Mediaboss Marketing

Learn about the concept of changing people's behavior, the basis of social marketing as a whole, and why it can be of use to your organization.

Community groups do many different things to solve the issues that interest them. A group fighting child hunger might advocate free breakfasts at school, increased funding for WIC (Women and Infant Children), and more child-oriented legislation from the state senate. And to accomplish each of these goals, the group will again probably do many different things: letter-writing campaigns, direct lobbying, and advertising in the media, to name just a few. Thousands of details and hard work by many people are usually involved in a successful initiative.

Looked at from a different perspective, however, it comes down to one thing. At the root of all of the group's work is one basic principle: change people's behavior. This is true not only for a child hunger campaign, but for almost any health or community development initiative. A coalition against violence wants people to stop committing acts of violence. A teen pregnancy initiative tries to put an end to children having children. And an organization for peace looks for the day when world peace is more than a lovely thought on holiday greeting cards.

This concept of changing people's behavior is the basis of this section, and of social marketing as a whole. We will talk about what social marketing is, and why it can be of use to you in your organization. Then, we'll go into more depth on marketing, and discuss what are known as the "4 Ps"--the four elements around which all types of marketing, social or profit-oriented, are centered. Finally, we'll finish with an overview of the stages someone will go through if their effort is successful.

It's a lot of information, and much of it is more conceptual in nature than many other sections of the Tool Box. The next three sections of this chapter, then, will try to ground these ideas more thoroughly, so they can be used in your day-to-day work.

So what, exactly, is social marketing? In Social Marketing Report, it's defined as, "the application of commercial marketing techniques to social problems." It means to take the same principles used in selling goods--such as shoes, television shows, or pizza--to convince people to change their behavior.

What does that mean? Well, instead of selling hamburgers, you're selling a life without heart attacks. Instead of convincing teenagers to buy blue jeans, you're convincing them to buy the advantages of postponing pregnancy.

Of course, if you are selling blue jeans, you're still trying to influence behavior--you're convincing people they need to wear your jeans--either for comfort, or for style, or for value. So then, what is the difference between social marketing and commercial marketing?

It's really summed up in one key point: commercial marketing tries to change people's behavior for the benefit of the marketer; social marketing tries to change people's behavior for the benefit of the consumer, or of society as a whole.

And, although it's not technically a part of social marketing, you'll probably want to...

The above list represents just the bare bones of a social marketing effort. Each of these points will be discussed in detail later in this section, and in Section Four of this chapter. For a full example of a very successful nationwide social marketing plan, see the Examples section at the end of the main text.

A lot of people confuse social marketing with one of its components, advertising. But leaves are just one part of the tree--even when they're only part you can see. Likewise, advertising is a very important part of social marketing, but it's still just a part.

Is that confusing? Well, look at the following messages:

On the other hand...

The bad news is, there is a definite art to it--it's not all something you're born with, and it's not only common sense. After all, people get degrees in this stuff; and major corporations such as Nike or Coca-Cola spend millions of dollars to ensure that their marketing campaigns are state-of-the-art.

Now for the good news: first of all, it's learnable. You may not have been born with phrases like market segmentation floating around in your head, but you can learn what they mean, and how to use them.

Second, it's scalable. Some campaigns are quite large, such as the National High Blood Pressure campaign discussed in the Examples at the end of this section. However, social marketing campaigns can also be quite a bit smaller. That is, you can do it on a local level, when you have limited resources. Just because your group doesn't run the Hyatt Regency, or hasn't resources anywhere in the same ballpark, that doesn't mean you can't take the same principles and put into effect the change that you want to see in your community.

So what makes the concept of social marketing particularly important? Perhaps you've been doing your work quite effectively for years without ever even hearing the phrase. That's actually pretty likely; the phrase was only coined about 25 years ago.

There are three major advantages, however, which suggest that social marketing is worthy of your consideration:

Bottom line? Social marketing is a good idea because it works.

Before we discuss social marketing further, however, it's important to have a grasp on the principles of commercial marketing, since that is what it's based on. As community health workers, or members of non-profit organizations, the idea might seem a bit odd. We're used to a completely different mindset. Terms like "marketing" may conjure up images of big business and corporate greed; they certainly don't make us think of programs to try to help our neighbors.

Even so, your neighbors may not be open to your ideas and programs right off the bat, and you may find yourself having to persuade them. This is what social marketing excels at. The idea may be new for you, or a complete change in how your perceive things. That change, however, may end up being the breath of air your organization needs to become even more effective in changing behavior.

The essence of all marketing can be summed up in what has been termed the "4 Ps." They are product, price, place, and promotion. Let's look at each in turn.

