Social Media and Mobile Marketing
Social Media Marketing Defined
Social media marketing should be distinguished from social media platforms themselves. Social Media Marketing (SMM) as a process is the business use of social media channels to understand customers and engage them in such a way that leads to the achievement of ultimate marketing and business goals. Therefore, the ultimate goal of social media marketing is to use social media tools to reach a particular target consumer and to foster engagement, social sharing, and advocacy among the customer base. There are various forms of social media such as blogs, chat rooms social networking sites, podcasts, and so on as shown in Figure 6.1. Each platform has its own place in a social media marketing campaign, depending on where the customer is and the company’s strategy, website and brand objectives.
How Social Media Marketing Relates to Content Marketing
Taking a step back we need to look at social media in the context of content marketing. We also need to take a further step back and look at content marketing in the context of the brand story. Once we have decided our positioning strategy and developed the brand story, we need to decide what content will help reinforce that story. For a university for example, it might be success stories of recent graduates. For example, Red Bull has a prize-winning content marketing program. Their content goes beyond their product to the types of activities their customers engage in such as biking, surfing, and extreme sports. The site also features products of interest such as Internet watches. Content is disseminated on the website and through social media platforms, blogs, and so on. Content marketing is also important in developing search terms on the website that reinforce the brand story. So, as shown in Figure 6.2, we first develop our brand story, then decide what type of content will reinforce our brand, and then how that content will be repurposed on various channels.
Figure 6.1 The proliferation of social platforms
Previously we talked about the power of networks which means that information on the Internet spreads rapidly. Putting networks with the power of a long-standing marketing concept, word of mouth, means that marketers hope to influence the word of mouth about our product positively. Marketers do so by cultivating key social “influencers” which can be identified through social media marketing software tools such as Radian6 (the most popular). For example, Braun marketed its new coffee maker by identifying key influencers and getting them to blog about the product and share information online. Recently it initiated a similar campaign for its CoolTec shaver.53 The company used 500 “brand ambassadors” to spread the word about the product on various social media platforms.
Figure 6.2 Developing the brand story through content
Successful Social Media Campaigns
Successful social media campaigns run the gamut and there is no one key to success. If a company tries to make a campaign, “go viral,” it cannot be done. This is where the marketplace has really taken hold of the digital marketing process. Some examples of successful campaigns that have taken off online include the “Old Spice” video campaign, both offline and on YouTube, which has transformed the brand from an “old guy” one into a hip brand used by young people.
Often even business-to-business companies, which have lagged business-to-customer companies in social media marketing usage, can make use of humor to create engagement. One example of such an approach example is Sungard’s “Zombie Apocolypse” guide to using its protection services in case of the coming imaginary Zombie attack. Content marketing strategies are critical today in B2B demand generation where it is estimated that 57 percent of the purchase decision has been made before the customer even touches the client. Applications such as Shopkick have made the process of shopping itself a social function, with users getting points for entering certain stores.
Figure 6.3 Types of media and examples
Paid, Earned, Owned, and Shared Media
When thinking about implementing a social media marketing campaign, we categorize social media across all four types of media channels, paid, earned, owned, and shared media (Figure 6.3). It is possible to pay for media by advertising on social sites or sponsoring blog posts and tweets (these sponsorship opportunities must be identified as such). Companies can own different platforms such as our own blogs and social media accounts. Firms can also earn attention when videos, blog posts, and other types of information go “viral” through social media. Shared content occurs when the company and consumer co-create content, often on social media platforms, as when a brand such as Doritos® invites customers to create advertisements for the product or when customers spontaneously create such content. The most cherished content is that which is earned by the firm and that which shared with the customer because that content has the ability to create long-lasting impressions and to “go viral,” creating awareness and brand loyalty that is impossible to purchase.
Social Media and Engagement
At this point it is reasonable to talk about what customer engagement (CE) means. Brodie et al.54 defined it as “a psychological state that occurs by virtue of interactive, co-creative customer experiences with a focal agent/object (e.g., a brand) in focal service relationships. It occurs under a specific set of context-dependent conditions generating differing CE levels; and exists as a dynamic, iterative process within service relationships that co-create value. CE plays a central role in a nomological network governing service relationships in which other relational concepts (e.g., involvement, loyalty) are antecedents and/or consequences in iterative CE processes. It is a multidimensional concept subject to a context- and/or stakeholder-specific expression of relevant cognitive, emotional and/or behavioral dimensions.”
