their advertisement however conjointly there’s no overlapping of users interest over the advertisements. As In customized advertising marketers will effectively customize a message supported the character of the receiver, the click through rate is additionally high that successively leads to high ROI in addition as high conversion rate. It’s conjointly easier for the trafficker to deliver it in a very efficient approach, helps in obtaining a lot of eye balls, and instant feedback relating to its effectiveness.
2. Interactive- “Social media has absolutely, 100 percent changed marketing .It’s really opened up a two-way line of communication ( Desmet,2010) One of the wonderful feature of social media promotions are being interactive, the communication is not one to many but one to one . User’s interaction, ability to post comments and giving instant feedback, connects business to people in a much closer way. Social media websites (Face book twitter etc.) allows companies to manage their real time conversations with customers, listen to their views about the company as well as products and deliver contextual, relevant and engaging communications (Merlin Stone a & Neil Woodcock,2013) Trialogue on these platforms gives the firms wonderful ideas about their products from the customers, it not only gives a better brand engagement but also helps companies to know what their customer want more from them ,which in turn make them brand loyal. People want to connect with real people of the companies and social media makes this possible Companies like Fiat , Dell and many more involve in real time conversation with their customers via various social networking sites like Face book. Social media enable the companies to connect with the customers whenever they want, through the channel they choose and the time they choose. Communication is now a pull communication not push. Interaction with the customer gives a strong foundation to the relationship between the brand and the customer.
Operational Benefits
Social media helps the businesses to reply quickly and comprehensively to customers issues and problems with interest in all media Through the tools like Google alert companies will track what people are saying and where they’re saying it. This interaction on numerous websites (communities, blogs, and dialogue forum) provides a beautiful platform for soliciting concepts from the shoppers relating to the present and new merchandise and encourages feedback, innovation and dialogues. several well documented studies have shown that increasing interaction with customers includes a industrial worth. Being interactive with your customers helps in:
‘ Better customer knowledge which eventually helps in customer acquisition
‘ Retaining customers: customer loyalty and maintenance.
‘ Developing customers: customer penetration/share of wallet, improving the gross value produced by customers.
(Refer figure: 2)
3.Networking (From word of Mouth to the world of Mouth) – social media can be described as a fusion between sociology and technology, altering communication from monologue (one to many) into dialog (many to many) to trialogue, and transforming people from content readers into publishers (Universal McCann, 2008). Social media has changed the word of mouth to the world of mouth, where on one click of mouse your brand can reach to the millions. This world of mouth is beyond geographical boundaries.WOM is a consumer-dominated channel of marketing communication where the sender is independent of the market. As the Consumers are the content publishers not companies they find it more reliable, credible, and trustworthy as compared to firm-initiated communications. Traditional communications theory considers WOM as having a powerful influence on the purchasing behavior of consumers, especially on their need of formation search, and subsequently on evaluation, and subsequent purchase decision. It provides information concerning product performance and the social and psychological consequences of the purchase decision (Cox, 1963). Businesses now can’t think whether to implement social media in their marketing strategies they should now think how to implement it. In the past, consumers opinions about their purchasing decisions were limited to their known ones say friends, relatives .But now before making a significant purchase a rational consumer seeks information from the maximum number of people beyond the limit of his friends and known ones . The use of social media has increased this number from few to hundreds or even thousands or millions. One important impact of social media on consumer behavior is the formation of various virtual social networks. For instance, participants in Face book, MySpace, Second Life, World of War Craft, Flicker, and YouTube are social networks where many people may never meet and never intend to meet(B??lisle&Bodur 2010; Clemons 2009). The desire for social interaction is driven by consumer concern for others and by their desire to enhance their own self-worth (Hennig-Thurau & Walsh 2003; Wang et al. 2007). The desire of becoming market mavens, getting status, leaving influence and the need for fairness are one of the reasons why Internet users want to engage in electronic word of mouth. Today’s consumer wants to help strangers by writing product reviews, giving comments, liking products and by re tweeting valuable information on social media web sites. Online communities and social-media tools are powerful tools for reaching potential customers via messages and enabling consumers to perform a variety of social activities within these virtual communities. For example, people can go to the blogs of their favorite companies, find everything they want to know about it, they can also comment and give their feedback. Generally, social networks are trusted because members share a common interests, experiences, values or needs (Cook 2008).It is a group of likeminded people whom you believe to be true and relate to yourself easily, making online word of mouth more effective .
