Social Media: Facebook
Social Media: Facebook
The meaning of the term social media can be derived from two words which constitute
it. Media generally refers to advertising and the communication of ideas or information
through publications/channels. Social implies the interaction of individuals within a
group or community.
Social media is engaging with consumers online. According to Wikipedia, social media
is internet-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings.
Social media is all about networking and networking in a way that espouses trust among
parties and communities involved. Any website which allows user to share their content,
opinions, views and encourages interaction and community building can be classified as
a social media. Some popular social media sites are: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Digg,
MySpace, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Scribd, Flickr etc.
Facebook was launched in 2004 and have over 1.25 billion active users (active as of
March 31, 2015), of which 945 million users access Facebook through mobile devices.
An average Facebook user is estimated to have at least 130 friends and is connected to
80 community pages, groups and events. There are more than 70 languages available
on the site. Its main use is to establish and maintain relationships in work related
situations, in political affiliations or just among friends and families. (Facebook, 2015)
Facebook has become the most powerful tool for marketing today. In April 2011, the
company launched a new service for marketers and interested creative agencies which
is a form of online platform (Portal) that allows marketers and creative design agencies
to build brand promotions on Facebook. Facebook is now a direct competitor of Google
in online advertising and this new service has made it possible for companies such as
Financial Times and ABC News to create dynamic commercial graphics or
advertisement.
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Google+
Google+ is now the second largest social network at just over 50%, with Facebook still
dominating at 70%. Keep in mind that a Google+ account is mandatory whenever a
person creates a new Gmail account. This is pushing up the account ownership stats.
But no other social network has Googles web assets leverage.
You Tube
YouTube is more popular than cable television: YouTube reaches more adults than any
cable network. In the United States, the number of people who watch television has
fallen behind the number of people who watch YouTube on a regular basis. This makes
it clear that televised content is undergoing a decline, online consumption of video is on
the incline. Many companies have taken advantage of this by releasing their ads or
marketing campaigns on YouTube first before they debut on TV. Take many of the 2014
Super Bowl XLVIII ads (like Budweiser) that were released on YouTube before the big
game and were rewarded with triple YouTube views.
LinkedIn started in 2002, but was officially launched on May 5, 2003. Many
professionals have joined LinkedIn in recent years to share knowledge and insight in
more than one million LinkedIn groups. The company operates the worlds largest
professional network on the internet with more than 350 million members in over 200
countries and territories.
In LinkedIn, companies have access to a wealth of information that are mostly user
provided through their profile data i.e. company name, job title, size of the company and
LinkedIn uses this information for advertising targeted to towards members. Companies
pay some fees to advertise their products and services to particular LinkedIn members
or affiliation groups on LinkedIn. (Odhiambo, 2012)
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Pinterest is the fastest growing social network right now. The visual web is driving the
rise of Pinterest and Tumblr with growth rates of 88% and 74% respectively over the last
12 months. Pinterest is also one of the leading referral sources for organic traffic, which
is a good for high search rankings. Some social media networks have a more active
user-base than others. Statistical research has revealed that more than 95% of
Facebook users log into their account every day. That number for Twitter is 60% and for
LinkedIn is 30%.
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advertising media. With the launch of World Wide Web i.e. www. AT&T was first
company to use modern media for marketing. (Kaushik, 2012, p. 91)
Here are some facts that show how social media is making big impact on small
businesses.
Constant Contact reported that 49% of small businesses have found social
media marketing effective for their businesses.
According to Socialmediatoday, 44% of small business decision makers are
using social media websites to extract information of other businesses.
Facebook is leading among all the social websites with 82% of small businesses
registered; it is followed by YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn with 73%, 47% and
47% respectively. (Source: Mediabistro).
80% of small businesses use social media websites for monitoring and collecting
information about competitors to their businesses (Source: Socialmediatoday).
Lead-to-close rate is 100% on social media than traditional marketing methods
(Source: Socialmediatoday).
80% of customers on social networks prefer to connect themselves to brands
through Facebook (Source: Socialmediatoday).
53% of small businesses use social media as an engagement tool for providing
2-way conversation customer support (Source: Socialmediatoday).
It might also be surprising to know that 86% of social referrals are done by
Facebook, while 11% and 3% are done by Pinterest and Twitter respectively
(Source: Socialmediatoday).
