(NOTE: This post only provides the abstract, project definition, and discussion sections of the thesis)
The Effects of Social Media Marketing: Campaign Strategies for the Increase of eCommerce, Brand Awareness and Brand Loyalty
Abstract
With the explosive popularity of social media, many companies and brands are turning to social media to create campaigns to generate brand awareness and loyalty to increase their ecommerce efforts. The research of this paper has found that elements like appeal, likeability, and uniqueness are the key elements in creating a successful social media marketing campaign to increase the brand’s awareness and create customer loyalty. Other elements like customer service and customer involvement/engagement are important factors that customers look for in social media efforts. Finally, social commerce (s-commerce), the ability to share and ask friends about a product before purchasing it, is a major positive factor for businesses that are directly selling on social media.
Project Definition
Background and Context Summary
Most companies have some amount of online presence, whether it’s just a Facebook page, a Twitter account, or a blog, but lack the active presence needed to create brand loyalty and engagement with customers. Social media has become the go-to place for online reviews, ratings, recommendations, and decisions for products and services. Online retailers aggressively use social media websites like Facebook to do E-Commerce and sell directly from their fan pages; E-Commerce on Facebook is called F-Commerce (Al Matar 2011). Social media has also been part of the success of many online marketing campaigns due to the activity of the users (consumers). When a social media marketing campaign is utilized, most of its success is due in part to the people who engage with the campaign by leaving comments, likes, sharing it on their newsfeed, and talking to other users (Melanthiou and Papasolomou 2012).
User-generated content (UGC) or user-created content (UCC) is any material or content uploaded to the Internet like blogs, photos, videos, podcasts, and articles by amateur contributors (Filho and Tan 2009). Online marketers utilize these contents, comments, and reviews from the blogs, websites, and social media to help create a stronger online campaign or to redefine their existing one in order to reach the highest amount of users possible (Akar and Topcu 2011). In a USA TODAY (2011) article on how shoppers are turning to social media, Hadley Malcolm says online marketers will often use incentives like discount codes or free downloads to reach a higher number of consumers to “like” and “share” their Facebook page, in turn, consumers will visit the business’ website to use the incentive and make a purchase.
Using these discount incentives gives social media marketing campaigns several advantages. First, it is cost effective. Without the addition of costly and excessive ads, creating online content for a social media campaign is relatively inexpensive. If the retailer has a large online following and presence, simple messages about their product or service and an incentive will attract their followers to click and share it on their wall which will be shown on all their friends’ newsfeed. This would, in hopes, create buzz and trend the brand on social media with little effort and cost (Melanthiou and Papasolomou 2012). Second, it allows for two-way communication between the retailer and the consumer. Social media has become the destination for many consumers to ask questions, give complaints, ask for feedback, and vent to a business about their experiences. People want to connect to real people, so businesses and organizations are utilizing social media to interact and engage with their customers to avoid the taunting automated-phone messages call (Maldonado 2010). Third, social media campaigns have a similar effect as public relations campaigns and use online marketing to influence the public toward new products and trends. Often presenting new information or research to change their habits or brand loyalty (Sluis 2014). Finally, companies and brands utilize social media to grow their awareness, reputation, and loyalty. One tactic that’s used is paying celebrities to tweet or create videos to endorse the company or brand, creating the notion that the brand is good enough that a celebrity would use it. Another tactic is promoting on Facebook or Twitter by offering contests, giveaways, and sweepstakes to attract new customers and turn their “likes” and “retweets” into sales (McCorvey and Lapowsky 2011).
The ultimate goal of creating, developing, and executing a social media marketing campaign is to enhance the brand’s awareness and loyalty to create successful and profitable ecommerce sales (Shen and Bissell 2013). Although social media has created an online presence for nearly 99 percent of top brands (Sprung 2013), companies use Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube the most to engage with their customers and promote products and services (Grensing-Pophal 2012; Shen and Bissell 2013). However, businesses will still need to focus on the specific needs of their consumers and their desired channels of communication for engagement and e-commerce (Matar 2011).