A good social marketing plan, then will try to reduce these costs. An anti-litter campaign will try to place more trash cans around the city; a smoking cessation group might offer support groups to help with the effort, nutrition counseling to counteract weight gain, and nicotine patches to reduce the pangs of withdrawal.

Likewise, if you are "selling" teen pregnancy prevention, what barriers make it difficult to prevent those pregnancies? Can teenagers easily obtain birth control, or is it difficult for them to get hold of? Maybe there isn't a good teen clinic in town. Or if there is a clinic available, maybe it's all the way across town, and it's only open on weekdays until 4:00, making it difficult to get to without missing school.

Social marketing efforts make it easier to change behavior by making sure the necessary supports are not only available, but also easily accessible to the most people possible. The less people need to go out of their way to make a change, the more likely they are to make it.

Promoting your cause doesn't need to take a lot of money. It can also take place through less costly methods, such as good old-fashioned word of mouth. Convincing people through a one-on-one conversation can be just as effective at changing someone's point of view as the best made commercial, or even more so. (Think about it. Which would make you get a tetanus booster: a television commercial or a suggestion from your doctor?) Word of mouth is a highly desirable part of social marketing.

Remember, though--advertising alone is not social marketing.

With that understanding of marketing in mind, let's turn now to the focal point of an effective campaign--the consumer. People will have different ideas and beliefs at different times. For example, among smokers, some may not believe smoking is that bad for them, others might understand the risks but not care, still others may not want to take the effort to stop smoking, and a final group of smokers may be actively trying to quit. A social marketing campaign will see all of these beliefs (and their related actions) as part of a continuum, and try to move people along to the next step.

The idea is that these changes won't happen overnight. Most people won't go immediately from believing smoking is "cool" and not really understanding the health risks to quitting right away. Instead, a social marketing campaign might start them thinking that it's not the best thing to do--and after that idea has had time to turn around in their head for a while, another part of the campaign will help them quit, and yet another part will help them remain smoke free.

How are these beliefs shaped and decisions made? Well, generally speaking, the following activities need to occur:

In much of Africa, women have traditionally had many, many children; in such countries as Nigeria, the average woman might bear as many as 12 children during her lifetime. A social marketing message that has been widely disseminated, then, is have fewer children. This message has been geared towards the goals of increasing women's health, and decreasing overpopulation and famine.

As we mentioned above, not every person will be at the same place on the continuum. It's like they are at different points on a bridge, spanning from attention to action. The tasks of the marketer are first to know who stands where on the bridge, and then to design messages to move each targeted person or group one or more stages further along that bridge, in the direction of desired action.

Social marketing is a concept that's fairly new to the health and development field. Nonetheless, it's an idea that shows immense promise, and can give you an excellent framework through which your organization can do what you have set out to do: help individuals and society as a whole live better lives. Is this something that can be used to further the goals of your program or coalition? The next section of this chapter, will help you decide the answer to just this question.

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Chapter 45. Social Marketing of Successful Components of ...

Viral marketing (or viral advertising) is a marketing technique that uses pre-existing social networking services and other technologies to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales or marketing buzz) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of viruses or computer viruses. It can be delivered by word of mouth or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet and mobile networks.[1]

The concept is often misused or misunderstood,[2][3] as people apply it to any successful enough story without taking into account the word "viral".[4]

Viral advertising is personal and, while coming from an identified sponsor, it does not mean businesses pay for its distribution.[5] Most of the well-known viral ads circulating online are ads paid by a sponsor company, launched either on their own platform (company webpage or social media profile) or on social media websites such as YouTube.[6] Consumers receive the page link from a social media network or copy the entire ad from a website and pass it along through e-mail or posting it on a blog, webpage or social media profile. Viral marketing may take the form of video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, ebooks, brandable software, images, text messages, email messages, or web pages. The most commonly utilized transmission vehicles for viral messages include: pass-along based, incentive based, trendy based, and undercover based. However, the creative nature of viral marketing enables an "endless amount of potential forms and vehicles the messages can utilize for transmission", including mobile devices.[7]

The ultimate goal of marketers interested in creating successful viral marketing programs is to create viral messages that appeal to individuals with high social networking potential (SNP) and that have a high probability of being presented and spread by these individuals and their competitors in their communications with others in a short period of time.[8]

The term "viral marketing" has also been used pejoratively to refer to stealth marketing campaignsmarketing strategies that advertise a product to people without them knowing they are being marketed to.[9]

The emergence of "viral marketing", as an approach to advertisement, has been tied to the popularization of the notion that ideas spread like viruses. The field that developed around this notion, memetics, peaked in popularity in the 1990s.[10] As this then began to influence marketing gurus, it took on a life of its own in that new context.