In other words CE is both a state and a process. When customers interact in a process that is co-creative with a brand, they can be said to be in a state of engagement. However, engagement is also a process which can be used to develop deeper customer loyalty, for example, which then, iteratively, engenders engagement.
Social media platforms that allow for sharing and creation of content are therefore prime candidates for companies to use for CE. Right now the top five social media networking platforms used by marketers in terms of unique monthly visitors are Google + (YouTube), LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest.55 However, Tumblr and Instagram are growing rapidly and come in six and seven, respectively. Instagram, with its ability to share photos quickly, is quite popular not only among Millineals but those marketing visual products. One of the most followed realtors on Twitter (84,000 followers) is Fredrik Eklund, an agent with Douglas Elliman and a star of “Million Dollar Listing New York.” Eklund uses Facebook and Instagram for his primary social media marketing because they allow for visual images in a visual business and because these platforms are where his customers reside, socially speaking.56 The Bookmarking site Reddit.com has also become popular with marketers of late. As of this writing, several new platforms were launching and who knows which one will take off and provide real potential for marketers.
After all, the rule of thumb in social media marketing is to “Fish Where the Fish Are,”57 so if your target customer is on a particular site, it is useful to monitor that site. For example, if we run a restaurant, Yelp might be a good choice. If you are marketing to businesses, you might choose LinkedIn as a platform. Facebook has been found to be a good source of brand-building for consumer brands, whereas Twitter can be used for both B2B and B2C applications. Personas can be used in social media just as they are used for website development. When creating personas for social media we take in to account the social media platforms which the persona might frequent and their level of engagement. Many B2B companies, such as IBM, create their own social media platforms for private use, often known as “white label” networks. On these private networks, the company’s staff can share information among themselves and/or users. Sometimes these private networks are used for new product development efforts and the company wishes to keep the information outside of the public domain.
Forrester Research has an online version of its Technographics ladder which demonstrates how social media usage changes across various age and genders. You can use the tool to see creators, conversationalists, collectors, critics, joiners, spectators, and inactives changes across these boundaries.58 As the Forrester ladder shows, only about a quarter of the population creates content on social media, whereas three-quarters of us are spectators on social media. This means that for engagement we are not going to be able to get everyone in a high state of engagement. We do, however, need to take our audience into account and provide content that people will want to read and share.
The trick in social media marketing is to not just talk to the customer but to get them to comment and share on what is relevant to them. After rapport has been established, it is fine to ask customer what they want directly. Another way of finding what they are thinking about is to use some of the monitoring tools mentioned in this chapter.
Planning, Monitoring, and Measuring
Planning the social media campaign is critical to success. Usually we consider that the steps in social media planning are:
1. Listen to the customer,
2. Communicate with the customer,
3. Foster engagement with the customer, and
4. Work toward collaboration with the customer.
We have an example of a listening tool in Google Trends. Another free tool is Social Mention, which allows for monitoring of both trends and sentiment (positive or negative) around topics and firms. An example of collaboration known as crowdsourcing is the Threadless.com site where users submit t-shirt designs for which they are given a small fee if the user community votes that the design is used in t-shirts to be sold to the public by Threadless. Other types of collaboration include making changes to products and service processes as a result of customer input or encouraging customers to make videos about the product that are shared on the web.
Hootsuite™ is the market leader in the category of tools that allows for monitoring of social media content and engaging in social media discussions. The company offers an online certification program and a university program that helps professors train students in social media. Tools such as Hootsuite™ allow for scheduling of posts in advance, which can allow for the implementation of a content marketing calendar on social media. In general, a calendar should be used that crosses media so that messages can be controlled and coordinated across channels. The calendar should be based on the objectives for the social media marketing plan, remembering that the customer is also an active participant in that plan, and that engagement must be a stated objective. A sample content marketing plan is shown in Figure 6.4.
