Social Media Marketing (PBL 6)

During the sixth PBL, we came up with the following problem: How to generate revenue with social media marketing (SMM)? This is quite interesting since consumers are not paying anything to use social media. The learning objectives to this problem are:

1. What are the most interesting social media platforms?
2. How can companies utilise social media marketing (methods)? 
3. How to integrate social media marketing to companies marketing strategies and how to monitor them? 

The most interesting social media platforms
Of course, everybody knows the most famous social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Youtube, and Instagram. 
There are also interesting, less famous, social media platforms, for example, Yelp. Yelp was founded in 2004 and it helps the user to find great local businesses like restaurants, hair salons or shops. Moreover, you can use it to look for various events. Every business can establish their own account to share photos and messages with other users.
According to seochat.com, there are different new social media platforms. The first one is Blab. This is a social media network for video chatters, like Skype and Google Hangout on Air. Another one is Yik Yak. You can download the app, narrow your location via Google, and communicate with anonymous people in your area. This can be an opportunity for companies to communicate with people and to create brand awareness.

How can companies utilise social media marketing (methods)?
First of all, according to the research of Juhee Kang there are different reasons why companies utilise social media:

1. To build new business models that include a new product marketing channel.
2. To build strong relationships with consumers by overcoming limitations of time and place. 
3. Using it as a tool for exchanging ideas about new offerings, directly listening to product/service comments from consumers, and learning more about consumers' needs. 

According to Bianca van de Ketterij on frankwatching.com, social networking is the number one activity in the worlds, so it is important for companies that they use and utilises it as well. Via social media, the company can share new products, interact with their customers, create campaigns, raise and increase brand awareness and receive feedback.
There are two options to use social media:

• Profile based: these are social sites that are build around a user profile, its connections and status/new updates, for example, Google+, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. These social media platforms work best with services.
• Visual based: these are the social sharing sites where the emphasis is on media, such as pictures or videos. These are for example Pinterest, Instagram, Youtube and Vine. These social media platforms work best with products. 

In the research of Holly Dickson, it is mentioned how to utilise different social media platforms.
First of all, important things to take into account when utilising Twitter are that posting more than a dozen times per day is acceptable and necessary. The most important element is the quality of the content in each tweet. For example, a newspaper should not tweet out every article it produces, but pick and choose the best quality content and present it on Twitter in an engaging and palatable way, not as a headline with a URL. Twitter should be used a place to have a conversation with its readers. There should also be different accounts utilised to cater to niche audiences.

Companies which are on Facebook also create conversations with their customers. They create for example one page where the customer can find all the product of the company and everything and another page which is kind of a helpdesk. Via this page the customer can ask his question and they will have a quick respond (at least, when the company is doing it well).
The research also mentions that Facebook should not be used to broadcast, but rather to engage with users. The company should post every day, but only if it has interesting and engaging content. It is important to remember to build engagement on each post before you start posting more frequently. Thereby, the company should reply to users on social media if they ask something.

Google+ is another social media platform that can be utilised. Google+ has huge potential for business and brands, but it is not yet enough widely used to have as much use Facebook or Twitter do currently. Google+ is similar to Facebook. It should be utilised in order to get gain a solid content base and following so that the company begins to show up in other users Google searches.

Then there is Pinterest. Here the company should curate interesting information about features or topics that are about the company. The key is to engage your audience.

At last, there are different photo sharing networks. It is really important to share high-quality photographs on social media networks. Instagram is the best way to create buzz and loyal followers by using it to share photographs from for example staff. Instagram is perfect to share more personal or behind-the-scenes content gathered. For example for a newspaper it could be the following: the editing process in a newsroom and reporters and photographers on the ground.

The conclusion of the research is that you should not post on social media simply for the sake of posting. Any post on a network must contain quality content or an engaging means of dissemination, such as an interesting question or both.

How to integrate SMM to companies marketing strategies and how to monitor them
Jay  Baer mentions on convinceandconvert.com a three step social media adoption plan to integrate social media into the marketing of a company:

1. Devise an appropriate, tactically-agnostic social media strategy.
2. Audit your current marketing, and add social media ingredients.
3. Where necessary, add new social media programs. 

Jay also mentions five ways to achieve cross-media synergy with social media:

1. Social media + search marketing: create content about your brand, and distribute it as widely as possible. Optimise every piece of content for the search.
2. Social media + Email: add social sharing to your emails. Promote your email program in social media, and vice versa. Use your social initiatives to try out new content approaches, adding the most successful content to your email program.
3. Social media + virtual events: promote your presentation on the social web, for example on Slideshare.net. 
4. Social media + live events: extend your event before and after it happens, using social media. Think about Tweets and other ways that social media can come to life.
5. Social media + market research: via social media, you can easily ask your customers and fans what they think. You can create all-new products via consumer input and you can execute very simple crowdsourcing programs. 

According to seochat.com, there are different dashboards on which companies can monitor the social media they use. An example is Cyfe. Cyfe is a way to make sense of the buzzing social media world: you can archive social media streams and search results, monitor social media statistics and set up reputation management dashboards.
According to getapp.com, there are different apps a company can use to monitor their different social media platforms, like Campaign Monitor, Autopilot, ActiveDEMAND, ActiveCampaign and TargetEveryOne. Coosto is also a tool that companies can use.

Sources
Baer, J. (2016), How to integrate social media into your marketing, accessed 30 September 2016, from http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-strategy/how-to-integrate-social-media-into-your-marketing/

Dickson, H. (2013), How newspapers can utilise social media networks, Degree Bachelor of Science in Journalism, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.

getapp.com (2016), Marketing Automation Software, accessed 30 September 2016, from https://www.getapp.com/p/sem/marketing-automation-software?t=Marketing%20Automation%20Software&camp=adw_search&gclid=Cj0KEQjwmri_BRCZpaHkuIH75_IBEiQAIG0rIXga4GxsK2JLpdTmQ-0u0TScNzGgqv6mUxkUWhVXuMQaArQq8P8HAQ

Kang, J. (2011), Social media marketing in the hospitality industry (Graduate Theses and Dissertations), Doctor of Philosophy, Iowa State University, Iowa.

Ketterij van de, B. (2014), Which social media platform fits best by your organisation?, accessed 30 September 2016, from
https://www.frankwatching.com/archive/2014/10/31/welk-social-media-platform-past-het-best-bij-jouw-organisatie-infographic/

seochat.com (2016), 7 cool new social media networks, apps & tools to check out in 2016, accessed 30 September 2016, from https://www.seochat.com/c/a/social/7-cool-new-social-media-networks-apps-tools-to-check-out-in-2016/

Writer, S. (2012), The 20 most interesting social networks, accessed 30 September 2016, from https://www.socialbakers.com/blog/808-article-the-20-most-interesting-social-networks