Social Media Platforms And Their Impact On Marketing Strategies

Opportunities for Marketers

Social media platforms affect the purchasing behaviour of the people and gives new opportunities to the marketers

Social media platforms have been widely used in different formats of business.  Social media platform such as Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram are capable of solving multiple problems faced by the organisation especially the issues that are faced by marketers. Numbers of people that are attached with such social media platforms are in billions. It acts as a wonderful opportunity for the companies to market their products among larger population across boundaries with limited efforts and costing. In the increasing competitive market, these social media sites acts a platform where companies could do one to one marketing easily understanding the need of each and every individual (Berthon, et al. 2012).

The increased use of these platforms has not only changed the working nature of the company but has also brought new behaviour among the customers. This has generated multiple opportunities for the both consumers and marketers. These opportunities have originated because of the fact that bringing use of such technologies has changed the purchasing behaviour of the people. The firs and the most crucial opportunities that these social media sites have created is that it has given the platform for the marketers to re-build their marketing campaigns (Solomon, et al. 2014). It is because of the fact that social media platforms are capable of posting advertisements that are unique and innovative. They take use of different types of multimedia tools for improving the quality of the marketing campaign as well as to make it more attractive.

It is essential for the organisation to take use of different social media strategies so as to improve the quality of the social media campaign. This must be done on the basis of the problems that are faced by the firm in their marketing. One of the most essential problems that company is facing in their modern day marketing is related to doing research. Since these platforms have enormous amount of data related to client’s choice and about their likes hence it acts an effective place where data can be gathered and evaluated (Chu and Kim, 2011). After evaluating the data, personalised marketing can be made more effective. Social media platforms such as Facebook also allow companies to get the feedbacks from the customers in the form of comments. These feedbacks enable them to maintain equal and effective relations with the customers. Most importantly, these feedbacks help them in understanding the consumer’s behaviour. It is essential for the marketers to change their marketing campaign as per the changing marketing behaviour. These platforms provide an effective space to the users also so as to know about the company and their choice. Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram help the company to generate fan pages that are capable of improving the visibility of the products and services.

It is not that social media platforms are only capable of attracting people but they are also effective in changing the mind-set of the people. The analysis of the social media marketing shows that firms that are performing well on the social media platforms are always able to maintain a good lead over the competitors. The major reason for this is the fact that companies have more chance to understanding the priorities about the changes in the market (Kim and Ko, 2012). Apart from this, social media platforms are capable of maintaining good leads with their clients. Customer’s engagement can be increased with the help of social media platforms.  There is significant increase in the numbers of people that are engaging with the companies at such platforms. Companies also use this engagement for their strategy making. Such strategies prove to be more worthy and give opportunity to the firm to ensure the enhancement in the number of satisfied customers.

Changed Behaviour Among Customers

It is the social media platform that helps the companies to understand the demands of the public world-wide. Social media has a significant impact on the making and spreading of trends in any industry. This further has a significant impact on the customer’s choice and the way they make a purchase (Chen, Fay and Wang, 2011). In the time when people are making most of their purchase through online mediums, such social media platforms are able to provide direct link to their online sites from where purchase could be easily made.

Social media sites are like gifts to the small and medium size enterprises as they do not have huge amount of resources for promoting their products at the lower cost. It also enables these SMEs to find potential markets along with customers. This increases their effectiveness as a marketer as they can easily challenge the autonomy of the bigger firms (Schivinski and Dabrowski, 2016). It has given opportunities for the firms to go global as they can easily do both local and international marketing by the help of these social media platforms.

One of the biggest challenges that company faced previously was related to distributing reward coupons among the people. For example the flexible pricing strategies that need to be conveyed to the customers on the daily basis can be easily done with the help of social media platforms.  Since people are highly active on these sites hence there is a higher probability for the companies to showcase their promotional steps to the targeted customers (Hudson, et al. 2016). Changes in the purchasing behaviour of the customers can also be understood by the fact that social media gives variety of options to the customers from where they can select the products and services as per their demand. Now a day, people are comparing the prices and other attributes of the products at such platforms. They also analyse the reviews given by the customers who have previously used the products (Rapp, et al. 2013). Such reviews act as one of the primary sources from where purchase intentions have been manipulated.

The most significant impact on the purchasing intention can be seen by the fact that social media platforms are wonderful source for improving the image of the products or services by running a positive campaign about it. Since people also share their reviews about the product hence it has become easier for the companies to outreach to maximum possible customers by doing mass marketing (Akar and Topçu, 2011). Changes in the marketing campaign can also be made quickly and hence they are able to target larger segments in the society with minimum of efforts.

