Marketing
industry in Kenya is catching up with the rest of the world as companies
start to embrace the potential in social media marketing. However, many
companies are not getting success on this field as their social marketing strategies
flop. In their efforts to compete with large businesses in the country, small
businesses are resulting to some unorthodox practices to get people to like
their FanPage on facebook or follow them on twitter.
To succeed in social media marketing, small businesses has
to understand that it is not about the number of likes or followers you have,
rather, it is about the quality of likes and followers. As such, it is critical
for any business to invest in building a reputation on social media through its
social marketing campaign, rather than trying to get more likes.
What is Social Marketing?
Social marketing or social media marketing is the process of
getting website traffic through social media websites. The aim of this type of
marketing is to get people talking about your products in hope that the more
they talk about it the more they are likely to buy it. To achieve this, social
marketers should generate content that attracts and encourages social network
users to share with their friends. Where a corporate message is shared among
friends, it is more likely to have more impact than when it comes directly from
the company. This builds trust and confidence in a company or brand, as its
marketing takes the form of word of mouth resulting to earned media as opposed
to paid media.
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Social Media and Marketing
Social media has been with us for a long time; however, it
is only recently that its potential has been realized. It is a platform that is
basically available to anyone with internet connection, hence making it the
most popular and cheap way for companies to market their products and services.
Social media has also influenced internal and external communications of many
organizations. As more people join social networks, organizations are taking
their marketing to where the people are, which has resulted in creation of new
strategies to market products.
Marketing of any sort is aimed at making people aware of a
company’s products and services –their benefits and usage. Therefore, when
companies join social networks, they are looking for ways to use such media to
market their products. Generating a good social media strategy is therefore
critical, if any company is to integrate social media in its marketing.
Developing a Social Media Strategy
Social media strategy is meant to incorporate a company’s
offline marketing strategy in social media sites. It is supposed to advance
your marketing aims in such a way that it will be effective in social sites and
blogs. An effective social marketing strategy will incorporate rich text media
such as images, to effectively portray the company’s image. The strategy must
ensure that customers and other stakeholders are participating in the
conversation.
Social media marketers have realized that engagement is at
the center of every successful social media campaign. When customers and other
stakeholders are involved, they become part of the marketing department as
every person on the social site is able to see the comments made. It is
therefore important to keep your customers talking positively about your
campaign on these sites.
Any strategy should be designed to succeed on twitter,
facebook, blogs, LinkedIn, and YouTube. It is important to describe the message
you want to deliver through those site and learning how best to write it or to
deliver it on videos is critical.
Social Media Marketing Techniques
Targeting, Consumer’s Online Brand Related Activities
(COBRAs) and Electronic Word of Mouth (eWoms) are the most effective techniques
in social marketing. You can successively target your audience by analyzing the
data provided by social site such as Facebook, twitter, and YouTube. These
sites allow viewers to like or dislike certain comments, posts, tweets, or
videos; helping campaign managers to accurately target what customers want.
COBRAs are used by advertisers to promote websites,
products, or services by uploading pictures on sites such as facebook. These
images should be well designed to carry the company’s message as they provide
your clients with something they can relate with. Using eWOMs allow advertisers
to get brand or company recommendations and appraisals through direct
consumer-to-consumer conversation. These conversions can be in form of comments
on COBRAs, posts, or tweets where customers engage each other. Effective social
media campaign is therefore the effective use of these techniques.
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