About Social Media Marketing

Since the inception of social media, various brands have made an attempt to communicate and engage with their leads, customers, and prospects in more humane ways. Social media is one of the main platforms brands and businesses can use to develop this kind of connection. Social media marketing is internet marketing that entails the creation and sharing of content on various platforms, like Facebook, in order to accomplish branding and marketing objectives (Brogan, 2010). Among other things that increase audience engagement, this type of marketing includes actions like image updates and post-texting. Currently, social media platforms are crucial components of a company's marketing strategy. Research has indicated that customers are always active every day to inform companies how they review and perceive their products, brands, and services.

Social media marketing is among the most powerful ways for businesses of different sizes to effectively reach and interact with their customers. Customers interact with brands through social media channels like FaceBook, Twitter, Pinterest as well as Instagram and if companies fail to communicate directly with them, they may fail to achieve their goals (Diamond, 2008). Effective marketing on social media brings remarkable success to businesses through the creation of devoted brand advocates as well as driving sales and leads.

Background

Social media marketing helps in showing a brand's personality. Companies achieve this through maintaining a two-way conversation on social channels. For instance, the company can start by highlighting its culture as well as expertise, while adding a little humor. The major way to showcase personality is using photos as images have proved to be more worth than words (Evans, 2010). Effective conversation on social media channels is among the great ways for companies to learn about what customers like about their products as well as their frustrations.

The paper will analyze the social media marketing of two products Domino's Pizza and DiGiorno pizza. On the one hand, Dominion's pizza is owned by an American pizza restaurant chain that was founded in 1960. The brand has enjoyed successful social media marketing following the effective utilization of the current digital technology (Levinson, 2010). On the other hand, DiGiorno pizza is a brand of frozen pizza sold in America and Canada. The brand goofed pretty bad after jumping on the bandwagon and tweeted out some comic relief on hashtag #WhyIStayed- whose main idea was to empower people to narrate their stories of domestic abuse.

Companies, brands, products, and services adapt differently to social media marketing. Most of the brand marketers have indicated that not every brand, products, and services succeed when it comes to social media marketing (Diamond, 2008). It is worth noting that before creating social media marketing campaigns, companies should consider their business goals and objectives. Starting the marketing without a social strategy is like wandering around a forest without a map. Some of the questions that companies need to ask when defining their social goals include:

Who is the target audience?

What message needs to be sent to the audience using social media marketing?

Where do the target audiences hang out and how do they use social media?

Research has indicated that social media marketing is among the ever-evolving tools that allow brands to interact directly with consumers. Through the engagement, brands can see more website traffic thus increasing their visibility. However, following the changes in social media, brands have to understand how customers use different platforms to achieve success when it comes to social media marketing (Levinson, 2010). Different behaviors, attitudes as well as demographics affects which social media platform customers will use, how engaged they will be on them and how often they check them. Companies are therefore required to know their target audience and the social channels they normally use. Unfortunately, this is not always quite simple because social media is constantly changing, and so are the consumer's behaviors.

Analysis

Despite the fact that attempts by DiGiorno pizza to engage in social media marketing failed, both products shared similar strategies of becoming personal through the two-way conversation on social media. To start with, both DiGiorno pizza and Dominion's pizza were part of the existing conversation on social media. Both companies ensured that they were not doing all the talking. They provided a platform where consumers were able to ask questions, like and share information, leave comments and sometimes complain about their products (Kreun, 2016). Additionally, both companies ensured that they are not ignoring the engagement on social media profiles no matter how negative they were. For example, Dominion's pizza has created a tweet-to-order as well as "Dom the Pizza Bot," an irreverent messenger that allows customers to order their usual with only a couple of clicks in their favorite chat app. This social approach is well integrated. Moreover, the brand's pizza legend campaign permits customers to visit the website and create their ultimate pizza designs and later name and share them on social media (Celine, 2012).