The term viral strategy was first used in marketing in 1995, in a pre-digital marketing era, by a strategy team at Chiat/Day advertising in LA (now TBWA LA) for the launch of the first PlayStation for Sony Computer Entertainment. Born from a need to combat huge target cynicism the insight was that people reject things pushed at them but seek out things that elude them. Chiat/Day created a 'stealth' campaign to go after influencers/opinion leaders, using street teams for the first time in brand marketing and layered an intricate omni-channel web of info and intrigue. Insiders picked up on it and spread the word. Within 6 months PlayStation was number one in its categorySony's most successful launch in history.

There is debate on the origination and the popularization of the specific term viral marketing, though some of the earliest uses of the current term are attributed to the Harvard Business School graduate Tim Draper and faculty member Jeffrey Rayport. The term was later popularized by Rayport in the 1996 Fast Company article "The Virus of Marketing",[11] and Tim Draper and Steve Jurvetson of the venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson in 1997 to describe Hotmail's practice of appending advertising to outgoing mail from their users.[12] An earlier attestation of the term is found in PC User magazine in 1989, but with a somewhat differing meaning.[13][14]

Among the first to write about viral marketing on the Internet was the media critic Doug Rushkoff.[15] The assumption is that if such an advertisement reaches a "susceptible" user, that user becomes "infected" (i.e., accepts the idea) and shares the idea with others "infecting them", in the viral analogy's terms. As long as each infected user shares the idea with more than one susceptible user on average (i.e., the basic reproductive rate is greater than onethe standard in epidemiology for qualifying something as an epidemic), the number of infected users grows according to an exponential curve. Of course, the marketing campaign may be successful even if the message spreads more slowly, if this user-to-user sharing is sustained by other forms of marketing communications, such as public relations or advertising.[citation needed]

Bob Gerstley was among the first to write about algorithms designed to identify people with high "social networking potential."[16] Gerstley employed SNP algorithms in quantitative marketing research. In 2004, the concept of the alpha user was coined to indicate that it had now become possible to identify the focal members of any viral campaign, the "hubs" who were most influential. Alpha users could be targeted for advertising purposes most accurately in mobile phone networks, due to their personal nature.[citation needed]

In early 2013 the first ever Viral Summit was held in Las Vegas. It attempted to identify similar trends in viral marketing methods for various media.

This exponential growth is not infinite nonetheless, because customers, people, are finite. So there's a ceiling called carrying capacity.[17]

According to marketing professors Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein, to make viral marketing work, three basic criteria must be met, i.e., giving the right message to the right messengers in the right environment:[18]

Whereas Kaplan, Haenlein and others reduce the role of marketers to crafting the initial viral message and seeding it, futurist and sales and marketing analyst Marc Feldman, who conducted IMT Strategies' viral marketing study in 2001,[citation needed] carves a different role for marketers which pushes the 'art' of viral marketing much closer to 'science'.[20]

To clarify and organize the information related to potential measures of viral campaigns, the key measurement possibilities should be considered in relation to the objectives formulated for the viral campaign. In this sense, some of the key cognitive outcomes of viral marketing activities can include measures such as the number of views, clicks, and hits for specific content, as well as the number of shares in social media, such as likes on Facebook or retweets on Twitter, which demonstrate that consumers processed the information received through the marketing message. Measures such as the number of reviews for a product or the number of members for a campaign webpage quantify the number of individuals who have acknowledged the information provided by marketers. Besides statistics that are related to online traffic, surveys can assess the degree of product or brand knowledge, though this type of measurement is more complicated and requires more resources.[21][22]

Related to consumers' attitudes toward a brand or even toward the marketing communication, different online and social media statistics, including the number of likes and shares within a social network, can be used. The number of reviews for a certain brand or product and the quality assessed by users are indicators of attitudes. Classical measures of consumer attitude toward the brand can be gathered through surveys of consumers. Behavioral measures are very important because changes in consumers' behavior and buying decisions are what marketers hope to see through viral campaigns. There are numerous indicators that can be used in this context as a function of marketers' objectives. Some of them include the most known online and social media statistics such as number and quality of shares, views, product reviews, and comments. Consumers' brand engagement can be measured through the K-factor, the number of followers, friends, registered users, and time spent on the website. Indicators that are more bottom-line oriented focus on consumers' actions after acknowledging the marketing content, including the number of requests for information, samples, or test-drives. Nevertheless, responses to actual call-to-action messages are important, including the conversion rate. Consumers' behavior is expected to lead to contributions to the bottom line of the company, meaning increase in sales, both in quantity and financial amount. However, when quantifying changes in sales, managers need to consider other factors that could potentially affect sales besides the viral marketing activities. Besides positive effects on sales, the use of viral marketing is expected to bring significant reductions in marketing costs and expenses.[23][24]

Viral marketing often involves and utilizes:

Viral target marketing is based on three important principles:[25]

By applying these three important disciplines to an advertising model, a VMS company is able to match a client with their targeted customers at a cost effective advantage.