Other tools for monitoring include, as noted above, Radian6 and free social listening tools such as Google Alerts, Social Mention, Facebook Insights, and Twitter’s advanced tools. As with each of the four foundations of the digital marketing delivery mix with which we have worked, we need to have a process for putting our plan together and engaging with the customer base in a meaningful way. For example, Hilton Hotels is well-known for understanding its customers well and providing the right type of pillow and having information at their fingertips and often engages in social listening to determine customer’s specific needs.
Figure 6.4 Sample content marketing plan
Objectives may range from branding to creating advocacy, although direct sales pitches often are perceived negatively by social media users. Although coupons have been used effectively on social media, the emphasis should be content. Generally, the more content we can share that is useful to our customers, the deeper the brand relationship.
For every social media campaign, there should be tools to measure the success of the campaign. We might measure likes, comments, and shares depending on the objectives of the campaign. To develop proper measurement tools, think about your company and what you might hope to achieve from social media. It is important to take into account how each platform displays your posts and comments. For example, the Facebook EdgeRank algorithm shows the people with which you are most engaged. A small business might not have its posts show up on its users’ stream if there has been no prior engagement. The marketing effort might not be effective because not everyone is seeing the posts. Often in social media measurement, we have to determine which platform or application should receive what percent of credit for the final sale online, a process known as attribution.59
To have it all work together, content marketing strategies that incorporate social media must be based on relevant keywords. In Chapter 4 I suggested carefully considering the keywords which are most relevant to our efforts. Keywords need to be continually updated and incorporated across all of our content marketing strategy. However, since Google is providing less information on keywords than it used to, it can be difficult to determine which organic search keywords are driving users to your site. Google Webmaster tools provides some insight, as can running even a limited paid search campaign, looking at search sources other than Google and seeing which landing pages are being most frequently accessed.60 It can also be useful to survey customers and see what they continue to access and look at to determine which keywords can best be used on social media and other content to optimize your content marketing strategy.
Combining Mobile and Local (SoLoMo)
If digital, content, and social media marketing are all about engagement, then mobile marketing is all about engaging with the customer when and where they are ready to make a decision or create engagement. Mobile marketing has arrived, but what is it? Unlike the four foundations of the digital marketing delivery mix, search, social, web design, and e-mail, mobile is not a specific marketing channel. Mobile is a delivery platform upon which digital messages can be conveyed and digital customer interactions can be undertaken and measured. Mobile platforms include smartphones, tablets, and other devices imagined or yet to be imagined (such as Smart Watches and Google Glasses).
Mobile is part of a trend called “SoLoMo” in which marketing is, as the name suggests, social, local, and mobile. This trend is also sometimes called digital convergence because of the coming together of content from many media channels on digital devices.61 Digital convergence, accessing information on multiple platforms, also includes the “Internet of Things” in which home appliances and other devices not usually considered “smart” are able to be controlled by consumers via various Internet-enabled devices.
Figure 6.5 SoLoMo defines digital marketing
Integrated SoLoMo
These concepts of SoLoMo are being used to create marketing campaigns that integrate social media, local computing, and mobile devices (Figure 6.5). Often gaming concepts are integrated as well; gaming is a growing industry. For example, the MINI Getaway was launched on iPhones in Stockholm. The goal was to find and create brand evangelists for the new version of the MINI. Users captured a virtual MINI on their phone and then ran because others within a certain distance could “take” the mini for themselves. The contest went on for several weeks until the last person with a MINI on their iPhone won a real MINI Countryman car. Thousands of people in Stockholm played the game, clogging the streets in the last days of play. Hundreds of thousands of social shares resulted and the marketers claim that a “movement” was created as well.62 A similar example is the M&M’s “find Red” game which involved users in tracking down M&M’s Red character on their phones throughout Toronto.63
Like any aspect of digital marketing, campaigns and interactions on mobile platforms must be carefully planned and have measureable objectives. With the rapid pace of change in this area, measurement must be continually reassessed.
Mobile marketing is also part of a trend called “pervasive computing” in which the marketer can access any customer at any time, over any Internet-enabled device. Not only can e-mails, search, and social media interactions be delivered or take place on mobile devices, but mobile marketing includes video marketing, QR and barcodes, text messages, display advertising, and other forms of content marketing. Therefore, mobile is really a platform like the desktop computer, except it is always with the customer.