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Social Media Marketing in India - An Overview
India has 243 million (19% of total Population) active internet users. Social Media is
really picking up new heights in India. According to the 2010 Regus Global Survey of
business social networking, India tops the usage of social networking by business it
has the highest activity index, 127, far more than the US97, and 52% of the Indian
respondent companies said that they had acquired new customers using social
networks while 35% American companies managed that. Many companies are coming
big way for Social Media Optimization for their Product or Services nowadays. During
Election 2009 Social Media was used for Influence Indian Voters. Social Media
Marketing in India is being undertaken by brands like Tata Docomo, MTV India, Channel
V, Clear Trip, Tata Photon, Axe deodorants, Microsoft, Naukri, Shaadi and many more
Several Campaigns like Bell Bajao and Jaago Re have been quite successful on
Social Networking Sites. These campaigns have been spreading the word about their
cause through blogs, Twitter and Facebook.
Social media marketing spend in India has been growing considerably at around 68%
CAGR over previous two financial years. In the FY 2014, social media constituted 18%
of overall online promotion spend, which stood at INR 495 crore.
A primary research conducted by Ernst & Young called Social Media Marketing
India Trends Study underlines few important changes that the industry has gone
through between 2013 and 2014. The key findings of the report are:
Building Brand Awareness and Community is the major objective of companies
investing on social media marketing.
Nearly half of brands participated in the study claims they investment 10% of
their annual marketing budget.
86% brands engage multiple platforms at least once a day, 53% twice a day or
more.
Only 14% of brands spend anything between INR 1 Cr and 2 Crs (US$200,000
US$300,000) on social media marketing, 23% of brands spend less than INR 10
lakhs (US$32,000) annually on social media marketing.
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27% of brands maintain in-house social media team for strategy, planning and
implementation while 11% brands in India outsource these activities to agencies
or firms.
79% of brands surveyed in India relies on agencies for their social media
requirements during implementation and roll out of campaigns.
61% of brands uses social media listening tools to track their brand sentiments.
Radian 6 and Meltwater emerge as the most popular tools for social media
monitoring and to track sentiment analysis.
Boost website traffic: Social media is probably the fastest and easiest means of
redirecting traffic to companys website. By simply placing their website URL in
their profile, the company can have all their profile visitors check out their website
and a percentage of traffic is sure to get converted in course of time. This is the
virtual way version of word-of mouth.
Branding: Buying a candy may have been impulsive all your life, but if it is
discussed on a social networking site, there is likely to get brand conscious even
a candy. Social media is a smart way to build brands. Social media platforms are
known to be one of the most powerful and fast means of branding. Some of the
big brands like Coke, Ford, Dell, IBM, Burger King are some of the well well
known brands have powerfully used social media platforms to endorse
themselves.
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Social Media Marketing Strategies
SMM is still in its infancy. Most of the online retailers though appreciate its positives
fallouts on the brand awareness and promotion; they are still in the early stages of
adoption. For an organization willing to invest in social media marketing, it is important
to understand why SMM is an important marketing strategy and how it can help:
This is the age of consumer satisfaction. It is not about selling it is more about
interacting. There is a lot to learn from the customers. Using social media one
can identify customers, listen to their feedback and use them to improve and
innovate on products or services.
SMM is not a mass advertising strategy. It can be used to identify peer groups
and advertise to that particular group. Social Media can help in identifying
influencers and through them one can guide a prospective customer into making
a purchase.
SMM calls for novel advertising methods as the attention span of online junta is
very low. This is largely due to the multitasking phenomena. A person watching a
video clip on YouTube might be simultaneously updating a blog, while reading
another one and watching friends photographs on Facebook. In order to garner
their attention away from distractions the advertisement must be innovative and
interesting to hold the imagination and attention of the prospect.
At the same time the message must also provoke the recipient into action; like
seeking a detailed description of the product/service, or suggesting to a friend, or
initiating purchase. So, if the advertisement is trying to sell something then it
should be conveniently placed with links so that the prospect can make a
purchase with least effort.
Similarly Social Media can be used to increase customer loyalty through
customer support services and hence improve customer retention.
Social Media Marketing can also be used by brands to ward off any negative
publicity. But the brands will have to be cautious here as over doing it may further
aggravate their customers / stakeholders.