The Internet makes it possible for a campaign to go viral very fast; it can, so to speak, make a brand famous overnight. However, the Internet and social media technologies themselves do not make a brand viral; they just enable people to share content to other people faster. Therefore, it is generally agreed that a campaign must typically follow a certain set of guidelines in order to potentially be successful:[26]

The growth of social networks significantly contributed to the effectiveness of viral marketing.[28] As of 2009, two thirds of the world's Internet population visits a social networking service or blog site at least every week.[29] Facebook alone has over 1 billion active users.[30] In 2009, time spent visiting social media sites began to exceed time spent emailing.[31] A 2010 study found that 52% of people who view news online forward it on through social networks, email, or posts.[32]

'The influencers in order to communicate marketing messages to the audiences you seek to reach'.[33] In business, it is indicated that people prefer interaction with humans to a logo.[34] Therefore, it seems that influencers are on behalf of a company to build up a relationship between the brand and their customers. Companies would be left behind if they neglected the trend of influencers in viral marketing, as over 60% of global brands have used influencers in marketing in 2016.[35] The influencer types come along with the level of customers' involvement in companies' marketing.[36] First, unintentional influences,[37][36] because of brand satisfaction and low involvement, their action is just to deliver a company's message to a potential user.[38] Secondly, users will become salesmen or promoters for a particular company with incentives.[37][36] For example, ICQ offered their users benefits to create the awareness of their friends. Finally, the mass reached influencers are those who have a huge range of followers on the social network. Recent trend in businesses activity is to offer incentives to individual users for re-posting the advertisement messages to their own profiles. A common type of an incentive puts all the re-posting users into a random draw for a valuable gift [39]

Marketers and agencies commonly consider celebrities as a good influencer with endorsement work. This conception is similar to celebrity marketing. Based on a survey, 69% of company marketing department and 74% of agencies are currently working with celebrities in the UK. The celebrity types come along with their working environment. Traditional celebrities are considered as singles, dancers, actors or models. These types of public characters are continuing to be the most commonly used by company marketers. The survey found that 4 in 10 company having worked with these traditional celebrities in the prior year. However, people these years are spending more time on social media rather than traditional media such as TV. The researchers also claim that customers are not firmly believed celebrities are effectively influential.[40][41]

Social media stars among a kind of influencer on viral marketing since consumers are spending more time on the Internet than before. And companies and agencies start to consider collaborating with social media stars as their product endorser.

Social media stars such as YouTuber Zoella or Instagrammer Aimee Song are followed by millions of people online. These online celebrities are having more connection and influence with their followers because they have more frequent and realistic conversation and interaction on the Internet in terms of comments or likes.[42]

This trend captured by marketers who are used to explore new potential customers. Agencies are placing social media stars alongside singers and musicians at the top of the heap of celebrity types they had worked with. And there are more than 28% of company marketers having worked with one social media celebrity in the previous year.[41]

The challenges of strategically maximizing the influence spread in social networks are addressed in management science.[43]

Using influencers in viral marketing provides companies several benefits. It enables companies to spend little time and budget on their marketing communication and brand awareness promotion.[44] For example, Alberto Zanot, in the 2006 FIFA Football World Cup, shared Zinedine Zidane's headbutt against Italy and engaged more than 1.5 million viewers in less than the very first hour. Secondly, it enhances the credibility of messages.[45][46][47][48][49] These trust-based relationships grab the audience's attention, create customers' demand, increase sales and loyalty, or simply drive customers' attitude and behavior.[47][48] In the case of Coke, Millennials changed their mind about the product, from parents' drink to the beverage for teens.[50] It built up Millennials' social needs by 'sharing a Coke' with their friends. This created a deep connection with Gen Y, dramatically increased sales (+11% compared with last year) and market share (+1.6%).[50]

No doubt that harnessing influencers would be a lucrative business for both companies and influencers.[51] The concept of 'influencer' is no longer just an 'expert' but also anyone who delivers and influence on the credibility of a message (e.g. blogger)[46] In 2014, BritMums, network sharing family's daily life, had 6,000 bloggers and 11,300 views per month on average[52][53] and became endorsers for some particular brand such as Coca-Cola, Morrison. Another case, Aimee Song who had over 3.6m followers on the Instagram page and became Laura Mercier's social media influencers, gaining $500,000 monthly.[52]

