Social Media’s influence on Marketing Communications

Social Media is “an outcome of the highly-connected world of web 2.0 apps, social platforms and interactive based marketing efforts” (www.greenmarketing.tv, 2010) and is now used as a buzz word to define the essence of online networking. The network effect is important for the creation of online communities as networks are created, joined and give consumers the power to communicate and share. Consumers and the media “are creating content at unprecedented rates that is turning both the communications and PR measurement world upside down” (Delahaye Paine, 2007). This has been made possible with the invention of the internet, marketers having to realise that even though ‘meaning making’ remains the main purpose of marketing communications, the strategy needs to change from broadcasting to instead, interaction within digital communities (Deighton and Korenfelt, 2007). Marketing is now less a matter of domination and control and more a matter of fitting in, with control shifting from the marketer to the consumer and a need emerging for less directive marketing styles. Social media can be in the form of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, blogs, user reviews and anything that is user generated content.

Interactivity has given consumers greater power via social media and has forced marketers to pay greater attention to social factors challenging many consumer information processing models, creating the attitudinal change from a consumer to a ‘prosumer’. However, it has to be considered how the invention of this new technology and route of communication will affect society. Andrew Keene (2007) warns that culture will be destroyed if people refuse to pay for media and free methods take over, such as social media as everything is being lost in the clutter and ‘noise’ with any amateur  being able to post online. Technological Determinism is a theory which “points to technology being the force that shapes society” (Chandler, 1996) with the development of new technologies being the primary cause for social change. This theory can provide some explanation for social media changing the way consumers and marketers communicate and interact within society, however, there are many other factors other than technology that have to be considered. Social media has also been considered to play a part in Social Constructivism which is defined as “a learning theory that emphasizes that learning is an active social process in which individuals make meanings through the interactions with each other and with the environment they live in” (www.wikipedia.com, 2010). This learning can be done collectively through social media and interaction through these outlets laying foundations for social constructions of knowledge. Carl Anderson demonstrates this by using Twitter, the social networking site, and sharing information about a book.

Even though the invention of the internet and social media has led to loss of control for marketers, it can be used to increase the effectiveness of advertising through its complimentary nature combined with traditional media. The phenomenon has led to consumers trusting each other’s opinions more than that of brands, which means if brands can create earned media for themselves encouraging fan generated content it can have a positive effect.

Even politicians have embraced the trend towards social media, an example being Barrack Obama’s social media electoral campaign that convened with supporters and not attempted to control them, which is the mature way to use this particular media (Appendix 1, p 7). The campaign, which used social networks, email advocacy and online video, has been attributed as a major contribution to his victory showing the sheer power that social media can have (www.edelman.com, 2009). Trust was a factor that needed to be addressed to make the campaign a success especially as Politicians’ are one of the least trusted groups by society, and with close obedience to The Crawl, Walk, Run Methodology for Social Media (Appendix 2, p 7) the campaign secured itself a high degree of trust. On 15 social networking sites, the campaign had 5 million ‘friends’, there were 2 million blog profiles with 400,000 posts and nearly 2000 official YouTube videos with over 80 million views. From measuring the social media it is clear that it played a fundamental part in the success of the campaign as a whole.

Measurement of social media is key and vital to its success (Brake D.K and Safko L, 2009., Zarrella, 2010., Evans, 2008). The internet and computer systems have made it easier to track everything that passes through a system whereas “measuring ROI, or responses using conventional marketing, has always been difficult” (Brake and Safko, 2009).  The simplest way to measure is to use ‘eyeball’ numbers which are unique visitors, views and hits but this is not considered accurate enough as much social media activity happens in places other than a businesses’ own site. Twitter success can be measured by the amount of followers you have which ultimately indicates the potential reach. However, this doesn’t measure how engaged followers are with tweets so to much better understand twitter engagement it is better to measure the amount of mentions or replies your tweet receives. Retweeting would be the most accurate although hardest measurement, as sharing someone else’s content would suggest it is seen as “valuable and worth sharing” (Zarrella, 2010). Facebook and LinkedIn metrics are focused on pages and groups. Essentially earned media is measured through the number of mentions in blogs, traditional blogs and social media that was not paid for.

Social media has revolutionized the way marketers communicate with peers, customers and potential customers. It could be argued that every brand in existence has now incorporated social media into their integrated marketing campaigns and the fight is on to create the most innovative uses for it to differentiate and extensively personalise a brand. As Kapferer (2008) has stated, no brand can survive without adapting to its changing environment, and in today’s marketing landscape it would be a huge challenge to find just one brand that does not have a social media presence.

