Building a Strategy for Social Media

To remain competitive and relevant in today’s technological world, a number of businesses have realized that social media marketing is a good way to establish an online and prominent presence. By joining the digital age, both small and large businesses are drawing a considerable amount of attention to their products and/or services. Subsequently, they are improving their marketing performance, building-meaningful relationships, generating-huge profits, and securing-future business.

We are successfully utilizing social media as a powerful way to gain positive exposure and connect with our internet-savvy customers in a global and local level. We rely heavily in word-of-mouth advocacy”. (John Mackey, 2012)

One of the key roles of social media from a marketing perspective is the development of a client based platform. It is becoming an increasingly important part of any business’s marketing. Businesses can utilize existing online platforms to build networks of current and potential clients. By being active online allows businesses to connect with their customers in innovative ways to become a trusted source of information and convey the passion they have for their industry.

Social media has become an essential channel for corporations to build a two-way relationship with their customers. However, having a social media account cannot solve everything. To make the best use of social media in keeping a positive relationship with their customers, corporations ought to seek and maintain influence among their followers in social media, and participate in communications with them.

Social media has become essential as a marketing tool for CU's, which is why 74% of marketers are incorporating social media into their marketing budgets. The CMO Survey released in August 2014, indicates that “marketing budgets are expected to increase by 7.2% in the next year.” With 1.65 billion social accounts that are active globally, social media has become an effective

It is interesting how social media today is influencing the marketing role of many companies and how it’s playing a big role in their success. The more the company advertises on social media, the

Social media has become an influential ground for consumers to share their opinions about a company’s brand and products. In addition, it helps in having a strong brand that produces positive relations and distinguish the brand from competitors, is a critical component for effective marketing. According to Dahlén and Lange (2009) “the quality of the product is not the evident factor when it comes to purchasing a product, the deciding factor depends on how the brand is perceived” (Para. 1). This demonstrates the importance of incorporating social media as a tool to promote brands, allow for interactions, and customer satisfaction by engaging with customers more frequently for feedbacks or reviews. Thus create an opportunity for the company to show its devotion to their customers, and initiate good reputation, which can increase sales. In other words, social media has the ability to upsurge the awareness for businesses as well as the brand.

Social media being an ever growing industry, companies have incorporated their marketing and strategies to better their businesses. We explore that the reasons for the importance of incorporating this is: The daily use of handheld devices to access social media on a daily basis amongst computer use, Big data: online tracking produces oceans of data, challenging business analytics programs, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest

Social Media has changed the communication setting for all marketers. “Perhaps the greatest value of social media marketing is your ability to foster and engage with a community of people” (moz.com). An involved audience is one of the greatest resources a brand can have. There

Singla and Durga’s (2015) research proposes an explanation for the competitive advantage by using social media in business marketing. The article presents the benefits of internal and external use of social media within an organization. These values include processes of the value chain, and the influence on sales and marketing (Singla and Durga, 2015) . Incorporating social media can contribute to the overall success of a company by providing a unique approach highly targeted marketing (Assaad and Gomez, 2011). Individuals use social media platforms to obtain information about a given business, due to the frequency and timely information that is offered by the business social media sites. Businesses have the opportunity to post about the latest products, services, or upcoming events so their publics can stay up-to-date (Ozya and Edwin, 2015). Social media provides marketers and retailers with a convenient and accessible way to reach consumers and allows consumers to purchase more through the internet

Today, many businesses are experiencing the effects of social media. Government, businesses, and communities interact through social media and use it to access their investors and potential customers. According to Donovan (2016), “Most types of businesses today make use of different tactics and techniques to make a significant exposure of their website to its target customers.” The goal is to use social media to maximize their potential in order to be one of the strongest participants in the business world.

Social media is capable of connecting a brand with its consumers and discover how they are being perceived, it also has the power to change perceptions and identify the key people within the business network. The unique feature of social media is that it can provide corporations and businesses solutions developed through operating with consumers and stakeholders. Basically, social media serves as a visible connection to one’s corporation and its stakeholders, consumers, suppliers, etc, who each have a defined role within the system to filter and regulate information. As mentioned earlier, the influence of social media is spreading in a proliferative pace that has resulted to an essential transformation in society, technology and business customs.

The marketing industry is an elaborate network that links companies to their consumers, primarily through written communication. The main objective of marketing is to identify trends and patterns in consumer behavior, and utilize the data to influence consumers to purchase more goods. From a macroenviroment standpoint, the general conditions of a market are heavily dependent on global environmental factors. The most significant factor that influences the markets today is technological advancements. Since the release of Facebook, Linked-in, Twitter, and Myspace in the early 2000s, the number of people using social media has increased to over sixty-five percent. The ever-growing dependency on social media platforms, has given marketers the tremendous opportunity to further market potential consumers. Social media marketing is a specific form of marketing that focuses on producing ad content that social media users will post on their own networks. This particular marketing technique is effective because ads and content are created, based on what personal information users post on social media. Firms and organizations that advertise their brands on social media are more likely to increase their customer base and annual revenue. By doing so, companies are able to increase exposure of their brand and widen previous hidden, customer bases. As a marketer, the fine line between right and wrong is often blurred. The amount and

One out of every nine people in the world use Facebook, with an estimated 700 billion minutes being spent every month on this application, it is interesting to note that over 2.5 million organizations have a Facebook presence in addition to their corporate websites. An estimated 250 million people access social media sites through their mobile devices. The impact that social media has on the daily lives of people is beyond “like” on Facebook or “re-tweet” on Twitter. Organizations are feeling the need to be present on not just one social media platform, however, on ensuring that they are “available and listening” to all at all times. Commenting on the role of social media in an interview to the Harvard Business Review, Howard Schlutz (CEO – Starbucks)

The inception of social media has usher in a new frontier for marketing. Businesses are now utilizing this cutting edge technology to expand and compete in new markets. Social media is the most popular community that brings together people from diverse backgrounds. Businesses have realized how important social media is and are taking ever advantage of the enormous opportunities it provides. Social media is so well integrated into our everyday lives. Some people think of social media as a common extension of their communities. This is so because matters pertaining to people and their communities are discussed freely on social media. People are free to speak their minds, information are share without having to go through intensive scrutiny or the bureaucratic nuances that exist in our everyday world.