Decision-making process seems to be hard for customers these days. Millers (1956) argued that people suffered from short-term memory.[54] This links to difficulties in customers' decision-making process and Paradox of Choice,[55] as they face various adverts and newspapers daily.[56] Influencers serve as a credible source for customers' decision-making process.[46][38] Neilsen reported that 80% of consumers appreciated a recommendation of their acquaintances,[57] as they have reasons to trust in their friends delivering the messages without benefits[57] and helping them reduce perceived risks behind choices.[58][59]

The main risk coming from the company is for it to target the wrong influencer or segment. Once the content is online, the sender won't be able to control it anymore.[60] It is therefore vital to aim at a particular segment when releasing the message. This is what happened to the company BlendTech which released videos showing the blender could blend anything, and encouraged users to share videos. This mainly caught the attention of teenage boys who thought it funny to blend and destroy anything they could;[61] even though the videos went viral, they did not target potential buyers of the product. This is considered to be one of the major factors that affects the success of the online promotion. It is critical and inevitable for the organisations to target the right audience. Another risk with internet is that a company's video could end up going viral on the other side of the planet where their products are not even for sale.[62]

According to a paper by Duncan Watts and colleagues entitled: "Everyone's an influencer",[63] the most common risk in viral marketing is that of the influencer not passing on the message, which can lead to the failure of the viral marketing campaign. A second risk is that the influencer modifies the content of the message. A third risk is that influencers pass on the wrong message. This can result from a misunderstanding or as a deliberate move.

Between 19961997, Hotmail was one of the first internet businesses to become extremely successful utilizing viral marketing techniques by inserting the tagline "Get your free e-mail at Hotmail" at the bottom of every e-mail sent out by its users. Hotmail was able to sign up 12 million users in 18 months.[64] At the time, this was historically the fastest growth of any user based media company.[65] By the time Hotmail reached "66 million users", the company was establishing "270,000 new accounts each day".[65]

In 2000, Slate.com described TiVo's unpublicized gambit of giving free systems to web-savvy enthusiasts to create "viral" word of mouth, pointing out that a viral campaign differs from a publicity stunt.[66]

Burger King has used several marketing campaigns. Its The Subservient Chicken campaign, running from 2004 until 2007, was an example of viral or word-of-mouth marketing.[67]

The Blendtec viral video series Will It Blend? debuted in 2006. In the show, Tom Dickson, Blendtec founder and CEO, attempts to blend various unusual items in order to show off the power of his blender. Will it Blend? has been nominated for the 2007 YouTube award for Best Series, winner of .Net Magazine's 2007 Viral Video campaign of the year and winner of the Bronze level Clio Award for Viral Video in 2008.[68] In 2010, Blendtec claimed the top spot on the AdAge list of "Top 10 Viral Ads of All Time".[69] The Will It Blend page on YouTube currently shows over 200 million video views.[70]

The Big Word Project, launched in 2008, aimed to redefine the Oxford English Dictionary by allowing people to submit their website as the definition of their chosen word. The project, created to fund two Masters students' educations, attracted the attention of bloggers worldwide, and was featured on Daring Fireball and Wired Magazine.[71]

Companies may also be able to use a viral video that they did not create for marketing purposes. A notable example is the viral video "The Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments" created by Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz of EepyBird. After the initial success of the video, Mentos was quick to offer its support. They shipped EepyBird thousands of mints for their experiments. Coke was slower to get involved.[72]

On March 6, 2012, Dollar Shave Club launched their online video campaign. In the first 48 hours of their video debuting on YouTube they had over 12,000 people signing up for the service. The video cost just $4500 to make and as of November 2015 has had more than 21 million views. The video was considered as one of the best viral marketing campaigns[73] of 2012 and won "Best Out-of-Nowhere Video Campaign" at the 2012 AdAge Viral Video Awards.

In 2014, A.L.S. Ice Bucket Challenge was among the best viral marketing challenges examples in the social network. Millions of people on the social media started filming themselves, pouring a bucket of ice water over their heads and sharing the video with their friends. The challenge was created to give support for fighting amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also called Lou Gehrig's disease. People finished the challenge and then nominated the next person they knew on the social media to take the same challenge. By following this trend, Ice Bucket Challenge became a 'fab' on social media with many online celebrities such as Tyler Oakley, Zoe Sugg and huge celebrities and entrepreneurs like Justin Bieber, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates participating.[74] Until September 2014, over 2.4 million ice bucket-related videos had been posted on Facebook, and 28 million people had uploaded, commented on or liked ice bucket-related posts. And about 3.7 million videos had been uploaded on Instagram with the hashtags #ALSicebucketchallenge and #icebucketchallenge.[75] The ALS association didnt invent the ice bucket challenge, but they sure received a huge amount of donation from this activity. It raised a reported $220 million worldwide for A.L.S. organisations, and this amount is thirteen times as much donation as what it had in the whole preceding year in just eight weeks.[76]

In mid 2016, an Indian tea company (TE-A-ME) has delivered 6,000 tea bags[77] to DonaldTrumpand launched a video on YouTube.[78] and Facebook[79] The video campaign become an award-winning viral marketing case study and received various awards including most creative PR stunt[80] in Southeast Asia after receiving 52000+ video shares, 3.1M video view in first 72-hour and hundreds of publication mentions (including Mashable, Quartz,[81] Indian Express,[82] Buzzfeed[83]) across 80+ countries.