This paper will focus its research on the specific social media marketing strategies used for a brand’s increase in awareness and loyalty, and their effects on e-commerce.
Discussion
Social media has become the focal point of many marketing campaigns because of its accessibility, convenience, affordability, and the ability to reach a large range of audiences in a short amount of time (Ramsaran-Fowdar and Fowdar 2013). However, some of the main strategies of a social media marketing campaign are to increase a brand’s awareness and loyalty for positive ecommerce efforts. This section discusses the proposed solution’s strengths, weaknesses, limitations, and feasibility.
Strengths and Weaknesses
The main objective of any social media marketing campaign is to increase the brand’s awareness by creating appealing, interesting, likeable, unique, and trustworthy content (Al Matar 2010; Wang and Yang 2010; Sweetow 2011; Yang 2014). The elements of appeal, customer service, and customer value/engagement create the solution’s strengths. Campaigns that are appealing to a target audience are strong, but campaigns that can appeal to the general audience can be stronger when the campaign is about a common product or service (Thackeray, Neiger, and Keller 2012). Facebook in particular is the most used social media website to conduct marketing campaigns and used as a marketing tool (Ramsaran-Fowdar and Fowdar 2013). According to Ramsaran-Fowdar and Fowdar’s (2013) study, Facebook is popular for its ability to create market segments, target a specific audience, and position its strategies accordingly. Using users’ page likes, keywords in status updates, and search words, marketers can use this information to create the necessary appealing content needed for their social media campaign.
Customer service has been increasingly moving from the old-fashioned face-to-face, and sometimes timely encounter, to the ability to directly contact the “people in charge” via social media websites like Twitter and Facebook. Customer service on social media has allowed businesses to reach customers on a personal level and interact with them to create lasting positive experiences (Bi and Konstan 2012). Using social media, customers have the benefit of talking to a real person and avoiding the hassle of the automated-messages phone calls to resolve problems. Companies can directly respond to customers with personal responses specific to their needs and circumstances (Brinsbead 2013).
Engaging with customers should be on the top of the priorities list for any business. Social media makes communicating with customers much easier by creating dialogue and asking questions on Facebook or Twitter. This engagement creates a sense of customer loyalty by providing the time and involvement from company to customer, allowing customers to feel valued (Klie 2014).
Social media also has weaknesses in its marketing efforts. Failing to create content and messages that will appeal to the target audience is a mistake that will drive traffic and awareness away from the brand, causing a potential loss in customers (Campbell 2010; Nadeem and Noor 2009). Poor customer service also reflects negatively on a company, especially if customer service via social media is an option (Klie 2014). Failing to listen, engage, and reply to customer inquiries in a timely manner can create customer service crises for companies that do not have a team dedicated for these tasks (Barone 2011).
Limitations and Feasibility
The limitations of the solution include: lack of resources/qualified staff, lack of time/staff, and lack of funding. To create successful social media marketing campaigns, certain necessary resources like technology (software, hardware, camera, video cameras, etc.), work space, and qualified persons are needed to develop and publish the appealing, interesting, and unique content needed to attract existing and potential customers (Thompson 2013). Many companies that don’t have a dedicated department or staff for social media will lack having enough people to support a full-blown social media project. Employees will often take time out of their busy, full schedule to temporarily work on social media before going back to their regular duties. Funding is necessary for social media projects or campaigns that want to create contests or giveaways. Funding is also necessary for the team and staff that will run the company’s social media.
Though limitations are there, the feasibility of creating a successful social media marketing campaign is manageable. Social media often requires little effort to maintain and with the advancement of new technology and applications, one-click on Twitter can share the company’s post throughout all of its social media channels (Bi and Konstan 2012). Many organizations and even universities will utilize their staff and interns to create social media projects using the technology and applications available to them, thus eliminating the need for expensive campaigns and hiring new staff.