Using responsive web design, we can deliver a customer experience that is tailored to the specific device, or platform, upon which the customer is engaging with us. Responsive web design might mean delivering a mobile experience tailored to a specific platform, that is, Android smartphone. Responsive web design can also include responses that are personal to the particular customer if they are logged in or as a result their search query keywords.
Applications on mobile devices (known as “Apps”) and especially free apps have exploded and provide an advertising opportunity. However, because of the difficulties of the many different types of ad browsers and delivering ads within the application, mobile ads have not been as targeted as traditional advertisements. Some ad networks are working on solutions to this issue.64
Mobile Advertising
Mobile interactions have exploded, with the majority of e-mails now being opened on mobile devices. In fact, video advertising and visual images as well as gaming are good applications for the mobile platform as Smartphones and mobile devices become faster. Global ad spend is growing at double-digit rates and will increase 83 percent to nearly $18 billion in 2014, more than newspapers or radio. However, advertising spending is still disproportionate. Spending on mobile advertising will be only about 10 percent of ad spend, in spite of the fact that Americans spend more than 10 percent of their time on their mobile devices.65 There is a disconnect in spending versus time spent as marketers adjust to the new world of digital convergence.
It is not surprising that we encounter this problem of the disconnect between user time spent and amount spent on advertising as the digital advertising landscape in general is fast-moving and changing daily. Digital advertising has expanded rapidly over the last few years. As state previously, the initial idea upon seeing a web browser on a screen was for advertisers and their agencies to view Internet advertising as a small form of television advertising. These ad formats are known as banner ads. Click-through rates were initially high until users became used to the ads and did not seek value.
Today’s advertisements that are successful are visual, interactive, and often include a video format. The Internet Advertising Bureau has a series of formats that are considered “Rising Stars” that include rich media formats. These ads typically have higher engagement rates, sometimes two or three times higher than traditional banner ads.66
Advertising today has become more complex than in the early days of the Internet. Terrence Kawaja and his associates at Luma Partners have created a series of graphics that attempt to explain the complexity, but these charts can also be daunting.67 Delivering advertising online depends heavily on cookies (code that lets website owners and advertisers know when someone has previously visited a site) and on developing an in-depth understanding the customer by integrating data from data suppliers such as Experian, Epsilon, and Acxiom to try to identify the customer, if not by name, as closely as possible. If you ever noticed that you looked for an item, did not buy it, and then found it on an advertisement on your web browser, then that is because of using cookies and a practice known as retargeting. Ads can also be delivered based on the context of the consumer’s search patterns or e-mail communications, their online behavior (identified if logged in or unidentified if not) or their geographical location.
Basically, online advertising evolved from using simple ad exchanges to place ads to a complicated system of “real-time bidding” (RTB) whereby the majority of ads are delivered automatically through ad networks. These ads are then shown automatically via social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook, ad servers such as Double Click and other publisher tools. Advertisers either pay per “click” or per “impression” for the ad and conversion rates are typically low. In addition, most of the online display advertising continues to be concentrated in the top five advertising websites in this order, Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and AOL, making it difficult to launch a new business and fund it through advertising.68 The concentrated ad market and the complicated business of RTB and programmatic or “automatic” ad buying have both transformed media buying and will continue to do so.
Advertisements will continue to be placed on mobile devices, social media, and anywhere else the consumer is likely to be. However, it is likely that conversion rates will continue to be lower than those of other types of media such as e-mail and paid search. Advertising is still best used for brand-building, even in digital marketing. In fact, 37.7 percent of those who interacted with a mobile rising stars ad (new, improved ad formats) said the experience improved brand impression 20.6 percent who for standard mobile banner ads. The benefits of social media and other marketing channels discussed in this book cannot be overlooked and should be seen as supplementing any digital advertising plan.69
What to Do Next after Chapter 6:
1. Imagine you are creating a content marketing campaign for your own or another company product or service. Relating back to Chapter 2, what is your unique positioning and how will you create value for your customers?
2. Based on your target customer, select three social platforms that you think will be most likely to reach that customer.
