Social Media

Social media is a computer-based technology that facilitates the sharing of ideas

and information and the building of virtual networks and communities. By design,
social media is internet based and offers users easy electronic communication of
personal information and other content, such as videos and photos. Users engage
with social media via computer, tablet or smartphone via web-based software or
web application, often utilizing it for messaging.

Social media originated as a tool that people used to interact with friends and
family but was later adopted by businesses that wanted to take advantage of a
popular new communication method to reach out to customers. The power of
social media is the ability to connect and share information with anyone on Earth
(or multitudes of people) as long as they also use social media.

Social Media: Common Features

The pace of change in social media and its uses means that its definition can be a
moving target. Generally, however, all social media shares the following
characteristics:

 It is interactive and Web 2.0 based.

 Features user-generated profiles.
 Content is generated by users. This includes photos, videos, conversations,
comments, etc.
 Connections between users are facilitated by the platform.

Social Networks

Social Networks have been the core of human society since we were hunters and
gatherers. People are tied together through their relationships with one another and
their dependence on one another. These relations form the basis for social
networks. But, these networks are different from networking. A network is a set of
relationships. It contains a set of objects (called as nodes) and a mapping or
description of relations between the objects or nodes. The simplest network
contains two nodes; whereas, networking is the active use of a network to make
connections to further one’s goals. So, no one goes to a party anymore, they go to a
network. Similarly, the World Wide Web (www) is the network that is engaging
people to get connected with one another and thus, facilitating the networking.
Social Networking

Social networking is the use of internet-based social media programs to make

connections with friends, family, classmates, customers and clients.
Social networking can occur for social purposes, business purposes or both through
sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Classmates.com and Yelp. Social
networking is also a significant target area for marketers seeking to engage users.

Marketers use social networking for increasing brand recognition and loyalty.
Because it makes the company more accessible to new customers and more
recognizable for existing customers, social networking helps promote a brand’s
voice and content. For example, a frequent Twitter user may hear of a company for
the first time through a news feed and decide to buy a product or service. The more
exposed people are to a company’s brand, the greater the company's chances of
finding and retaining new customers.

Advantages of Social Networking for Marketers

Marketers use social networking for improving conversion rates. Building a

following provides access to and interaction with new, recent and old customers.
Sharing blog posts, images, videos or comments on social media allows followers
to react, visit the company’s website and become customers.

Customers may compliment the company’s offerings and encourage others to buy
the products or services. The more customers are talking about a company on
social networking, the more valuable the brand authority becomes. As a brand
grows stronger, more sales result.

Increased company posts rank the company higher in search engines. This helps
establish a brand as legitimate, credible and trustworthy.

A company may use social networking to demonstrate its customer service level
and enrich its relationships with consumers. For example, if a customer complains
about a product or service on Twitter, the company may address the issue
immediately, apologize, and take action to make it right.

Disadvantages of Social Networking for Marketers

Although social networking itself is free, building and maintaining a company

profile takes hours each week. Costs for those hours add up quickly. In addition,
businesses need many followers before a social media marketing campaign starts
generating a positive return on investment (ROI). For example, submitting a post
to 15 followers does not have the same effect as submitting the post to 15,000
followers.

Because every business is unique and has a different target demographic, history
and competitive marketplace, no single marketing strategy works for every
business. The fact that social networking is constantly evolving also makes
keeping up with changes challenging and influences a company’s marketing
success rate.

Because social networking companies want businesses paying for advertising,

companies often restrict the amount of reach businesses may receive through
unpaid posts. For example, if a company has 500 followers, followers may not all
receive the same post.

Social Consumers

A social consumer is essentially an individual who consults an array of social

websites/platforms and individuals with genuine credibility throughout the social
media scene before making any buying decision.

Social Influencers

A social influencer is essentially a vast pool of social websites/platforms and

individuals with at least a certain degree of credibility throughout the social media
scene, who influence others towards making buying decisions geared towards a
certain kind of brand/website/product. A very popular example of such influencers
in today’s time is the YouTubers who put out videos regarding product reviews of
any kind. They often provide links to e-commerce websites from which their
subscribers/viewers can purchase the said product. This technique is also used by
brands to promote their products/services through a particular channel with the
intention of maximising sales by sponsoring their video.

For example Ola Cabs has been a long-time sponsor for AIB, who in turn, have
showcased the features of the app in many of their videos.
SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of increasing the quantity and
quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.