Operational benefit’
The advancement of information technology has entirely changed the way word of mouth takes place; the way in which the information transmits from one consumer to another is now very fast and much influential. While the interpersonal word of mouth communication was limited to the social contacts before, via electronic word of mouth consumer can access the information about the product, companies and exchange their opinions as well as reviews on an unprecedented scale. Likes, sharing ,re- tweeting and involving in various brand communities are some of the ways through which customers helps in spreading the positive or negative word of mouth about the companies, e.g. My fiat world. in is a website started by the fans of fiat consumers. Through the website the consumers who are the loyal customers of Fiat not only share their experiences with the product, recent announcements of the company but also answer the queries by the potential customers, the site also shows all the current offers of the company and also has a suggestion page to get the feedback .Thus we can see how the consumers are nowadays becoming the marketer of the companies through the social media channels. The focus of online word of Mouth has been mainly in the entertainment industry .In the case of the movie industry a study conducted by Nielsen has shown that consumer generated Ewom is the second most important source of information for movie goers(Alice M Bobby J ,2010). Both the negative as well as positive word of mouth affect sales rankings and pricing decision of the brands. Shine et al found that negative buzz leads to price cuts for high tickets item, whereas positive buzz enables price increases of low priced items.
(Refer Figure: 3)
One of the most used player who has made this world of mouth is Face book, through its unique features of sharing of events, groups, comments, reviews, face book help the marketers in connecting to the customers . A review liked by someone can reach all the friends in that list within few seconds. This is how social media has changed the way a marketer can make place in customers eyes. Now the companies are in no need to position their product , Face book can very easily make the image of any company in any one’s mind. Thus it is Face book who is doing positioning for the brands .These communications can sometime be risky also if they are negative ,it has been found through the surveys that negative reviews are more influential to the receiver then the positive reviews. However by engaging with the consumers through company’s Face book page, by interacting with them through virtual communities or Face book groups these negative reviews companies can combat the influence of negative reviews to a great extent. Thus social media can be a problem also and the problem solver also.
(Refer Figure: 4)
5. Reviews – social media tools have empowered the customers to gather and disseminate the product related information globally and 24×7. These social media channels not only give easy access to the peer generated reviews but also help the consumers to voice their experiences. Consumers have different motivations to read peer-generated product reviews. The most important motivation is perhaps making inferences of product/service quality (Hennig-Thurau and Walsh, 2003). The aim of the Companies now days are to improve its marketing campaigns and amplify their overall impact through deeper engagement with influencers. The effect of an influencer is endured, consistent and measurable,’ This is because people trust the decisions of an influencer. ‘For example, if one of my close friends bought a Honda car, my likelihood of buying that product increases. If my friend is an influential purchaser, this probability goes up, thus reviews by a strong influencer can help a lot in changing a lead into prospect customer. Companies are now trying to get the database of those consumers which can be identified as ‘influencers’. These are people who can help the companies in increasing their sale in numbers. Reviews given by the friends on the social media website not only influence the prospect but it can reach to millions on one click. The impact of the reviews on the purchasing decision however highly depends upon the relationship between the reviewer and the purchaser, a review by a close friend could be more influential than a tweet by a thought leader on twitter. Also it is affected by the type of information needed by the potential customer e.g. a person who is planning to buy an antivirus would definitely like to take views from the person o has some technical knowledge . In technical products the quality of review matters than the quantities of reviews, whereas in the case of a review about some restaurant or cloth shop or movie the number reviews matters.