Companies using traditional marketing methods (e.g. surveys, focus groups, test
marketing) often spend millions to locate their target markets. Establishing a
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social media strategy will help them see where potential customers are hanging
out.
Facebook, start accounts on social bookmarking sites such as Digg or Stumble
Upon, and check on who is linking to your site to find out whos interested.
Social media gives businesses on small budgets the ability to find out what
people are saying about them (and others) in their industry, without paying large
sums on market research. With its ear to the ground on social media, the
company will be the first to know if its product is working or if changes need to be
made. (Neti, 2011, pp. 12-13)
1. Video Content
There are a variety of video types that you can employ to accomplish this task, which
include:
Educational video. When you create an educational video, not only are you
instructing your audience, but you are also marketing to them at the same time.
One example is Whiteboard Friday, published by Moz, an SEO software firm.
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Explainer videos. Explainer videos show viewers how to use your
product. Pinterest, for instance, has an explainer video that demonstrates the
benefits of using its social network.
Entertaining videos. To keep your audience entertained and engaged, you can
create a series of short videos whose sole purpose is for viewers to
share. Buzzfeed has done an excellent job of this by combining entertainment,
education, and shareable content in a series of short recipe videos all without
selling anything. The page that houses the videos has attracted more than 15
million likes on Facebook alone.
In 2016, paying to advertise on social networks will become a must. Part of the reason
is that organic social reach those shares you receive from family and friends are not as
effective in marketing as they once were.
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Paying for advertising allows you to reach a specific demographic rather than just
relying on organic social reach alone. When you use Facebooks advertising platform,
for example, you can market to a particular age group, gender, location, and other
parameters something that a Facebook post shared organically cannot do.
3. Social Shopping
If patterns from previous years are any indication, social commerce the act of selling via
social networks will likely increase in 2016.
For example, an Internet Retailers Social Media 500 report said that social commerce
rose 26 percent from 2013 to 2014.
Additionally, Business Insider reported that ecommerce referrals by way of social media
increased nearly 200 percent between the first quarters of 2014 and 2015.
Part of the reason for this growth is that buy buttons have been showing up on social
networks such as Pinterest and Twitter, allowing consumers to purchase from these
sites directly.
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Social media buy buttons.
To this point, in his article about buy buttons, Recodes Jason Del Ray said that the
conversion rate will improve by using the buy buttons because consumers are
purchasing products directly from the social site itself.
4. Marketing Automation
2016 is the year to create a marketing automation strategy for your business, to make
your job easier.
Numerous options are available, but choose the one best suited to your needs and that
wont break your budget.
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The G2 Crowd website will help you find the right marketing automation software,
based on your needs and budget.
5. Facebook
Facebook will continue to be the dominant social media platform in 2016 but with some
changes.
If you are looking to market to those 55 and older, then Facebook is where you should
focus your marketing efforts.
6. Search
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While most people still use search engines to find information, many are foregoing this
route and are performing searches on social media sites instead.
Part of the reason is that users are growing weary of text-heavy search results and
gravitating toward visual content such as images or videos, each of which you are more
likely to find on social media.
Users also search on social media because they know that they will receive information
such as feedback, comments, and reviews from actual users more so than with a
search engine.
While search engines are not going away anytime soon, it is important for small
businesses to think about how they can be found both on search engines and in social
media.
7. Mobile Marketing
The need to have a mobile-friendly website is not a new concept. For years, marketers
have been telling businesses that they need to optimize their sites for mobile users.
Contact Person Mr. Chintan Patel, Mr. Kushal Soni and Mr. Harsh Lakhotiya
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Services Strategy Building, Developing a game plan, Selecting Medium,
Build Brand Awareness, Campaigning etc.
A creative agency who are specialized into DIGITAL MARKETING. Socialee helps
brands in establishing themselves on various Social Media Platforms. It helps in
growing the target audience/Followers and to keep them engaged and aware about the
brands. It helps in increasing the social engagement.
Socialees USPs
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Socialee focus on targeted audience and not on everyone else:
Socialee focus on targeted audience and not on the audience which is not
relevant for the clients. Hence, it helps the clients to save more to reach targeted
audience easily and efficiently.
Strategy Building
Its important to enter the promotion with perfect strategy. We create the strategies to
enter into social media marketing.
Developing a game plan: Developing the plan on how to implement the social media
campaigns.