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Viral marketing - Wikipedia

Social media marketing is a powerful way for businesses of all sizes to reach prospects and customers. Your customers are already interacting with brands through social media, and if you're not speaking directly to your audience through social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest, you're missing out! Great marketing on social media can bring remarkable success to your business, creating devoted brand advocates and even driving leads and sales.

Social media marketing, or SMM, is a form of internet marketing that involves creating and sharing content on social media networks in order to achieve your marketing and branding goals. Social media marketing includes activities like posting text and image updates, videos, and and other content that drives audience engagement, as well as paid social media advertising.

Weve created this guide to provide you with an introduction to social media marketing and some starter social media marketing tips and training to improve your business's social presence.

With these tips, you can begin developing your own social media marketing expert plan.

Before you begin creating social media marketing campaigns, consider your businesss goals. Starting a social media marketing campaign without a social strategy in mind is like wandering around a forest without a mapyou might have fun, but you'll probably get lost.

Here are some questions to ask when defining your social media marketing goals:

Your business type should inform and drive your social media marketing strategy.

Example of a drone company doing social media marketing on Instagram

For example, an e-commerce or travel business, being highly visual, can get a lot of value from a strong presence on Instagram or Pinterest. A business-to-business or marketing company might find more leverage in Twitter or Linkedin.

Social media marketing can help with a number of goals, such as:

The bigger and more engaged your audience is on social media networks, the easier it will be for you to achieve every other marketing goal on your list!

Ready to get started with marketing on social media? Here are a few social media marketing tips to kick off your social media campaigns.

A great Facebook ad should be consistent with your whole brand image

Measuring social media performance through Twitter Analytics

Here's a brief overview abouthow to use social media for marketing according to each platforms unique user base and environment. Different social media marketing sites require different approaches, so develop a unique strategy tailored for each platform.

Using Facebook for Social Media Marketing

Facebooks casual, friendly environment requires an active social media marketing strategy. Start by creating a Facebook Business Fan Page. You will want to pay careful attention to layout, as the visual component is a key aspect of the Facebook experience.

Facebook is a place people go to relax and chat with friends, so keep your tone light and friendly. And remember, organic reach on Facebook can be extremely limited, so consider a cost-effective Facebook ad strategy, which can have a big impact on your organic Facebook presence as well!

Using Google+ for Social Media Marketing

Google+ entered the scene as a Facebook competitor, but it now serves a more niche audience. It won't work for everybody, but some communities are very active on Google+.

On Google+ you can upload and share photos, videos, links, and view all your +1s. Also take advantage of Google+ circles, which allow you to segment your followers into smaller groups, enabling you to share information with some followers while barring others. For example, you might try creating a super-fan circle, and share special discounts and exclusive offers only with that group.

You can also try hosting video conferences with Hangouts and experiment using the Hangout feature in some fun, creative ways. Some social media marketing ideas: if you're a salon, host a how-to session on how to braid your hair. If you own a local bookstore, try offering author video chats. If you're feeling adventurous, invite your +1s to your Google+ Community. Google+ Communities will allow you to listen into your fan's feedback and input, truly putting the social back into social media.

Using Pinterest for Social Media Marketing

Pinterest is one of the fastest growing social media marketing trends. Pinterests image-centered platform is ideal for retail, but anyone can benefit from using Pinterest for social media purposes or sales-driving ads.

Pinterest allows businesses to showcase their product offerings while also developing brand personality with eye-catching, unique pinboards. When developing your Pinterest strategy, remember that the social network's primary audience is female. If that's your demographic, you need a presence on Pinterest!

Using Twitter for Social Media Marketing

Twitter is the social media marketing tool that lets you broadcast your updates across the web. Follow tweeters in your industry or related fields, and you should gain a steady stream of followers in return.

Mix up your official tweets about specials, discounts, and news with fun, brand-building tweets . Be sure to retweet when a customer has something nice to say about you, and dont forget to answer peoples questions when possible. Using Twitter as a social media marketing tool revolves around dialog and communication, so be sure to interact as much as possible to nurture and build your following.