 Quality of traffic. You can attract all the visitors in the world, but if they're
coming to your site because Google tells them you're a resource for Apple
computers when really you're a farmer selling apples, that is not quality
traffic. Instead you want to attract visitors who are genuinely interested in
products that you offer.
 Quantity of traffic. Once you have the right people clicking through from
those search engine results pages (SERPs), more traffic is better.
 Organic results. Ads make up a significant portion of many SERPs. Organic
traffic is any traffic that you don't have to pay for.

How it works?

Google (or any search engine you're using) has a crawler that goes out and gathers
information about all the content they can find on the Internet. The crawlers bring
all those 1s and 0s back to the search engine to build an index. That index is then
fed through an algorithm that tries to match all that data with your query.
On-site SEO

On-site SEO (also known as on-page SEO) is the practice of optimizing

elements on a website (as opposed to links elsewhere on the Internet and other
external signals collectively known as "off-site SEO") in order to rank higher and
earn more relevant traffic from search engines. On-site SEO refers to optimizing
both the content and HTML source code of a page.
Off-site SEO

"Off-site SEO" (also called "off-page SEO") refers to actions taken outside of your
own website to impact your rankings within search engine results pages (SERPs).

Optimizing for off-site ranking factors involves improving search engine and user
perception of a site's popularity, relevance, trustworthiness, and authority. This is
accomplished by other reputable places on the Internet (pages, sites, people, etc.)
linking to or promoting your website, and effectively "vouching" for the quality of
your content.

Keywords

Keywords are ideas and topics that define what your content is about. In terms of
SEO, they're the words and phrases that searchers enter into search engines, also
called "search queries." If you boil everything on your page — all the images,
video, copy, etc. — down to a simple words and phrases, those are your primary
keywords.

As a website owner and content creator, you want the keywords on your page to be
relevant to what people are searching for so they have a better chance of finding
your content among the results.

Why are keywords important?

Keywords are important because they are the linchpin between what people are
searching for and the content you are providing to fill that need. Your goal in
ranking on search engines is to drive organic traffic to your site from the search
engine result pages (SERPs), and the keywords you choose to target (meaning,
among other things, the ones you choose to include in your content) will determine
what kind of traffic you get. If you own a golf shop, for example, you might want
to rank for "new clubs" — but if you're not careful, you might end up attracting
traffic that's interested in finding a new place to dance after dark.

Keywords are as much about your audience as they are about your content,
because you might describe what you offer in a slightly different way than some
people ask for it. To create content that ranks well organically and drives visitors
to your site, you need to understand the needs of those visitors — the language
they use and the type of content they seek. You can do this by talking to your
customers, frequenting forums and community groups, and doing your
own keyword research with a tool like Keyword Explorer.

Keywords can be broad and far-reaching, usually called "head keywords", or they
can be a more specific combination of several terms — these are often called
"long-tail keywords."

Singular keywords (or short tailed keywords) might appear to be your ultimate
goal as they often have temptingly high search volume. However, they usually
have extremely tough competition. You may want your boutique clothing store to
rank for "clothes," but it's going to be tough to rank above top ranked sites.

Viral Marketing

Viral marketing seeks to spread information about a product or service from person
to person by word of mouth or sharing via the internet or email. The goal of viral
marketing is to inspire individuals to share a marketing message to friends, family
and other individuals to create exponential growth in the number of its recipients.

In the case of viral marketing, "viral" refers to something that spreads quickly and
widely across its audience. Viral marketing is a deliberate enterprise, though the
distribution of a message happens organically. As such, social media provides the
perfect ecosystem for viral marketing, though it has its roots in traditional word-of-
mouth marketing. While the practice was much more widely used in the early to
mid-2000s, as new internet businesses were being created in extreme numbers, it is
still common among internet-based business-to-consumer (B-to-C) companies. The
widespread adoption of social networks, including YouTube, Twitter, Instagram,
Snapchat and Facebook, has enabled modern viral marketing efforts and increased
their efficacy.

Viral Marketing Example

A frequently used example of early viral marketing is Hotmail, the free web-based
email service launched in 1996 that included in its users' outgoing messages an
embedded advertisement and direct link inviting recipients to sign up for an
account. This practice led to the fastest growth among user-based media companies
at the time. Another example that illustrates how varied viral marketing can be is
the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. The ice bucket challenge existed before The ALS
Association utilized it to raise awareness and generate donations, but the massive
dissemination on social media of ALS Ice Bucket videos created a worldwide
sensation that not only increased ALS awareness tremendously, but also raised
$115 million in donations to the Association in the summer of 2014 alone.