Creative Graphics
Our strength lies in the creativity of our team. We develop creative graphics for social
media marketing. In-house graphic designing team make sure that the graphic is unique
and is eye catching.
Campaigns
Developing and deploying campaigns is a good way to take your social media activity to
the next level. We help you create creative campaigns. Campaign refers to the series of
interconnected activities which will increase brand awareness and target audience
engagement. (Mothers Day Campaign)
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G.H. Patel Post Graduate Institute of Business Management
Blog
Blogging is one of the best way to reach maximum audience with your product/service
description. We are there to look after your online presence for blogs.
The attractive campaigns with creative graphics increases the Brand awareness by
developing and posting different type of posts. Some Examples are mentioned below.
My internship Term. .
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SEO
One of the great and unique aspects of Google+ is the wonders it can do for your
websites search engine optimization (SEO). Traditional SEO methods still have a place
in marketing but, increasingly, search engines are taking into consideration the social
signals you emit and receive as a way of ranking your website. This is especially true
in the case of Google+
3. Help your content stand out from the crowded search results page
5. Protect the original posts ranking position as higher than a post that has
scraped or syndicated the original content
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Work done during Internship
Creative Development
Google+ was the platform given to me at Socialee for Social Media marketing. Interns
were supposed to develop creative images for the respective social media marketing
platforms. Shown below are the images developed by me as an intern.
At Socialee, interns are supposed to generate leads for the company. Interns are
expected to call the prospects in the major cities and are required to fix meeting with
them. Interns are supposed to visit prospective clients and pitch Socialees services.
And I also win the best educator intern awards.
Research Methodology
Introduction
Social media is changing the way information is communicated to and from people
around the world. The rapid use of social media such as blogs and other social
networking sites and media-sharing technology is changing the way firms respond to
consumers needs and wants and changing the way they respond to their competitors.
Marketers now have the opportunity to engage in broader and more innovative forms of
online mass media communications by using the social media marketing tools. Social
networking programs group individuals by interests, hometowns, employers, schools
and other commonalities. Social networking is also a significant target area for
marketers seeking to engage users.
Social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are dynamic tools that facilitate
online relationships. It is a relatively low cost form of marketing and allows organizations
to engage in direct and end-user contact. Given the choices made available to
consumers and the influential role of social media marketing, the brands and consumers
have a changing role to play in the organizations strategy in that they now have an
economic impact. Brands influence customer choice. Customers influence other
customers. These chains of events affect repurchases, which further affect future
earnings and long term organizational sustainability
All in all, it helps a company increase awareness of its brand, generate leads, build its
customer base, improve sales and market share. If planned and executed properly,
social media becomes a very cost effective mode of online promotions.
This paper is focusing on the impact of demographics on their awareness level of social
media marketing practices. It will also helpful in identifying the platforms which
organizations should prefer for social media marketing.
Literature Review
Sliva, Bhuptani, Menon & DSliva (2011) has made an attempt to understand
the usage pattern of social media among youth in the city of Mumbai. It also
aimed at as sessing the influence of social media on the consumer buying
behaviour. Results from the analysis indicated that social media is a very
important tool for networking among youngsters.
BASHAR, AHMAD & WASIQ (2012) has done an empirical research to
understand the effectiveness of social media as a marketing tool and an effort
has been made to analyze the extent social media helps consumers in buying
decision making. Results of paper suggested that the medium is growing very
fast and holds huge potential but is still in its nascent stage in India. Therefore, it
is time for the companies to make effective strategies and execute them to win
larger share of business through this revolutionary medium and become the
innovative firm of coming future.
Vij & Sharma (2013) has done a study on social media experience of consumers
and marketers in the State of Punjab. Based on the results of the study and
reviewed literature, the paper suggested the measures for effective Social Media
Marketing (SMM) strategies that Above all, social media marketing content
should be interesting, informative, interactive and reliable. Marketers should
align their social media marketing effort with the changing tastes and preferences
of customers.
Yadav (2012) has made an attempt to set up the significance of social networks
as an advertising medium and evaluated the existing advertising methods that
are in trend via certain case studies and concluded that social websites are not
just a tool to interact with the different people but also medium to reach the
prospective customers.
Bhakuni & Aronkar (2012) tried to understand the usage pattern of social media
among the students of Gwalior city and also assessed the influence of social
media advertising on the purchasing intention of the students. The study
concluded that social media is a rapidly growing area with large number of young
students associating with it and there is a strong positive relationship between
purchase intention and social media advertising.
