Social media marketing has many benefits over the traditional marketing methods which are discussed below. Having said that, to achieve the optimum results, I believe, marketers need to have the right mix of traditional (print, tvc’s etc) marketing along with social media marketing so that it augments the overall marketing strategy and doesn’t attempt to function in a standalone manner.
1> Create awareness and generate exposure for businesses
For brands today, it’s all about creating awareness. Consumers are going to talk about brands whether or the companies like it and this has an impact on their views of the brand and their purchase decisions.[1] The internet can be utilized as an excellent medium to listen in on the conversations ensuing amongst consumers regarding one’s brand and to work on a strategy to create positive influence on them. Considering the spread of the internet today, consumers world-over can be reached very cost effectively. Creating community sites, fan pages etc give the consumer opportunities to explore and interact with the brands through games, blogs and events.
2> Consumers are much more likely to trust WOM over traditional advertising
Consumers get influenced to make purchases in a variety of different ways. According to a global Nielsen survey of 26,486 Internet users in 47 markets, ‘consumer recommendations’ were the most credible form of advertising as claimed by 78% of the study’s respondents.[2] Specifically, in the case of the Thailand market, 81% of the respondents said that ‘Word of Mouth’ was their most trusted media source followed by TV advertising which was at 66%. Branded websites and email were at 55% and 50% respectively.[3] This is shown in the graph below.
“Online Word-of-Mouth is a powerful medium that gives ‘power to isolated consumers’ and allows for a ‘boundless dialogue’ with a unlimited number of other consumers” (Bernd Stauss, Global Word of Mouth, 1997)
Various social media marketing tools like blogs etc allow consumers to rank, rate and comment about different brands and their products. This allows them to ‘brand’ their name first locally and get ‘repeat’ customers. As long as they are able to maintain high
quality of their offerings, these customers then become ‘satisfied’ customers and in the next stage, start recommending this product to their community.[4]
3> Ability of Social Media Marketing to capture a very targeted market
Unlike traditional marketing methods, SMM may be employed to reach out to a specific age group or regional customer base and establish a two-way communication. They can then build a database and utilize it to inform, reward, thank, re-sell, cross-sell, and up-sell therefore increasing the value of each customer.[5] Several market research documentations are available suggesting which sites or communities are frequented more by certain demographics and this is often used as a cue by marketers to employ different strategies depending on their targeted consumer profiles.
4> Rise in search engine rankings
SMM encourages more conversations to take place about brands/products/services etc. Different media like blogs, discussion forums, different online applications like games etc are used to direct traffic towards the brand or company’s own site. Because there are more occasions when the brand or company name are mentioned, they show up more often in related searches on the internet. Google, which is one of the most widely used search engine in the world, ranks pages with higher number of clicks higher than others. Directing more traffic towards one’s page more often would result in increased number of clicks and therefore a higher ranking on Google.
5> It’s just plain cheaper!!!
Most traditional advertising media like tv, print, online advertising etc require substantial spending because they try to obtain prime advertising real estate. Social media marketing however is comparatively a lot cheaper. Most channels that are utilized for SMM are free. The cost generally involved here is in the time and effort required to monitor these sites and manage them effectively.
6> Disruption is Dead[6]
Venture on to the streets and there is advertising everywhere. Watch television, and you’ll be exposed to thousands of unwanted advertising messages. Due to the clutter caused by so many messages, the consumer often just ignores them. Consuming media has historically been a passive activity where viewers and readers had little choice but to be exposed to ads. Social media marketing on the other hand engages the customer in several activities that interest him/her and conveys an experience which is many times more effective than conventional advertising. It creates more consumer engagement which is crucial for success. Only those people with interest of their own would visit the sites and this would quite clearly result in better conversions.
References
[1] ‘Can Brands Have a Social Life?’ – Rohit Bhargava, Ogilvy One
[2] Nielsen, “Word-of-Mouth the Most Powerful Selling Tool”, October 2007
[3] ACNielsen Global Consumer (Oct-Nov’07), Base : RD who have made purchase online in the past 3 months
[4] http://localadlink5star.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/
[5] http://teamdigital.com/blog/2009/new-rules-of-advertising-in-the-digital-age/
[6] http://teamdigital.com/blog/2009/new-rules-of-advertising-in-the-digital-age/
