Social Media Marketing for Information- MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Why is Facebook appealing to companies? Answer: With the advent of technology, it has become easier for companies to advertise their products before a larger customer base. An organization, especially if it is a startup, can reach out to as many as 1 billion people, target exactly the demographic population as the company wishes, as well as establish direct communication with the consumers. The major reason why most of the companies prefer to open up a Facebook page is that is the only social media tool that helps in driving maximum possible traffic to the companys website (Ashley Tuten, 2015). The organizations nowadays, start up their Facebook page, in order to gain greater recognition among the masses. Facebook allows the companies increase their website traffic by offering large and clickable images and posts of the companies in the newsfeed of the Facebook users. Accordingly, on clicking the pictures, the users completely unaware of the existence of the company, will be directed to the website or Facebook page of the specifi c company. While there are multiple social media tools that can help a company offer basic information to the consumers about its products and services, Facebook is the most comprehensive solution for a company willing to publicize its products or services. Just like Instagram, Facebook can share interesting pictures and posts directly related to its business, or like Twitter, it can communicate with the existent and the potential consumers through comments on these posts. Again, Facebook also offers the companies the video sharing option like YouTube, to keep the consumers updated regarding the recent happenings and events within the organization (Tuten Solomon, 2014). As Facebook allows a company continually shares its pictures and posts with the Facebook users, it helps a company gain swift recognition, by raising brand awareness among the people. The number of likes on a social media page can also largely influence the buying behavior of the consumers. In case a consumer hears the names of two different companies selling similar products, he may think of conducting a social media research on which brand is more popular. The company that has got the maximum number of likes on its Facebook page will attract the consumer attention, as it would be believed to be the more reliable brand of the two. Again, the most important factor that attracts the maximum number of business owners to start up their Facebook page is the targeted advertising system facilitated by Facebook. Since the targeted advertising feature is available on Facebook, the user of a Facebook business page can pay to find out the details regarding the relevant users, so to deliver the targeting advertising to the specific group of people. Often the companies fail to deliver their advertisements to the right consumers, and consequently despite a huge investment on advertisement campaigns, they fail to increase their profitability (Tiago Verssimo, 2014). On the other hand, in case of Facebook, the companies can identify the consumers who would be interested in buying their products or services, based on their demographic information such as age, sex or areas of interest, and can target the relevant customer base only. The audience selection tools form an interesting feature of Facebook, not available on any onlin e site. Last but not the least, while other social media channels can cost a company thousands of dollars in order to invest in marketing campaigns, Facebook is very cost-effective. As a result, small and medium scale organizations tend to use Facebook for endorsing their products. In what ways Facebook is used as a social media marketing tool to promote the product and strengthen customer relationship and to gather consumer feedback? The most conventional way of promoting a product on Facebook involves the process of sharing pictures and posts of the product, while also mentioning a few innovative features with the help of a catchy tagline. Often the companies also promote their products by sharing interesting photos and videos, indirectly related to the product. A company that intends to attract consumer attention must ensure that it is not bluntly asking its consumers to go out, and buy the products. Rather it should post fun, interesting and unique contents that compel more people to share, and like and comment, thereby enhancing the visibility of the post. For example, Pringles, the potato chip selling company does not literally ask its consumers to buy its products via Facebook, but rather posts funny pictures of a container, with a Pringles packet in hand exclaiming May Day (Tsimonis Dimitriadis 2014). While the Facebook users will share or comment on the post simply because it is funny, they cannot help b ut notice the brand name. Again, Amazon instead of telling people to use their sites, prefer to share emotional stories of users gifting parents and friends on special occasions, thereby stirring the emotions of the users, and convincing them the need to buy products via online sites and buy gifts for each other. Again, in order to promote their products, some companies often ask their consumers to refer their Facebook pages to friends whereby the former can get attractive discounts and coupons. Companies also pen up contests to increase customer engagement. For example, a mobile selling company can ask its followers to share their best selfie, and can accordingly reward the 10 best selfie clickers (Hyder, 2016). This can help in increasing customer engagement, and will lead to greater number of Likes and Shares on Facebook. Again, this will also help in strengthening customer relationship. Interacting with the consumers, solving their queries and offering them attractive discounts and offers for their continual support can also lead to high rates of customer retention. This is the reason why many companies hire social media experts, meant for managing the customer queries, asking their feedback, resolving their problems via Facebook Messengers if any, and updating them about the recent discounts and lucrative offers. In order to get customer feedback, the companies often use Facebook Messenger, and ask the customers directly if they are encountering any problem or not (Ngai et al., 2015). Often the customers are also being reached out via viral posts shared by the companys Facebook page, where the users have commented and the social media managers can reply directly to the comments. However, the most feasible solution adopted by the companies, for assessing consumer feedback is the use of the Facebook Insights (Rutsaert et al., 2013). The powerful tool helps in tracking consumer interaction on the company Facebook page, analyze the total number of likes and s hares and compare the same over the number of years. With the help of this analytical tool, the companies understand the performance of the Facebook page and the consumer perception about the brand of the company. How do social media marketing tools such as Facebook differ from the traditional marketing tools? Promotion and advertisements, social media channels are being preferred over the latter. Hence, it would be interesting to analyze the differences between the social media tools and the traditional marketing tools. First of all, while traditional media channels believe in disrupting the conversation, and attracting the consumer attention, via a poster, flyer or a TV ad, the social media tools intend to join the conversation. In other words, social media tools help different companies to connect with people, socialize with the target group on a personal basis, build a rapport and thereby sell their products (MacCarthy, 2015). On the other hand, traditional media channels believe in informing the consumer about the basic details of products such as price and its use, and asking them to buy the products. There is a sense of community engagement in social media sites that easily help in attracting consumer attention that is completely absent in the traditional media tools. There is no po int in stating the obvious fact that social media tools are much cheaper and cost effective than the traditional media tools. In fact, social media tools are the only media that helps a company gain exposure before 1,000 people in lieu of less than $3 (Aral et al., 2013). Considering the fact, that social media tools such as Facebook has over 890 million users daily, the social media tools can help a company reach a huge customer base, than any of the traditional media tools (Ashley Tuten, 2015). However, the traditional media tools like newspapers or magazines can reach a limited number of consumers, residing in a specific area, or buying a specific newspaper or magazine only. While the social media tools can accurately target the most relevant audience, the traditional tools cannot do the same. The kind of active engagement that the social media sites owners can do with their consumers is impossible in case of traditional media tool. The process of regularly interacting with the consumers help the companies create a buzz about their brands as well as gain insight into the consumer expectations, and hence this is one great advantage that the social media users can avail, otherwise denied to the traditional media users. While a company looking for social media marketing campaign can do that with much ease in a highly dynamic way, the users of traditional media tools not only will require a generous budget but also a highly organized approach, for selecting the time or place of distribution of relevant information. Reference List: Aral, S., Dellarocas, C., Godes, D. (2013). Introduction to the special issuesocial media and business transformation: a framework for research.Information Systems Research,24(1), 3-13. Ashley, C., Tuten, T. (2015). Creative strategies in social media marketing: An exploratory study of branded social content and consumer engagement.Psychology Marketing,32(1), 15-27. Ashley, C., Tuten, T. (2015). Creative strategies in social media marketing: An exploratory study of branded social content and consumer engagement.Psychology Marketing,32(1), 15-27. Hyder, S. (2016).The Zen of social media marketing: an easier way to build credibility, generate buzz, and increase revenue. 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