Social Marketing
The phrase social marketing has become a well-established part of the vocabulary of marketing. Businesses and marketers invest a great many of their resources on setting up, upgrading and implementing marketer programmes with two purposes in mind: to help the company to attain its “full profit potential” and to ensure its long-term sustainability. Simply put, they have two balls in their eyes: profitability and growth. With the pandemic continuing, marketing continues to be more and more important. With the increasing need for digital experience from customers, marketing has become stronger in order to provide strategic guidance and growth. Social Marketing is an important instrument for influencing social behaviour, not to profit marketers but the target audience and society as a whole (Andreasen, p.108). It is used to define the strategy by electronic media to promote items or companies. It essentially promotes the usage of different digital gadgets and technologies to provide customers with marketing messages. The main focus is on the consumer—learning what they want and what they need instead of trying to persuade them to buy what they create. Marketing communicates with consumers, dealing with the factors, namely: 1) product design, 2) price, 3) sales (Place) and 4) promotion. Social marketing, however, adds a few more “Ps – Publics, Partnerships, Purse Strings, and Policies.
Social Media
Digital communications have become one of the main means of engaging companies with customers (Colicev et al., 2018; Kanuri et al., 2018). We are nearly a year an half into the epidemic of COVID-19. The total economic optimism of marketers has bound over and above mid-pandemic and even pre-pandemic levels. Amid the awful loss and suffering of human beings, we have seen a year of transition and challenges in the marketing space. Digital transformation has pushed organisations to find new means of reaching and communicating with their possibly distant customers. The reworking of many market-oriented models and the advent of powerful new digital interfaces have prompted this necessity. Marketing, as the function and process responsible for customer management and the company market interface, was at the heart of a number of corporate efforts – 72 percent of marketing leaders said the marketing role in their organisations increased over the last year (The CMO Survey, 2021).
Social Media Marketing Strategy – SMM
The strategy used by two companies in SMM shows the growing importance and relevance for scaling the business and customer engagement- McDonald’s and StarBucks.
A) McDonald’s is undoubtedly one of the world’s most recognised companies, and much of it can be ascribed to its digital marketing strategies. Three are described below:
- Extended restaurant-time. The information was conveyed through mobile banner advertising displayed on websites that generally frequent customers late at night, when the fast food chain chose to open up more than 30 percent of its locations until late at night. In petrol stations and resorts, digital advertising was also established. It also developed a new Restaurant Finder app, bringing clients to McDonald’s closest open store. This earned client attention and patronage in late-night shifts.
- Ask YouTube’s McDonald’s. McDonald’s Canada built a special ‘YouTube account’ for their quality information campaign. Customers ask inquiries using channel-based videos. This meeting reinforced the brand’s trust with existing consumers and attracted new ones, especially those with a positive opinion of the company’s initiative to address the difficulties of its customers.
- The Angry Birds. Game Angry Birds invaded the world, activating McDonald’s China. It teamed with game designer Rovio to build a game that can only be played in McDonald’s China stores. The game features select stores can access. Non-customers of McDonald—mobile gaming addicts—have invaded the stores.
B) Starbucks Empire is known for its social media participation – proof of social media marketing. Facebook has 37 million followers. It’s got 12 million Twitter followers. They also developed their ideas on Google+, Pinterest, YouTube and My Starbucks to take full use of cross-promotions to ensure their customers are where they are. Instead of utilising social media to market its products, Starbucks concentrates on providing information and entertainment material. Objective is to interact and establish consumer relationships. Facebook posts about how products are uploaded. Coffee-related pictures are tweeted and published on Instagram. Customers are invited to ask questions, advise, express grievances and discuss their website experience with Starbucks. (see: MyStarbucksIdea.com)
What makes SMM the company’s favoured strategy?
2020 showed how swiftly the environment of social media may shift. In this respect, a recent study in the Marketing Journal illustrates how online virality is generated by real-time changes in social media operations. (see: Colicev, et al., 2018). The other reasons are:
- Offer fantastic possibilities to test new brand message, advertising and offers and obtain immediate measurable response from target consumers.
- Businesses engage their customers and get real-time feedback.
- Businesses employ the different social network tools and features for promotional operations.
- A social media presence keeps companies current and relevant, especially in customers’ eyes.
- Businesses create and nurture long-term connections with customers.
- Businesses are increasingly visible through the social media networking system.
Way Forward
As Christine Moorman and Torren McCarthy have pointed out, social media partnerships are only one of countless collaborations of your organisation. Think about what you’re learning to typically manage a strong collaboration when you work with your social media partner. What methods and structures are working? What doesn’t function well? Once your effective partnership analysis is established, codify and disseminate it inside your company to promote other corporate performance. Social media companies may be of enormous benefit to hear the customer’s voice and to send the message of the company to create value. (HBR, July, 27, 2020)
2021-6-27-1624799853