On the other hand, DiGiorno maintains that it is not just like any other pizza, and their twitter account is no regular timeline. They normally provide coupons and promote their products with the normal business to business (B2B) approach. However, the marketing strategy used by Dominion's pizza is a bit unique compared to the one used by DiGiorno's. To start with, most of the Tweets from Dominion's pizza are about completely random topics, but they all relate back to pizza, cheese as well as delivery pizza. The strategy is always effective as it involves true content marketing. Despite the fact that it is hard to draw ROI directly from social media marketing, purchase intent has gone up with many people posting pictures of Dominion's in their shopping carts to different social media channel (Daniel, 2014). These people claim that they are buying the products because Dominion's follows them on Twitter which shows that the tie is there.

The social media marketing strategies used by DiGiorno were very effective and attracted many consumers until their hashtag approach led them astray. Video evidence was released which showed Ray Rice knocking out his fiancé and the hashtag #WhyIStayed as well as #WhyILeft began trending on Twitter with aims of lending a voice to the many victims of domestic abuse (Jacobs, 2012). During that time DiGiorno was on a classic hashtag-jacking spree and Tweeted an ill-timed tweet "#WhyIStayed You had pizza." The biggest mistake DiGiorno committed was forgetting to look before tweeting. This explains why its social media marketing strategy failed.

The main difference between the marketing strategies used by both brands is that Dominion's were able to effectively plan their social media content which is not the case for DiGiorno. Developing an efficient social media marketing plan is always essential. Dominions were able to consider competitive research as well as keyword research which helped them to brainstorm content ideas that are suitable for the target audience (Daniel, 2014).

Additionally, unlike DiGiorno, Dominion's are always able to generate great social content. Just like any other area related to online marketing, content reigns supreme on social media marketing. They always post regularly and provides truly valuable information that ideal customers find interesting as well as helpful.

The social media marketing strategy for DiGiorno failed because they used social channels in the wrong way. Trying new ways as well as making efforts to define the voice of a brand on social media is among the essential parts of the learning process. DiGiorno, failed to look for guidance from other organizations which have succeeded in social media marketing (Leung, & Bai, B2013). From the goals and missions to where the audiences are located, there are endless factors determining the best channels to use as well as how to use them. DoGiorno failed to figure out what would work for their audiences and what wouldn't. They never paid attention to see what resonated with their customers and what would fall flat.

Recommendations and Conclusion

To have an effective social media marketing strategy, it is always advisable to give value to the information being posted. Instead of selling goods and services to the consumers, companies should try to show them the value of their products as well as how they assist in solving their problems. The best method of doing this is producing creative information showing customers how this is done instead of straightforward posts that indicates that 'y can help you by...' by so doing, customers will always be informed, and they will have a belief that the company cares for them as no other does.

Secondly, it is always advisable to go above and beyond when it comes to customer services. For instance, when a visitor tweets at a company's post and never receives any response, the trust will be lost. Following the lack of communication, the dis-satisfied potential customer turns to your competitors seeking answers to their questions. Companies should, therefore, try their level best to deliver thoughtful responses on time to flatter their visitors. Additionally, negative feedback should be effectively addressed with respect and patience (Leung, & Bai, B2013). Companies should always make sure that they think of their social channels as opportunities to display how awesome they treat their customers. There are different steps of boosting the happiness of customers on social media:

The first one is assigning a first responder to posts as well as monitoring every channel the brand has a profile on it.

The second one is developing a troubleshooting library of common complaints that arise as well as ways of dealing with the issues. By so doing, companies will be in a position to ensure that every issue is properly dealt with on time. However, it is worth noting that when issues require confidential information, the company should send a private message to the client.

Another way of ensuring that social media marketing is effective is embracing mishaps. Companies should understand that we are all human beings which mean that mistakes are sometimes unavoidable. According to research, this is true mainly when it comes to the fast-paced world of social media. Instead of flat out ignoring the hiccups, companies should embrace them. This involves proactively responding in an actionable, apologetic way as well as sending content from the social account apologizing and addressing how the mistake is being dealt with.