Word Count: 991

References

Anon., 2010. What is Social Media? Greenmarketing.tv. Available at: http://www.greenmarketing.tv/2010/07/09/what-is-social-media/. [Accessed on 12.04.2011].

Anon., 2010. Social Constructivism. www.wikipedia.com. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_constructivism. [Accessed on 01.04.2011].

Brake D.K and Safko L., 2009. The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools and Strategies for Business Success. John Wiley & Sons Inc: New Jersey.

Chandler, D., 1996. Technological Determinism. www.atschool.eduweb.co.uk. Available at: http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/trinity/determin.html. [Accessed on 13.04.2011].

Deighton, J.A. and Korenfelt, L. , 2007.  Digital Interactivity: Unanticipated Consequences for Markets, Marketing and Consumers.  Harvard Business School Working Paper.  Available at:  http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5783.html. [Accessed on 04.04.2011].

Delahaye Paine, K., 2007. How to Measure Social Media Relations: The More Things Change, the More They Remain the Same. Institute for Public Relations.  Available at: www.instituteforpr.org/downloads/92. [Accessed on 01.04.2011].

Evans, D., 2008. Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day. Wiley Publishing Inc: Indiana.

Kapferer, J. N., 2008. The New Strategic Brand Management: Creating and Sustaining Brand Equity Long Term. Kogan Page: London.

Keen, A., 2007. The Cult of The Amateur: How the Internet is killing our Culture. The Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group: NY.

Lutz, M., 2009. The Social Pulpit: Barrack Obama’s Social Media Toolkit. www.edelman.com. Available at: http://www.edelman.com/image/insights/content/social%20pulpit%20-%20barack%20obamas%20social%20media%20toolkit%201.09.pdf. [Accessed on 03.04.2011].

Zarrella, D., 2010.The Social Media Marketing Book. O’Reily Media: Canada.

Week Nine: Being Social

So, I've come to my last short blog post that DCS requires of me. And I'm quite happy that it is on the topic I probably find the most interesting out of the whole unit....Social Media. It has forced us as advertisers and marketers to change the way we communicate with consumers...can we even call the public that anymore?! Now more 'prosumers' as there is a significant power shift that has emerged through the evolution of social media. But there are some worries about how powerful this new phenomenon is becoming within culture and everyday society. Andrew Keene (2007) warns that culture will be destroyed if people refuse to pay for media, such as social media as everything is being lost in the clutter and ‘noise’ with any amateur  being able to post online. He called for regulation of social media with any user in the whole world being able to spread whatever they wish as far as the other side of the world aided by social media and professional labour being replaced by audience/consumer labour through user generated content. Well we have seen a step in that direction recently with the ASA, the UK’s independent regulator of advertising across all media, on the 1st March gaining regulation of websites. This includes "marketing communications on companies’ own websites and in other third party space under their control, such as Facebook and Twitter, will have to adhere to the “non-broadcast advertising rules” as set out in the CAP code" (Jennings, 2011) - See article here. This is a big step towards regulation of social media but surely it would be impossible to regulate all user generated content on the whole of the internet?! It would also create activism and problems with 'freedom of speech'. 

             There comes another problem with how accessible and unregulated social media is - user's privacy. Dataveillance is "the systematic monitoring of people's actions or communications through the application of information technology" (Clarke, 2003). Facebook records who has been on a page, and all of the users demographics including age and gender. 

It uses this to do Data Profiling which is collecting information about a particular individual or group in order to create patterns in their behaviour.

              However, I am in agreement with Albrechtslund (2008) who theorises that "to participate in online social networking is also about the act of sharing yourself – or your constructed identity – with others". Everyone is aware of this when they make a social networking profile and enter all the information about yourself. 

If people are that concerned social networking sites don't hide what they record, they state it such as Twitter has here: Our servers automatically record information ("Log Data") created by your use of the Services. Log Data may include information such as your IP address, browser type, the referring domain, pages visited, and search terms. Other actions, such as interactions with advertisements, may also be included in Log Data (Twitter Privacy Policy, available at: http://twitter.com/privacy)

         I think that the public need to understand if they want to take part in user generated content and interact through the use of social media they need to deal with the fact that some of their details, such as IP address, may not remain private.