Operational benefit
Based on the intelligence of reviews ,managers could easily react to the problems instantly and also enhance the customer satisfaction. For example Despite Dominos’ negative experience with social media channel you tube, which involved the explosion of a video showing two employees doing repulsive things with Dominos ingredients, the brand is now taking the help of social media channel to get he reviews of its new ingredients and to promote its brand with its new Pizza Turnaround campaign on different social media tools. . After encountering with lots of negative comments from its customer ‘domino’s pizza is like cardboard ‘ the company decided to actually listen to what their customers are saying in order to improve their brand and their customers’ experiences. They also became extremely transparent in their approach by asking their customers and critics to offer their feedback, whether positive or negative via social media channels especially on twitter, Face book and YouTube. These consumers also help the marketers to improve the social customer relationship management. The reviews are very valuable as they are mirror showing the image of the companies the consumer is having in their mind. Better reviews means positive impact if however the reviews are negative indicates the company that they need to improve. In traditional media marketing these feedbacks cannot be expected without having a full-fledged market research. In a way social media also does the work of market research and open ways for the companies to implement the possible changes which can the change the game from unfavorable to favorable. These reviews can give you the real time results of any of your new strategy, your new products and even it can show you the effectiveness of any of the companies new promotion mix.
(Refer Figure: 5)
Measurement – Can you always measure the ROI of social media tools? This is the question every company asks before using it. Yes you can but You cannot always measure the result from investing in social media through rupees or dollars rather you have to measure the changing customer behaviors (customers investment) for using particular social media applications .Instead of using the traditional methods of measuring ROI the companies should assess the consumer motivation for using these tools and measure the social media investment which customer make by engaging with marketers brand. These consumer investment could be the number of visits and time spent on these applications, it includes valence and vividness of comments , blogs, number of likes as well as updates on various brands on various social networking sites like Facebook, twitter etc. The ROI of these investments gives long term payoff not short term results .These measurements help the companies in knowing the increasing brand awareness and expanding word of mouth over time. However in addition to these non-purchase behaviors companies also try to measure the effectiveness of the investments in various social media channels. This includes the return on various paid imprints cost per click and net promoter score (NPS) .The Net Promoter Score, or NPS, divides every company’s customers into three categories: Promoters, Passives, and detractors.
Promoters are loyal enthusiasts who will keep buying and refer others, fueling growth.
Passives are satisfied but those customers who are vulnerable to competitive offerings.
Detractors are unhappy customers who can damage your brand and impede growth through negative word-of-mouth.
NPS, could be calculated by taking the percentage of the customers who are Promoters and subtract the percentage of those who are Detractors.
Impressions – An impression is an estimate of the number of people the web advertisement is reaching
It is basically a measurement of the reach of the advertisement and is determined by the number of times it has been loaded and located. It is an estimate of the number of people the web advertisement is reaching .It is basically a measurement of the reach of the advertisement and is determined by the number of times it has been loaded and located. It is an economical way for the advertisers to locate whether the advertisements are being looked at or not. CPC’ cost per click is one of the popular and well known used metric. Here the advertiser has to pay as per clicks and not on impressions. The page views can be any number , as the advertiser is concerned about clicks here .Example : Suppose a campaign having 300??250 size banner running at CPC of $2 and the number of clicks the Ad has got is 1000.The formula for CPC goes as below(www.miniwebtool.com ‘ Webmaster Tools).
Cost to an Advertiser: CPC x number of clicks
Using the above metrics,
Cost to an Advertiser = 2 x 1000 = 2000
So, $ 2000 is what the advertiser has to pay!
CPC = Cost to an advertiser / number of clicks
Operational Benefit-
One of the major advantages of social media promotions is that you can see the effectiveness not in papers but in real time. It has been rightly said that the’ ROI of Social media is that in five years your company will still exist (Erik Qualman, 2013). As compared to traditional promotional strategies the ROI of social media can easily found out .All the methods discussed above whether organic or paid gives a quick picture of the response of their promotions .In organic method a marketer can easily see the effectiveness through the increasing number of social book markings(tags),number of page views of fans and followers .The increase in these non ‘purchase behavior shows the long term pay off of the promotional strategies not just short term results. It is easier for a firm to calculate its ROI in terms of change in sales as compare to the cost of promotion incurred through various methods of CPC (cost per click),CPM( cost per mile),CTR(click through rate).
