Archive for the ‘Social Marketing’ Category

Social marketing – Learning for Sustainability

Social marketing is a key approach whose aim is to influence and support constructive change in environmental, social and health campaigns. (Photo: Can Stock Photo)

The first steps on the pathway to sustainability can often be seeen in initiatives that seek to reduce waste and pollution, increase water and energy efficiency, improve peoples health and change car-based transportation patterns. Social marketing is a key approach whose aim is to influence and support constructive change in environmental, social and health campaigns. Social marketing is an adaptable approach, increasingly being used to achieve and sustain behaviour relevant to a range of social issues and topics. It is significantly different from commercial marketing despite the fact that its basis lies in the borrowing of the latters concepts and tools. One of the main differences is that social marketing is charged with increasingly complex and ambitious goals often with the provision of very few resources. The accompanying siteblog (above menu) looks at one underlying framework Cialdinis six principles of persuasion. More on this and other frameworks and guides that support social marketing campaigns that work are provided through the links below.

Who do you think you are? An examination of how systems thinking can help social marketing support new identities and more sustainable living patterns This 2010 paper by Denise Conroy and Will Allen in the Australasian Marketing Journal looks at how systems thinking could inform more effective social marketing initiatives. They point out that many campaigns leave fundamental systematic environmental challenges unchanged, and may even undermine any considerations that people have around the change direction. They suggest that changing behaviour is ultimately about helping society and individuals in reframing their identity. A systems theory approach, which acknowledges society as a complex adaptive system, is suggested as providing a useful framework for social marketing campaigns in supporting new identities and increasing sustained behavioural change.

Using the Six Principles of Persuasion to Promote Travel Behaviour Change This paper by Rita Seethaler & Dr Geoff Rose shows how social psychology offers a series of six specific persuasion techniques that are able to reach beyond the mere raising of awareness and knowledge. Appealing to deeply seated human needs, the six persuasion principles of Reciprocity, Consistency, Social Proof, Authority, Liking and Scarcity can be translated into practical communication strategies that will increase the personal involvement of a target population and secure a lasting change in behavioural patterns.

Fostering sustainable behaviour Numerous initiatives to reduce waste and pollution, increase water and energy efficiency, and alter transportation patterns are first footholds in the transition to sustainability. This site by Doug McKenzie-Mohr was developed for the people who design these and other programs to foster sustainable behavior. Its purpose is simple: to provide information that can enhance the success of their efforts. The site consists of six resources:an online guide which illustrates how to use community-based social marketing to design and evaluate programs to foster sustainable behavior; searchable databases of articles, downloadable reports, graphics, and case studies on fostering sustainable behavior; and a listserv for sharing information and asking questions of others.

Quick Reference: Community-based Social MarketingThis short paper by Doug McKenzie-Mohr discusses community-based social marketing as an alternative to information-based campaigns for conservation. It is based upon research in the social sciences that demonstrates that behavior change is most effectively achieved through initiatives delivered at the community level which focus on removing barriers to an activity while simultaneously enhancing the activitys benefits. A four-step process is presented for carrying out community-based social marketing initiatives

Tools of Change: Proven Methods for Promoting Health, Safety and Environmental Citizenship This Canadian website, founded on the principles of community-based social marketing, offers specific tools, case studies, and a planning guide for helping people take actions and adopt habits that promote health and/or are more environmentally-friendly. This Web site will help you include in your programs the best practices of many other programs practices that have already been successful in changing peoples behaviour.

Understanding Voluntary Travel Behaviour ChangeThis paper by Elizabeth Ampt takes an in-depth look at the concept of voluntary behaviour change. It examines the change tools that can be offered, and then devotes attention to unravelling the differences between a social marketing approach and a community development approach to voluntary behaviour change. It concludes that, while both can be effective, there are some risks in using a social marketing approach when the marketing aspect is overemphasised.

The Seven Doors social marketing approach The Seven Doors social marketing approach was developed by Les Robinson, a former campaign director and now consultant for Social Change Media. This paper was originally presented by Les to the Waste Educate 98 Conference.This model allows us to identify which elements are already being fulfilled, and so concentrate resources on the gaps in our marketing campaigns. The seven elements are knowledge, desire, skills, optimism, facilitation, stimulation and reinforcement.