Using LinkedIn for Social Media Marketing

LinkedIn is one of the more professional social media marketing sites. LinkedIn Groups is a great venue for entering into a professional dialog with people in similar industries and provides a place to share content with like-minded individuals. It's also great for posting jobs and general employee networking.

Encourage customers or clients to give your business a recommendation on your LinkedIn profile. Recommendations makes your business appear more credible and reliable for new customers. Also browse the Questions section of LinkedIn; providing answers helps you get established as a thought leader and earns trust.

Using YouTube for Social Media Marketing

YouTube is the number one place for creating and sharing video content, and it can also be an incredibly powerful social media marketing tool. Many businesses try to create video content with the aim of having their video go viral, but in reality those chances are pretty slim. Instead, focus on creating useful, instructive how-to videos. These how-to videos also have the added benefit of ranking on the video search results of Google, so don't under-estimate the power of video content!

Location-Based Social Media Tools

Social media platforms like Yelp, FourSquare, and Level Up are great for brick and mortar businesses looking to implement marketing on social media. Register on these sites to claim your location spot, and then consider extra incentives such as check-in rewards or special discounts. Remember, these visitors will have their phones in hand, so they will be able to write and post reviews. A lot of good reviews can significantly help sway prospective visitors to come in and build your business!

Using Reddit for Social Media Marketing

Reddit, or similar social media platforms such as Stumble Upon or Digg, are ideal for sharing compelling content. With over 2 billion page views a month, Reddit has incredible social media marketing potential, but marketers should be warned that only truly unique, interesting content will be welcomed. Posting on Reddit is playing with firesubmit spammy or overtly sales-focused content and your business could get berated by this extremely tech-savvy community.

If you have content you believe the Reddit community (majority is young, geeky, liberal, and internet-obsessed) would enjoy, you could reap tremendous benefits and earn valuable traffic.

Using social media in marketing does more than improve site traffic and help businesses reach more customers; it provides a valuable venue for better understanding and learning from your target audiences.

We love paid social advertising because it's a highly cost-effective way to expand your reach. If you play your cards right, you can get your content and offers in front of a huge audience at a very low cost. Most social media platforms offer incredibly granular targeting capabilities, allowing you to focus your budget on exactly the types of people that are most likely to be interested in your business. Below are some tips and resources for getting started with paid social media marketing:

Learn the ins and outs of social media advertising on four major networks: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+.

If you know how to use it properly, Facebook can be one of the most powerful advertising platforms for driving your business forward. And it's not just for raising brand awareness. In this guide, you'll learn how to create effective Facebook ads that generate real leads.

If you're already advertising on Facebook and are looking to save time AND money, check out WordStream Social Ads, our new offering that makes Facebook advertising easier and more effective.

Many businesses arent quite sure how to tackle marketing on Twitter from a paid perspective. Its certainly not a one-size-fits-all endeavor, and if you dont quite know what youre doing, you could wind up wasting a ton of money. Learn how to master Twitter advertising in this guide.

Looking to learn more detailed information about implementing social media in marketing? Get more information about social media and how to use it for your business.

Social Ads 101 - Visit PPC University to learn everything you need to know about advertising on social media.

Our 13 Best Social Media Marketing Tips Ever - The best of the best!

Do Facebook Ads Work? - Learn how Facebook advertising works, and why.

5 Reasons to Advertise on Facebook - If you're not using Facebook ads yet, you should. Here's why!

The Ridiculously Awesome Guide to Facebook Remarketing - For advanced Facebook advertisers. Learn how to recapture lost audiences and close those leads!

Experts Guide to Keyword Research for Social Media - Learn about how to conduct winning keyword research for various social media marketing campaigns.

Follow this link:
Social Media Marketing for Businesses | WordStream

Improve your Social media marketing with our hub page

Use our hub pages as a reference to get up-to-speed on all the main digital marketing techniques. They will help you quickly understand how to make the most of the technique through definitions and recommendations on our member resources and blog articles covering strategy, best practices and the latest statistics.

Social media have transformed marketing, for the better most would say. We'll help you make the most of the power of social media marketing using a strategic approach sharing approaches from the leading commentators and companies.

See our latest blog articles on social media for our latest coverage of the tools and techniques.

1. Statistics compilation:Global social media statistics

2. Free download:10 social media marketing mistakes

3. Infographic:What happens in one minute online?

4. Paid guide: Social media strategy- our 7 steps guide to creating a strategy

5. Paid guide: Social media plan example - a worked example of a social media marketing plan

The success factors for developing social media marketing are summarised through the different parts of our 7 Steps to Social Media Success Guide:

1. Set business goals for your social media - it's best not to experiment without a clear idea of how social media will support your business goals.