Branding on Digital Platforms

Digital marketing has emerged as a specialism over the last decade with its origins
rooted in direct marketing. The increase in the number of personal devices and
their use means brand marketers have many more ways of communicating directly
and interactively with their target consumers or customers. Given this, it's no
surprise that branding concepts should be applied to digital media and technology
to develop brands through interactions with consumers on their digital devices.

Digital branding definition:

"Digital channels and assets are used to communicate a brand’s positioning (or
purpose) as part of multichannel brand communication or engagement
programmes".

Building a strong brand in the digital age is vital. Of course branding has
always been vital, but when we consider the online environment and changing
user behaviours, we can see the clear benefits of branding:
 Branding is a tool for developing and maintaining a competitive
advantage. In the noisy world of digital media, staying competitive is even
more of a daily challenge.
 Online users are more autonomous than they ever were. With
information at their fingertips, users are spoiled for choice in terms of
products and services. A well-defined brand is essential for distinguishing
your product or service from the rest.
 Brands have less control over what is said about them online. Users
have access to the opinions of other users, which heavily influence their
purchase decisions.
 The online customer relationship rarely ends with a sale. Brand
building in the digital environment should leverage this and convert one
time customers into coveted brand loyalists.
 Say goodbye to the funnel model; today there are various touch points
where users engage with brands, however branding ensures a
consolidated message.
 In addition to paid and owned media, strong digital branding has the
advantage of earned media – such as communities and brand
advocates.
 Branding is not only about your product or service – it’s about your
social engagement, customer services, sales process, your employees
and everything in between – think about how digital has changed the
above.
 Branding has always been about connectedness. Digital heightens the
connectedness of brands, people and things.

Tools for Digital Branding: (Explain in brief)

1) Social Media
2) SEO
3) SEM - PPC
4) Email Marketing
5) Mobile Marketing
6) Viral Marketing
Search engine marketing (SEM) is a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion
of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) primarily through
paid advertising.[1] SEM may incorporate search engine optimization(SEO), which adjusts or rewrites
website content and site architecture to achieve a higher ranking in search engine results pages to
enhance pay per click (PPC) listings.

Search engine marketing is a way to create and edit a website so that search engines rank it higher
than other pages. It should be also focused on keyword marketing or pay-per-click advertising
(PPC). The technology enables advertisers to bid on specific keywords or phrases and ensures ads
appear with the results of search engines.
With the development of this system, the price is growing under the high level of competition. Many
advertisers prefer to expand their activities, including increasing search engines and adding more
keywords. The more advertisers are willing to pay for clicks, the higher the ranking for advertising,
which leads to higher traffic.[15] PPC comes at a cost.

Email marketing is the act of sending a commercial message, typically to a group of people,
using email. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be
considered email marketing. It usually involves using email to send advertisements, request
business, or solicit sales or donations, and is meant to build loyalty, trust, or brand awareness.
Marketing emails can be sent to a purchased lead list or a current customer database. The term
usually refers to sending email messages with the purpose of enhancing a merchant's relationship
with current or previous customers, encouraging customer loyalty and repeat business, acquiring
new customers or convincing current customers to purchase something immediately, and sharing
third-party ads.

Transactional emails are usually triggered based on a customer's action with a company. To be
qualified as transactional or relationship messages, these communications' primary purpose must be
"to facilitate, complete, or confirm a commercial transaction that the recipient has previously agreed
to enter into with the sender" along with a few other narrow definitions of transactional
messaging.[2] Triggered transactional messages include dropped basket messages, password reset
emails, purchase or order confirmation emails, order status emails, reorder emails, and email
receipts.

Direct email involves sending an email solely to communicate a promotional message (for example,
a special offer or a product catalog). Companies usually collect a list of customer or prospect email
addresses to send direct promotional messages to, or they rent a list of email addresses from
service companies.