3. Design a content marketing plan for that product or service using the example in Figure 6.4. Can you use one piece of content and “repurpose” it across multiple social platforms?
Chapter 6 Discussion Questions:
Discussion 6.1: Why do you think some managers are resistant to the idea of engaging in social media marketing? What could you do or say to convince your reluctant boss that SMM could be a good idea in a specific business setting?
Discussion 6.2: Imagine that recently your company has been trying to convert participants on its various social media platforms to customers. What advice can you give those in charge about increasing conversion?
Discussion 6.3: Among, paid, owed, earned, and shared media, which is the most credible to customers on social media and why? Give an example from your own or other’s experiences.
Discussion 6.4: Explain the concept of CE. What is its relevance to digital marketing? Contrast that with the role of CE in the offline retailing environment. Are they the same?
Chapter 6 Glossary:
Social media monitoring: Keeping track of social media activity, often through a commercial application.
Customer engagement: How involved customers are with the brand as well as a process for keeping them involved.
Social media marketing (SMM): Using forms of social media for brand and product promotion and to foster engagement.
Content marketing: Using the creation of meaningful content around the brand for marketing purposes to foster engagement and brand loyalty.
Social media networking sites: Sites through which users share content and comments with each other. The major sites are highly sought-after as advertising platforms.
Paid, earned, owned, and shared media: Different categories of media, with examples of paid being advertising, earned being word of mouth, owned being a company’s own asset, and shared being something co-created with the customer.
53 Trnd. 2014. “Social Content Marketing Campaigns.” Products and Solutions. http://company.trnd.com/en/products-solutions/social-content-marketing-campaigns (10/13/2014).
54 R. Brodie, L. Hollebeek, B. Juric, B. and A. Illic, “Customer Engagement: Conceptual Domain, Fundamental Propositions, and Implications for Research,” Journal of Service Research, 14 (3), pp. 252–271.
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56 WSJ. 2014. “Real Estate’s Twitter Stars.” Article. http://online.wsj.com/articles/real-estates-twitter-stars-1406832556 (10/13/2014).
57 J. Zimmerman. 2012. Web Marketing for Dummies (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons).
58 Forrester. 2014. “What’s the Social Technographics Profile of Your Customers?” Tool. http://empowered.forrester.com/tool_consumer.html (10/13/2014).
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60 Dykes. 2013. “How Google’s Expanded Search Encryption Impacts Adobe Analytics.” Adobe Blog. http://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/analytics/how-Googles-expanded-search-encryption-impacts-adobe-analytics/ (10/13/2014).
61 CCENT. 2014. “About.” Center for Convergence and Emerging Network Technologies Website. http://ccent.syr.edu/about/.
62 MINI Getaway Stockholm. 2010. “MINI Getaway Stockholm 2010—Case study.” Video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt9OlGq3gWU (10/13/2014).
63 Proximity Worldwide. 2011. “M&M’s Find Red.” Video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pXX277TKzw (10/13/2014).
64 http://www.adexchanger.com/mobile/no-mobile-cookies-criteo-defiantly-rolls-out-mobile-web-tracking-solution/.
65 S. Perlberg. 2014. “Mobile-Ad Spending Leaps, but Trails User Growth.” Wall Street Journal, http://www.wsj.com/articles/mobile-ad-spending-leaps-but-trails-user-growth-1405969018 (12/7/2014).
66 eMarketer. 2014. “IAB Rising Stars Ads Outperform Standard Banners.” Article. http://www.emarketer.com/Article/IAB-Rising-Stars-Ads-Outperform-Standard-Banners/1010761 (10/13/2014).
67 T. Kawaja. 2010. “DISPLAY LUMAscape.” Slideshare. http://www.slideshare.net/tkawaja/luma-display-ad-tech-landscape-2010-1231 (10/13/2014).
68 A. Gesenhues. 2013. “EMarketer: Google Takes Back Top Spot in 2012, Out-Selling Facebook in Digital Display Ads.” MarketingLand Article. http://marketingland.com/emarketer-Google-wins-back-hold-top-rank-in-digital-marketing-revenue-38207 (10/13/2014).
69 S. Perlberg. July, 2014. “Mobile Ads Breach Historic Barrier.” Wall Street Journal, B1.