2. Create a social media strategy. A strategy will help you to deploy social media in the best way to reach your goals by prioritising on the channels in our RADAR which are most effective.

3. Active social listening and reputation management. Most advice on social media marketing strategies advises to start by listening to your conversations. We prefer the term coined by Brian Solis in his book Engage of "Active Social Listening" since this shows the need for a feedback cycle within social media marketing.

4. Define content and engagement strategy. We've noted that encouraging engagement and participation are the biggest challenges to social media marketing, so clear strategies are needed to show how to achieve these.

5. Define communications strategy.In the social media era, a continuous communications strategy is necessary to engage your audience through the many channels available. Key issues here are defining the types of content value you offer through different social channels and the frequency. Integrating different digital channels including email marketing through a social media marketing hub is also a key issue here.

6. Deploy best practice approaches for the core social media platforms.Each social media platform such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube has unique characteristics and audience needs. There is also a bewildering array of tools to deploy and etiquette to follow so you won't be seen as a spammer.

7. Social media optimisation. You may have a presence established, but this is only the beginning in your journey to optimise your presence to deliver real value for your business.

We think the CIPR Social media panel defines social media marketing well:

Social media is the term commonly given to Internet and mobile-based channels and tools that allow users to interact with each other and share opinions and content. As the name implies, social media involves the building of communities or networks and encouraging participation and engagement.

Their definition emphasises that we need to use different digital media channels to encourage our prospects and customers to interact to form communities. It also hints at the challenges of encouraging engagement.

These are the related techniques which we recommend as important for managing Social media marketing effectively. View these hub pages giving details on best practices, statistics and examples for these techniques:

View all blog articles on Social media marketing

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Social media marketing | Smart Insights

Who is the ranking for?

GetApp's Category Leader ranking is for business owners and decision makers looking for a comprehensive list of the leading cloud-based software products in the industry.

The ranking serves as a point of reference highlighting key factors that small businesses should look at when assessing a piece of software. These factors include user perception (reviews), compatibility (integrations and mobile compatibility), market presence (media presence), and security features (security).

An app's score is calculated using five unique data points, each scored out of 20, giving a total score out of 100. The ranking and scoring methodology ensure complete impartiality and independence from any relationships that GetApp has with app vendors.

Review scores are calculated using reviews collected from GetApp and its sister sites, Software Advice and Capterra. Scores are calculated based on the total number, average rating, and recency of reviews.

The number of reviews and average user rating are scaled against the category average. A weighting is then applied to reward recency of user reviews: reviews written in the last 6 months score up to 10 points, those written between 6 and 12 months ago score up to 6 points, and those more than 12 months old score up to 4 points. These numbers are added together to give a total maximum score of 20.

Integration scores factor in a number of variables. Up to 16 points are awarded based on the number of integrations an app has; the first 10 points are awarded based on the number of integrations relative to the category average, while 4 points are awarded based on the number of integrations relative to the leaders in the category. An additional 5 points is awarded for an integration with Zapier, a widely used software integration platform, while an extra point is given for having an open API. The total possible score for integrations is 20 points.

Mobile scores are calculated based on the availability of an iOS and Android app. 5 points are awarded for the presence of each app, with an additional 10 points being awarded for the number and average rating of reviews in both the App Store and Google Play. These review scores are calculated and scaled against the competition for a maximum of 5 points per platform and an overall maximum score of 20.

If there isn't a native iOS or Android app, the product's website is assessed using Google's PageSpeed Insights to measure mobile usability. The score is returned out of 100, then scaled to a score out of 5 for a maximum of 5 points.

Media presence is calculated using the number of Twitter followers and Facebook fans that an app has. The number of fans and followers are added together, and each app is scored based on this overall number, compared with others in the category. The first 15 points are awarded for the combined number of followers and fans scaled against the category average, while the final 5 points are awarded for the combined number of followers and fans scaled against the top leaders in the category. These two scores are added together for a total out of 20 points.

Security scoring is calculated using answers from a vendor-completed survey. The questions in the survey are based on the Cloud Security Alliance self-assessment form as part of the Security, Trust & Assurance Registry. With 15 questions, each answer is assigned a point value based on vendor response, with additional points given for security certifications, for a maximum possible score of 20.

In the event of a tie, each data point is weighted for importance, with security taking precedent, followed by reviews, integrations, mobile apps, and media presence, respectively.

*All data points combining calculations for both ratings and reviews are calculated using a Bayesian estimate, which is a weighted average that includes the number of reviews and the rating of an app, benchmarked against others in the category.

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Social Media Marketing Software - getapp.com