Advantages
Email marketing is popular with companies for several reasons:

 Email marketing is significantly cheaper and faster than traditional mail, mainly because with
email, most of the cost falls on the recipient[citation needed].
 Businesses and organizations who send a high volume of emails can use an ESP (email service
provider) to gather information about the behavior of the recipients. The insights provided by
consumer response to email marketing help businesses and organizations understand and
make use of consumer behavior[citation needed].
 Almost half of American Internet users check or send email on a typical day,[4] with emails
delivered between 1 am and 5 am local time outperforming those sent at other times in open
and click rates.[5][6]
Disadvantages

 As of mid-2016 email deliverability is still an issue for legitimate marketers. According to the
report, legitimate email servers averaged a delivery rate of 73% in the U.S.; six percent were
filtered as spam, and 22% were missing. This lags behind other countries: Australia delivers at
90%, Canada at 89%, Britain at 88%, France at 84%, Germany at 80% and Brazil at 79%.[7]

 Additionally, consumers receive on average about 90 emails per day.[8][better source needed]

 Companies considering the use of an email marketing program must make sure that their
program does not violate spam laws such as the United States' Controlling the Assault of Non-
Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM),[9] the European Privacy and Electronic
Communications Regulations 2003, or their Internet service provider's acceptable use policy.

Mobile marketing is promotional activity designed for delivery to cell

phones, smart phonesand other handheld devices, usually as a component of
a multi-channel campaign.

Some mobile marketing is similar to advertising delivered over other electronic

channels such as text, graphic and voice messages. SMS messaging is
currently the most common delivery channel for mobile marketing. Search
engine marketing is the second-most common channel, followed by display-
based campaigns.

The expanding capabilities of mobile devices also enable new types of

interactive marketing. New mobile marketing channels include:

 location-based service (LBS), which involves detecting the area the user is
connecting from (geolocation) and sending marketing messages for
businesses in that area.

 augmented reality mobile campaigns, which overlay the user's phone

display with location-specific information about businesses and products.
 2D barcodes, which are barcodes that scan vertically as well as
horizontally to include much more information. A mobile user can scan
barcodes in the environment to access associated information.

 GPS messaging, which involves location-specific messages that the user

picks up when he comes into range.

How Does Mobile Marketing Work?

Mobile marketing consists of ads that appear on mobile smartphones, tablets, or other
mobile devices. Mobile marketing ad formats, customization, and styles can vary, as
many social media platforms, websites, and mobile apps offer their own unique and
tailored mobile ad options.

Why You Need a Mobile Marketing Strategy

Your business needs a mobile marketing strategy for the same reason that you need a
computer and wi-fi access – this is the age in which we live! Walk around any major city
and you’ll find more than just a few folks with faces glued to their smartphone screens.
According to recent reports, 40% of users’ internet time is spent on mobile devices,
which means simply ignoring the rise of mobile just isn’t an option.

Some other interesting mobile marketing statistics:

 80% of mobile device time in spent on apps, with game apps eating up the largest
percent of app time
 People browse 70% more web pages on tablets than smartphones
 Retail conversion rates are 2.2% on tablets, considerably higher than 0.7% on
smartphones, but traditional PC conversion rates are still highest at 3.3%
 Mobile searches have increased 200% year over year in 2012
 Mobile is predicted to surpass desktop in 2014

Mobile is here to stay, and if forecasts are correct, it will soon by eclipsing desktop
usage. If you don’t have a mobile marketing strategy yet, it’s time to get going!

Types of Mobile Marketing Strategies

There’s a healthy variety of mobile marketing strategies to try. The kind that works best
for your business will depend on your industry, target audience, and budget.

App-based marketing: This is mobile advertising involving mobile apps. While 80% of
mobile time is spent engaged with apps, you don’t have to create an app yourself to get
in on the action. Services like Google AdMob help advertisers create mobile ads that
appear within third-party mobile apps.
Facebook also allows advertisers to create ads that are integrated into Facebook’s
mobile app. Facebook’s mobile Promoted Post ads integrate so seamlessly with
Facebook’s news feed that users often don’t realize they’re looking at ads.

In-game mobile marketing: In-game mobile marketing refers to mobile ads that appear
within mobile games, like in the example below. In-game ads can appear as banner
pop-ups, full-page image ads or even video ads that appear between loading screens.

Example of an in-game mobile marketing ad

QR codes: QR codes are scanned by users, who are then taken to a specific webpage
that the QR code is attached to. QR codes are often aligned with mobile gamification
and have an element of mystery to them, since users who scan them don’t always know
exactly which rabbit hole they’re jumping down.

Location-based marketing: Location-based mobile ads are ads that appear on mobile
devices based upon a user’s location relative to a specific area or business. For
example, some advertisers may only want their mobile ads to appear when users are
within a 1-mile radius of their business.

Mobile search ads: These are basic Google search ads built for mobile, often featuring
extra add-on extensions like click-to-call or maps.