Carrots, sticks, and promises: A conceptual framework for the management of public health and social issue behaviors.In this paper, Michael Rothschild presents a framework that considers public health and social issue behaviors and is based on self-interest, exchange, competition, free choice, and externalities. He points out thatsocial marketing has become a generic term that encompasses education and marketing but too often has been co-opted by education and mass communication. However, exchange and transactions are necessary and important in a framework of behavior management.Targets that are prone, resistant, or unable to respond to the managers goal behave on the basis of their motivation, opportunity, and ability and on a managers use of the strategies and tactics inherent in education, marketing, and law. Developing social marketing to its next level of growth and contribution calls for a wider focus on behavior management.

World Social Marketing Conference Here you can download all the keynote addresses from this 2008 conference.

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Social marketing - Learning for Sustainability

Social Marketing Theory | Communication Theory

Social marketing theory is a collection of theories that focus on how socially valuable information can be promoted. This theory has been used by social and welfare organizations to help promote or discourage various behaviors. The theory is administrative in nature in such that it seeks to outline a framework that can be used to design, implement and evaluate information campaigns. The target audience is identified based on their information need. Once this is done information is packaged and distributed in a manner that will be easily accessible to the intended audience.

cacaroot/dollar photo club

The theory is an attempt to clearly understand how societal and psychological factors work to successfully manipulate them in order to increase how effective mass media information campaigns are. The theory focuses on helping identify the various social and psychological barriers that hinder the flow of information through the mass media and offers ideas and ways to overcome these barriers. These strategies range from being indigenous to the use of saturation advertising.

Features of Social Marketing Theory

1. Creating Audience Awareness

When there is a need to promote any new idea, person or behavior, the first step is to create awareness that such a new concept or individual exists. Awareness is created by using all available channels at ones disposal like news media and even new media like the internet. One of the easiest ways to create awareness is having a saturation television campaign. But the drawback is thats a costly affair. The benefit of using newer media on the other hand is that a wider range of audience can be reached out to. The use of internet helps reach younger audience who may not read newspapers or depend on television for information.

2. Targeting the Right Audience

When disseminating messages, it is important to first identify the audience that requires the message and then finding the most efficient means of reaching them with the message. This helps cut costs and ensures higher levels of audience penetration. For example, if the message is intended for old people, using the internet to spread information would be a waste of time as most elderly people do not use computers. A more effective way would be to use radio and television to get the message across.

3. Reinforce the Message

When people receive a new message once, they tend to forget it easily. Its therefore necessary to reinforce the message by repeatedly ensuring that individuals are exposed to the message from different channels. Promoting the media in various mass media, going door to door, holding group discussions, having debates on television are ways in which messages can be reinforced. People can eventually change themselves as agents when they start spreading the message that they have received from others.

4. Cultivate Images or Impressions

When the audience is not interested in the person, product or service being promoted, they will not seek out any information about them. In such a scenario, image advertising is used. Here recognizable and easily understandable images are shown and the new product or service is shown in relation to that image. This helps create a favorable setting for promoting the new product. For example, watching an old couple reminisce about their college days and romance while sipping a hot cup of coffee is a tactic where a familiar event is used to attach happy emotions to a new coffee product, thus developing its image.

5. Stimulate Interest

To make audience seek information, it is necessary to grab their attention and stimulate interest. Once this is done, information should be made easily accessible to the general public. Dramatic events or unexpected actions help capture the interest of the audience. A politician photographed cleaning a beach helps drive home the point that he cares for the environment. A dish washing product that claims one bottle will clean a thousand plates could organize an event where a thousand or more plates are washed in real using a single bottle. This event could be promoted as breaking the Guinness Book of World Record and immediately causes people to become interested in the product. Similar ideas could be used to further social welfare schemes and products.

6. Induce Desired Result

Once information has reached the intended audience, efforts should be taken to ensure that the desired decision is arrived at. A campaign against smoking needs to ensure that people stop smoking. A new product being introduced should result in actual sales or usage.

Tagged as:creating audience awareness, features of social marketing theory, mass media information campaigns, Social Marketing example, social marketing theory, targeting the right audience

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Social Marketing Theory | Communication Theory

Social Media Marketing & Advertising – Snap Agency

Creating great content is a big part of your online digital strategy, but the other that is often overlooked, is content promotion. A few ways we do this is through social media platforms, influencers, and real time live engagement.

