Technology has drastically changed the way we interact. It
has made communication easy, simple and faster. The explosion of mobile
technology and availability of internet access in fusion with social networks
and media has ensured that communication no longer remain in the traditional
formats. Marketers all over the world are making good use of this development
to their advantage.
Marketing on social networks is relatively cheaper than
traditional marketing. Social media basically represents low-cost tools that are used to combine technology
and social interaction with the use of words, graphics, sound and videos. These
tools are typically internet or mobile- based. Examples are Twitter, Facebook,
Blogs, Youtube, Pinterest, Instagram, you name them.
Interactions on social media are usually informal and more
personalized. What social media offers innovative marketers is a voice and a
way to communicate with peers, customers and potential consumers. It personalizes
the "brand" and helps marketers to spread messages in a relaxed and
conversational way. For instance, Samsung Mobile can advertise a new flagship
with simple conversational terms within a 140 character limit on Twitter
without having to pay anything for the service. It is absolutely free as long
as you have a Twitter account, unless of course you want the network to promote
your tweets, then you pay a fee.
What the marketer aims to achieve is to inform consumers
about products, who an organization is, what they offer, as well as building up
the brand image. Social media helps to achieve these in diverse ways.
Social media enables companies to get instant feedback from
their consumers and this helps them to streamline their marketing strategies from
the constant stream of real-time feedback from consumers. In the case of Reebok
and Rick Ross, for example, Reebok had to drop Rick Ross, a Hip-hop artiste,
from being a brand ambassador when social media went berserk in protest to his
divisive lyrics. Without social media, the company might have realized belatedly
their error in making him an ambassador and suffered the repercussions.
Using social media, we can create relationships with
people who might otherwise not know about our products, service or what our
companies represent. How many times do we not zip and zap when we are watching
the television or listening to the radio? How many times have we actually
stopped to look or read something on a billboard? Social media is intrusive and
can grab your attention even when you do not ask for it. A constant tweet or
update is all it takes and you do not even have to pay for it.
MTN Ghana recently increased its social media presence by giving
out airtime, movie tickets and other goodies to people who tweeted about the
company on twitter. When someone gets the free airtime, they do not stop
talking about it. You may not like the network you will notice them.
And for a network that has been touted as the “most terrible
network” by some people, this social media presence and the free giveaways
humanizes them. This is both a great and smart publicity.
Unsolicited customer testimonial is priceless!
The downside of using social media as a marketing tool is
that it sometimes becomes difficult to track all the attention that stream in.
The momentum of attention coming in could be so great that there is the
possibility of skipping some important feedback or annoying a consumer for
ignoring their request. It needs time and dedication. In the extreme, hackers
can manipulate the company’s account to post malicious stuff or just upset the
social media ecosystem.
Marketers should use social media as a tool that creates a
personality behind their brands and relationships that you may never have gained.
This would build customer loyalty. The good news is social media is so
diversified that it can be used in whatever way best suits the interest and the
needs of your business and the pros obviously supersede the cons.
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