(Refer Figure: 6)
(ReferTable:2)
Conclusion ‘ Research in social media selling remains in its adolescence stage, not solely in terms of how consumers move with one another on-line and the way it affects their purchasing behavior, however additionally how firms will profit of those channels, is undiscovered. The study provides an insight on how promotion on numerous social media websites helps the managers in not solely reaching the millions however additionally in reaching the correct person at right time. Selling has become 24/7/365 activity. Social media has modified altogether the approach of shoppers and brand which with one another .In social media selling the speed at that the Ewom, on-line reviews, one to one communication takes place is astonishing. it’s imperative for firms to gauge and participate in big variety of communication tools from TV to print to internet to social media to be up-to-date with their current and prospective customers altogether the ways that they want to be. The important live of loyalty isn’t that your client is creating repetitive purchase of your product however whether or not he would recommending it and stock unfavorable conditions.
These user generated contents have sturdy impact on judgment the product, forming angle towards them and eventually it affects the ultimate call of shopping for the merchandise. the businesses have the power currently to reply quickly and comprehensively to shoppers considerations and problems with interests in all media. The qualitative results conferred here provides a transparent image of how social media is changing the total situationof promoting from monologue to dialogue to trialogue and consequently forcing the businesses to create it a region of their integrated marketing communication tools not solely to exist these days however to survive tomorrow. The winners of the longer term are going to be people who are using these one to one engagements and are getting sensible beholder, sensible engager and sensible closers.
References
Journals
W. Glynn Mangold and David J. Faulds. (2009), ‘Social media: The new hybrid element of thepromotion mix’ ,science Direct ( 52),pp. 357’365
A.M. Kaplan and Michael Haenlein . (2010), ‘Users of the world, unite! The challenges and
Opportunities of Social Media’, science Direct ( 53 ), pp. 59’68
Cristina Castronovo and Johnson & Johnson Inc. Toronto (2012), Journal of Marketing Development and Competitiveness, vol.6 (1)
C.M. Sashi, (2012) , ‘ Customer engagement,buyer-seller relationships, and social media’ , Management Decision, Vol. 50 ( 2) pp. 253-272
Sarah Quinton (2013), ‘The digital era requires new knowledge to develop relevant CRM strategy: acry for adopting social media research methods to elicit this new knowledge’, Journal of Strategic Marketing, vol. 21(5),pp. 402-412
WenjingDuan , Bin Gu and Andrew B. Whinston .(2008) , ‘Do online reviews matter’? An empirical investigation of panel data’,science direct ,vol 45, pp. 1007’1016
Do-Hyung Park , Jumin Lee.(2007) ,’eWOM overload and its effect on consumer behavioralintention depending on consumer involvement’, science direct, vol (7) ,pp. 386’398
Thorsten Hennig-Thurau1, Edward C. Malthouse ,Christian Friege, Sonja Gensler, Lara Lobschat,ArvindRangaswamy, and Bernd Skiera(2010) , ‘ The Impact of New Media on CustomerRelationships’, journal of Service Research ,vol 13(3), pp. 311-330
W. Glynn Mangold, Katherine Taken Smith.(2012), ‘Selling to Millennial with online reviews’, Business Horizons,vol. 55, pp. 141’153
Mathur Pooja, Black Jennifer E.,CaoJiangmei, Berger Paul D.and Weinberg Bruce D.(2012) , ‘The Impact of Social Media Usage on Consumer Buying Behavior’ Advances In Management ,Vol. 5 (1)
NuriaLloret Romero .(2011) , ‘ROI. Measuring the social mediareturn on investment in a library’ The Bottom Line: Managing LibraryFinances, vol 24(2) pp. 145-151
Guda van Noort, Marjolijn L. Antheunis& Eva A. van.(2012) ‘Social connections and the persuasiveness of viral campaigns in social network sites: Persuasive intent as the underlying mechanism’,Journal of Marketing Communications, Vol 18(1) , pp. 39-53
Alice M.Tybout, Bobby J calder , Philip Kotler (forward) . (2012),’Kellogs on marketing ‘,Wiley, John & Sons, New Delhi.
