Use of Social Media in Marketing

The use of social media like facebook and Instagram has become the new trend in marketing. This form of Digital Marketing is being used by corporate firms to influence millions of people, across geographical boundaries, at a fraction of the cost they were earlier spending on print and TV ads. This is a medium of communication that cannot be neglected in the present itmes.

 

We all have seen our social influencers promoting a particular product on their channels. We connect that since the influencers are personally using that product, the product might actually be useful ! The credibility of these influencers have now started surpassing the well known celebrities. This is mostly because we are able to connect at a deeper level with these people than we would have connected with the celebrities.

 

To properly spread the message, the first step is targeting the audience. We should select our target audience wisely. For this we have to follow the STP approach.

 

Segmentation: we should segment the population into different groups based appropriate criteria like age, gender, economic status etc. this segmentation can be a multi dimensional segmentation, based on 2 or more criterial. Once the population has been segmented, we have to assign them weights based on how useful is a particular segment to our company’s sales.

 

After this, we identify a few segments that can deliver us the highest sales for the lowest cost on advertisements. This becomes our target group. Now we need to see where exactly can we find our target group online ?

 

• 30-40 aged persons, chances are they would be on facebook.
• 20-30 aged people will usually be on Instagram and twitter.
• The teens can be found mostly using the snapchat.

 

 This way we can categorize our target segment based on which sites they will most likely visit.

 

Then we identify the famous people on these social media sites, with which our target segment can most identify with. These social influencers usually have a following of a few thousands to a few hundred thousands. And like celebrities, they too take a few for doing the ads. But that is usually less than the Bollywood celebrities.

 

Apart from this, the marketing that the social influencers do is on a more personal level. They don’t run the same video add multiple times, rather they subtly nudge their followers to try their sponsored products. This can be done by unboxing videos, doing a product review, or simply mentioning a product in a general conversation. The product can even be promoted over multiple videos.

 

Such subtle nudges carry a great effect and push the customers into wanting to try out that product for themselves.

 

It has become increasingly important to study the dynamics of social marketing in the present times. I hope to learn more about it in the following modules. Thanks for reading !!