In addition, it is recommended that when implementing the social media marketing, it is significant that the organizations should utilize and integrate practices that are best about social media marketing which will ensure that the strategy achieves the intended purpose and that it remains effective for a longer period. As such, social media marketing is becoming a significant aspect of the daily life, and thus organization using it effectively will ensure they meet the needs of the target audience through the provision of appropriate services to the customers. If an organization just uses the social media marketing just to appeal to the audience without providing goods and services of value, will lead to failure and the ultimate closure of the organization (Leung, & Bai, B2013). It is thus important for the organization to offer products and services to the audience through social media marketing and which have value to promote their interest and ensure that the following increases thus increasing the marketing base.

Additionally, the social media marketing by the organization should be a real one and which have an intended purpose. This means that it is important for the organization to remain committed to providing the truth to the audience and ensuring that they stick to a particular social media platform the initially started with. If an organization is presented falsely to the audience through the social media marketing, the customers may be distracted or have a false impression about the organization, which may interfere with the organization operations (Jacobs, 2012). Further, it is said that the regular use of social media in the marketing activities of an organization helps in the establishment of strong relations between the organization and its customers. Organizations that are able to utilize the social media platform appropriately and efficiently gain more over their competitors in the market arena.

Another recommendation with regard to social media marketing is the establishment of a two-way marketing model which is termed as the best practices in improving the marketing activities of the organization. The purpose of establishing his model is to counter the changing trends in the marketing activities, which determine the various relations between the stakeholders and the organization. The two ways model will help the organization be able to interact with its audience to establish their preferences and provide goods and services concerning the customers' needs (Evans, 2010).Organizations that only utilize social media marketing just to disseminate information will have fewer gains and vice versa. The model promotes and an avenue where the customers have an opportunity to ask questions regarding the organization products and services. With this, the organization tends to gain more and improve its overall performance.

Moreover, the organization should utilize monitoring and evaluation techniques, which will help, determine the effectiveness of the social media marketing. Monitoring and evaluation will be beneficial where the organization sets targets through the social media marketing and measuring the performance in relation to the set targets. Organizations that have not set monitoring and evaluation procedure to determine how the social media marketing, may lack know-how of its performance (Daniel, 2014).The organization may also not be in a position to know the customers view in relation to the products and services offered. For an organization that keeps monitoring and evaluating their social media marketing will know about whether the customers are accessing the media marketing activities, whether the customers have increased in number or whether they have positive or negative sentiments towards the organization.

In conclusion, it is clear from the discussion that social media marketing helps in improving the awareness of the existence of the organization and building its reputation to the customers. It is also evident that social media marketing is an important platform through which the organization builds its brand name through the products it offers. Finally, the study recommends that the organizations should have a two-way communication in which it advertises its products and give the customers a chance through which they can offer their feedback. For an organization to be successful in the social media marketing they need to establish a social media communication strategy and later integrate the best marketing practices, which will ensure it, market its best products at ease, which will improve the overall performance of the organization.

References

Brogan, C. (2010). Social media 101: Tactics and tips to develop your business online. John Wiley & Sons.

Celine, A. (2012). Social Media Marketing benefits for businesses. Master of International Marketing.

Daniel, S. (2014). Predictive modeling of trust to Social Media content (Master's thesis, University of Stavanger, Norway).

Diamond, S. (2008). Web marketing for small businesses: 7 steps to explosive business growth. Sourcebooks, Inc.

Evans, L. (2010). Social media marketing: strategies for engaging in Facebook, Twitter & other social media. Pearson Education.

Jacobs, J. (2012). Faking it How to kill a business through astroturfing on social media. Keeping Good Companies, 64(9), 567

Kreun, A. J. (2016). An analysis of how public relations professionals use social media.

Leung, X. Y., & Bai, B. (2013). How motivation, opportunity, and ability impact travelers' social media involvement and revisit intention. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 30(1-2), 58-77.

Levinson, J. (2010). Guerrilla social media marketing: 100+ weapons to grow your online influence, attract customers, and drive profits. Entrepreneur Press.