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 (these are 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