Mobile image ads: Image-based ads designed to appear on mobile devices.

SMS: SMS marketing involves capturing a user’s phone number and sending them text
offers. This is considered somewhat passé.
 Audience Research for Marketing
Get To Know Your Audience
Before you can start planning any kind of marketing or brand campaign it is essential to take
audience research into account. This essential strategic stage allows you to identify the
consumers and prospective clients in your marketplace and better understand what drives their
needs and wants so that you can tailor your marketable offering to better appeal to them.

 Identify by age, ethnicity and other core demographics

 Understand economic drivers including income and disposable resources
 Recognise the principles of potential brand appeal and loyalty
 Distinguish between economic, political, ideological and even geographical drivers
 Professionally conducted audience research gives you an understanding of the core needs of
prospective customers and clients in order to allow you to target your marketing to gain optimum
return on investment and maximise business growth. This can affect everything from top level.

Types of social networks

Social Connections
Keeping in touch with friends and family members is one of the greatest benefits
of social networking. Here is a list of the most widely-used websites for building
social connections online.
  Facebook: Arguably the most popular social media utility, Facebook provides
a way for users to build connections and share information with people and
organizations they choose to interact with online.
 Twitter: Share your thoughts and keep up with others via this real-time
information network.
 Google +: This relatively new entrant to the social connection marketplace is
designed to allow users to build circles of contacts that they are able to
interact with and that is integrated with other Google products
 MySpace: Though it initially began as a general social media site, MySpace
has evolved to focus on social entertainment, providing a venue for social
connections related to movies, music games and more.
Related Articles
 Forms and Types of Social Media
 Online Social Networking Dangers
 What Is Social Network Theory?

2. Multimedia Sharing
Social networking makes it easy to share video and photography content online.
Here are some of the most popular sites for multimedia sharing.

 YouTube: Social media platform that allows users to share and view video
content
 Flickr: This site provides a powerful option for managing digital photographs
online, as well as for sharing them with others.

3. Professional
Professional social networks are designed to provide opportunities for career-
related growth. Some of these types of networks provide a general forum for
professionals to connect, while others are focused on specific occupations or
interests. A few examples of professional social networks are listed below.

 LinkedIn: As of November of 2011, LinkedIn had more than 135 million

members, making it the largest online professional network. Participants
have an opportunity to build relationships by making connections and
joining relevant groups.
 Classroom 2.0: Social network specifically designed to help teachers connect,
share and help each other with profession-specific matters.

4. Informational
Informational communities are made up of people seeking answers to everyday
problems. For example, when you are thinking about starting a home
improvement project or want to learn how to go green at home, you may perform
a web search and discover countless blogs, websites, and forums filled with
people who are looking for the same kind of information. A few examples include:

 The Nature Conservancy: Online community where individuals interested in

adopting green living practices and protecting the earth can interact
 Do-It-Yourself Community: Social media resource to allow do-it-yourself
enthusiasts to interact with each other

5. Educational
Educational networks are where many students go in order to collaborate with
other students on academic projects, to conduct research for school, or to interact
with professors and teachers via blogs and classroom forums. Educational social
networks are becoming extremely popularwithin the educational system today.
Some examples of such educational social networks are listed below.

 The Student Room: UK-based student community featuring a moderated

message board and useful resources related to school
 The Math Forum: A large educational network designed to connect students
with an interest in math, this site provides interaction opportunities for
students by age group.
 ePALS School Blog: This international social network for K-12 students is
designed to build international connections to promote world peace.

6. Hobbies
One of the most popular reasons many people use the Internet is to conduct
research on their favorite projects or topics of interest related to personal
hobbies. When people find a website based on their favorite hobby, they discover
a whole community of people from around the world who share the same passion
for those interests. This is what lies at the heart of what makes social networks
work, and this is why social networks that are focused on hobbies are some of the
most popular. A few examples of hobby-focused social networking sites include:

 Grow It!: Social media network app specifically for gardening enthusiasts.
 My Place at Scrapbook.com: Designed specifically for scrapbooking
enthusiasts, users can create profiles, share information, post updates and
more.

7. Academic
Academic researchers who want to share their research and review results
achieved by colleagues may find academic-specific social networking to be quite
valuable. A few of the most popular online communities for academics are:

 Academia.edu: Users of this academic social network can share their own
research, as well as follow research submitted by others.
 ResearchGate: Online resource for scientists and researchers to find,
organize and share useful information as well as network professionally.