Previously marketers have to make strategies that involved large numbers of people in their traditional marketing campaign. With the introduction of the social media platform as a marketing tool, companies are able to reduce this number as only few amounts of people can handle big marketing campaigns (Dijkmans, Kerkhof and Beukeboom, 2015). They just have to maintain good people in the social media management team. This has helped the companies to do marketing at lesser cost.

Social Media Strategies

Another opportunity that social media platforms has given to the companies is that it has improved the control of the people over the word-of-mouth marketing campaign. This is because people are very much vocal about the products and services at such platforms hence companies can also make change in their products as well as in their marketing campaign citing these reviews and comments. In the rural areas where the marketing is not easier to do with traditional marketing methods, such social media campaigns are highly useful as the reach of the social media campaigns is increasing in the rural areas also (Okazaki and Taylor, 2013). This has helped the firms in increasing their market segments in terms of geographies.

The fan pages that are created by the lovers of that brand help them in improving the efficiency of the social media campaign. These pages have a greater role in managing the general perception in the market. It also helps the marketers to float additional information about the products or services on these platforms (Chu and Kim, 2011). This helps them in answering to the needs of the employees. On the other hand marketers also follow many of the brands on their social media pages and this has a crucial role in increasing the knowledge of the people regarding the upcoming products and services of the company. At the same time it also satisfies the people’s curiosity about the company’s future plans and innovation they are working on.

Products and services in the travel and tourism industry are significantly affected by the social media campaigns. This is because the marketing of the products and services related to the travel industry is significantly influenced by the marketing done on the social media campaigns. People’s enjoyment video that is shared by the companies on their social media pages plays a greater role in attracting people towards their packages (Leung, et al. 2013). Marketers get the opportunity to highlight the great moments experienced by the people and show it to other people. People purchase those packages that get more positive reviews.

In the concluding remark, it can be said that social media marketing has a greater role in the management of the people’s perception. It helps in making the promotional more effective as well as and reduces the additional efforts from the side of the customers. Social media is one of those platforms that are self-sufficient in improving the whole marketing campaign. This is because from research to reaching out to the customers everything can be easily done with the help of social media platforms.

References

Akar, E. and Topçu, B., 2011. An examination of the factors influencing consumers’ attitudes toward social media marketing. Journal of Internet Commerce, 10(1), pp.35-67.

Berthon, P.R., Pitt, L.F., Plangger, K. and Shapiro, D., 2012. Marketing meets Web 2.0, social media, and creative consumers: Implications for international marketing strategy. Business horizons, 55(3), pp.261-271.

Chen, Y., Fay, S. and Wang, Q., 2011. The role of marketing in social media: How online consumer reviews evolve. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 25(2), pp.85-94.

Chu, S.C. and Kim, Y., 2011. Determinants of consumer engagement in electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) in social networking sites. International journal of Advertising, 30(1), pp.47-75.

Dijkmans, C., Kerkhof, P. and Beukeboom, C.J., 2015. A stage to engage: Social media use and corporate reputation. Tourism Management, 47, pp.58-67.

Hudson, S., Huang, L., Roth, M.S. and Madden, T.J., 2016. The influence of social media interactions on consumer–brand relationships: A three-country study of brand perceptions and marketing behaviors. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 33(1), pp.27-41.

Kim, A.J. and Ko, E., 2012. Do social media marketing activities enhance customer equity? An empirical study of luxury fashion brand. Journal of Business Research, 65(10), pp.1480-1486.

Leung, D., Law, R., Van Hoof, H. and Buhalis, D., 2013. Social media in tourism and hospitality: A literature review. Journal of travel & tourism marketing, 30(1-2), pp.3-22.

Okazaki, S. and Taylor, C.R., 2013. Social media and international advertising: theoretical challenges and future directions. International marketing review, 30(1), pp.56-71.

Rapp, A., Beitelspacher, L.S., Grewal, D. and Hughes, D.E., 2013. Understanding social media effects across seller, retailer, and consumer interactions. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 41(5), pp.547-566.

Schivinski, B. and Dabrowski, D., 2016. The effect of social media communication on consumer perceptions of brands. Journal of Marketing Communications, 22(2), pp.189-214.

Solomon, M.R., Dahl, D.W., White, K., Zaichkowsky, J.L. and Polegato, R., 2014. Consumer behavior: Buying, having, and being (Vol. 10). London: Pearson.