Publishing content on your website is not the final step. You must push that content out into the world! In order to maximize your reach, we need to create shareable and valuable content on your social media platforms consistently. We create content through our SEO strategies to promote through our social platforms.

If a potential customer searches for your business on a social platform and sees that you have not posted in a month, they could easily assume you went out of business or do not value your clients.Investing in a social media management agency will help you to plan out posts ahead of time and make sure that your brand is posting consistently with shareable content.It is important to project professionalism while making an emotional connection. Our goal is to provide value to anyone that would be encountering your brand.

We first understand what is important to your audience and how they use social media. Sharing great images and humor is universally the fastest way to connect viasocial media. Our strategy is to develop content designed to appeal to your audience, using targeted advertising to increase exposure for the content and the brand, while carefully managing social media reviews. Our goal is to drive awareness for your brand, while helping customers understand how much care.

Another part of our social content strategy is social paid advertisements. With Snaps community management team, you will receive customized campaigns built around your internal capabilities, target audience and revenue goals. Our years of experience in building brands through social has taught us to move beyond simple buzz. We leverage SEO, target specific segments of your audience and start relevant conversations that generate support, likes, shares, and engagements.

Did you know that the two largest social media sites in the United States are publicly-traded companies? That means that they need to make money to keep their investors happy! As a result, social media advertising continues to grow as a marketing channel for companies. With social networking sites, like Facebook and Twitter, making it more and more difficult for businesses to reach their desired audience organically, it has become imperative to run social ads.

But heres the good thing! With the right partner to manage your social media advertising strategy, social ads can beextremelyeffective. You can drive engagement and earn followers without wondering, is anyone even seeing my posts? It also has important implications for SEO. Promoting your valuable content to your target audience using social ads has been shown to increase backlinks to your website which, in turn, improves your organic search rank for relevant keywords.

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Social Media Marketing & Advertising - Snap Agency

Sharing is caring: Millennial patients and social media – ModernMedicine

Marketing to millennials, sometimes called the selfie generation, can be a shoo-in for aesthetic practices.

Why? Millennials are happy to share.

While Generation-Xers, baby boomers and older generations were unlikely to want to share cosmetic procedure experiences, millennials, from about ages 21 to 37, not only tell their friends and family, but also their social media networks, according to Tom LaVecchia, president of X Factor Digital Marketing.

Research shows that two-thirds of millennial patients are comfortable sharing their [cosmetic procedure] results, LaVecchia says. Obviously you still need consent for the doctors social media postings. But most millennials will gladly post on their own social media, without asking for anything for it. Theyre happy to do it, because theyre part of an Uber mindset. They tend to share and over-share their experiences, and plastic surgery is no different.

Todays coveted millennial patients are having not only rhinoplasties, breast surgery and liposuction, but also filler and botulinum toxin injections, according to statistics.

To create social media marketing campaigns to reach the younger set, aesthetic physicians should first understand their own personality types and ultimate comfort level with social media; then, they should focus on a campaign that is congruent with their practices and that connects with these younger patients, according to LaVecchia.

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Sharing is caring: Millennial patients and social media - ModernMedicine

Social Kinnect adds Indiabulls Ventures to its kitty – ETBrandEquity.com

Social Kinnect has won the digital media marketing duties for Indiabulls Ventures. The agency will be handling the creative and strategy for the brand across all their digital assets.

On the other hand, Media Kinnect, will be handling all the digital media planning and buying for the brand. Media Kinnect is the companys media buying and planning division.

Commenting on the account win, Rohan Mehta, CEO, Social Kinnect, said, We are excited to expand our portfolio in the Indiabulls Group. Having built strong domain knowledge in the BFSI space, we hope to have a considerable impact on the Indiabulls Ventures business. They are progressive and are in the process of rebooting the brand with a digital first approach, which puts a large responsibility on our shoulders. Digital Media will play an integral part for the brand as driving new customers and reaching out to their target audience is the primary focus for the coming year.

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Social Kinnect adds Indiabulls Ventures to its kitty - ETBrandEquity.com