Websites
Patriciasorce, Barbara A. Pellow . (2003), Demand for Customized Communications by Advertising Agencies and Marketing Executives, Retrieved Sept 11, Fromhttp:// www.print.rit.edu/pubs/picrm.
Michaela A. Stelzner, (2013), How marketers are using social media to grow their businesses. Retrieved September 11, 2013 from http:// www.socialmediaexaminer.com
Blackshaw, P., & Nazzaro, M. (2004). Consumer- Generated Media (CGM) 101: Word-of-mouth in the age of the Webfortified consumer. Retrieved Sept 12, 2013, from http://www.nielsenbuzzmetrics.com /whitepapers
Books
Paul Gillin. (2007), ‘The New Influencers: A Marketer’s Guide to the New Social Media’, Quill Driver Books/Word Dancer Press,
Erik qualman (2011), ‘sociolonomics :How social media transforms the way we live and do business,’Wiley, John & Sons, New Jersey.
Tables and Exhibits
Table 1: Role of social Media in the Marketing process
Knowledge gathering Collaborative projects, Blogs, Social networking sites.
Prospecting By monitoring the comments posted by the users and see how they are being perceived.
Communication Contests and rewards for referring on face book asking friends to like or share.
Lead generation Approaching customers Post new stories on Face book.
New Ideas Creating apps to get new product and service ideas from consumers (www.ideastorm.com,Dell )
Giving Solutions uploading you tube videos (Dominos did so to combat its negative publicity)
value proposition
Sharing success stories via Facebook
Referrals Via Linked In and Face book asking for referrals.
Figure. 1: Unique features of promotion via social media
Figure. 2: Interaction on social media (Jennifer savage, 2010)’
Figure. 3: From word of mouth and world of mouth marketing
Source (Erik Qualm an, 2013)
Figure. 4: word of Mouth through Face book’
Figure. 5: Consumer thought process for giving Reviews
Likes
Comments
Page views
CPC
Impressions
NPS
Figure. 6: Measuring social Media Effectiveness
‘
Social Media Application
Brand awareness
Brand Engagement
Word of mouth
Blogs
‘ Number of unique visits
‘ Number of return visits
‘ Number of times bookmarked
‘ search ranking
‘ Number of members
‘ Number of comments
‘ amount of user-generated content
‘ Number of times badge displayed
‘ average length of time on site Number of responses to polls,
‘ contests, surveys
‘ Number of references to blog in
‘ Number of RSS feed subscribers other media (online/off line)
‘ Number of re blogs
‘ Number of “likes”
Forums and Discussion boards
(e.g. Google groups)
‘ Number of page views
‘ Number of visits
‘ valence of posted content +/-
‘ Number of relevant topics/threads
‘ Number of individual replies
‘ Number of sign-ups
‘ Incoming links
‘ Citations in other sites
‘ Tagging in social bookmarking
‘ Offline references to the forum or its members in private communities
‘ number of pieces of content (photos, discussions, videos)
Social Networks
(e.g. face book)
‘ Number of Members/fans
‘ Number of bookmarks
‘ Number of impressions
‘ Number of reviews/valence
‘ Number of comments
‘ Number of active users
‘ Number of likes on friends feed
‘ Impression -to interaction ratio
‘ Number of user generated items(photo, threads, replies)
‘ Frequency of appearance in timeline of friends
‘ Number of posts on wall
‘ Number of responses to friend’s referral invites.
‘ Number of reports.
Video and photo sharing
‘ Number of view of videos and photos
‘ Valence of video/photo +/_
‘ Number of replies
‘ Number of page views
‘ Number of subscribers.
‘ Number of embeddings
‘ Number of Times republished in other social media and offline
‘ Number of likes
Micro blogging
(e.g. Twitter)
‘ Number of tweets
‘ Valence of tweets +??/-
‘ Number of followers
‘ Number of followers
‘ Number of @replies
‘ Number of re tweets
Table: 2 relevant metrics for social media applications
Source (MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW, 2010)