Dash (2011) explored the relevant factors applicable for online marketing
awareness, Purpose of use and usage of social networking sites and concluded
that college students are well aware about different social networking sites and
their use & popularity is increasing hence it is serving as a very good medium to
connect students. Therefore, marketing with the help of these sites can play an
important role for online marketing but it is necessary to ensure product quality
since user groups are educated.
Source/s of Data:
Primary data has been collected by conducting survey of target Individuals.
Secondary data has been collected by referring to Marketing Journals, Research
papers, social networking sites and online blogs/forums/articles.
Tools: MS Excel
Findings of Data
1. Which type of media you use for marketing?
No. of Respondents
50 45
45
40 35
35 30
30 27
25 21
20 18
14
15
10
5
0
TV E-Mail Mobile/SMS Internet Radio Print Media SMM
There are various media available for marketing like Print, Television, E-mail, mobile
sms, internet, radio, social media marketing, etc. From which most used media for
marketing is Social Media marketing and Print Media which is about 35 and 45. TV is
the third most used media for marketing which contributes to around 30. 27 of the
population uses Mobile/SMS marketing. It can be seen from the graph that radio is used
by only 14 of the sample size.
2. Are you aware about SMM (Social Media Marketing) Services?
No. of Respondents
No; 26%
Yes; 74%
Yes No
From total 77 respondents 57 are aware about social media marketing and 20 are not
aware about social media marketing services. Therefore of the total population 74% are
aware about Social media marketing and 26% are not aware. More people are aware
about social media marketing, this shows that this type of marketing is in trend.
3. If you use SMM than which Social Media Platforms does your Organization use?
No. of Respondents
Pinterest 2
You tube 17
Twitter 8
Google+ 12
Instagram 22
LinkedIn 11
Facebook 29
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
No. of Respondents
Social media marketing is widely in trend. The above analysis shows that 35 people use
social media as a tool for advertising. There are many platforms for social media
marketing including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. From which Facebook
is commonly used in business. Instagram is second most commonly used platform
followed by Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest and others.
4. Purpose for Using SMM.
Factor No. of
Respondents
Lead Generation 29
Advertise Products/Services 35
Feedback From customer 22
Engage with Customer 35
Offer Promotional items 27
B2B 10
Brand Awareness 35
Analyze the Competitors 11
No. of Respondents
No. of Respondents
35 35 35
29 27
22
10 11
Businesses are using social media marketing for many purposes. The main purpose is to
advertise the products and services, To Engage with customer, to increase the Brand
Awareness followed by the Lead Generation, to offer Promotional items, to get feedback
from customer, to analyze the competitors, for B2B (Business to Business).
5. How useful is Social media Platforms for your company?
No. of Respondents
No. of Respondents
14
10
5
4
2
Most of the organizations found social media marketing very useful for the business. 14
respondents marked as Social media marketing is very useful in our company. 10
respondent found social media marketing kind of useful for their business. Only 4
respondents said that they were not aware about how much social media is useful. 5
respondents did not find it very useful. While only 2 respondents found this type of
advertising useless
6. Does your organization have a specific social media marketing person?
No. of Respondents
12
23
Yes No
From the survey it is found that 23 organizations have not hired any agency or a person
for social media marketing. Only 12 of the respondents have a specific agency or a
person for digital marketing. They are handling the social media advertising themselves.
7. Would you recommend using Social media platforms to another Organization?
No. of Respondents
18
10
From the survey it is found that 18 organizations have agree to they recommend using
Social Media Platforms to another organizations. Only 10 organizations have agree to
they recommend using Social Media Platforms to another organizations and only 7
respondents are not sure to recommend using social media marketing in business.
8. If no than why you do not use social Media Marketing?
Factor No. of
Respondents
Not Enough time 5
Not Enough Resources 8
Dont think it is useful to us 11
Insufficient Knowledge 17
No. of Respondents
No. of Respondents
17
11
8
5
Above graph shows that the businesses are not using social media marketing because
of several reasons such as, they do not think it is useful for their organization; they do
not have enough time or resources, and have insufficient knowledge about social media
marketing or due to other reasons but in mostly main reasons in insufficient knowledge
about SMM.
Conclusion