Social Media Effectiveness

The various social media sites like Facebook, Google + & various other which have more than a billion members which are ever increasing on daily basis. Little that one knew that they would become an effective tool for marketing and now a fierce battle ground for brands.

The whole business of sharing and communication between people which is the purpose of social media sites has been seen as content by marketers and this is where they pitch in. It is a well-known fact that in the total promotional mix digital medium is growing the maximum and here’s why.

There are many channels in digital media like e-mail, search, portals and social media but it is these social media sites where the content and awareness is generated by the users themselves instead of the total campaign develop by companies unlike in traditional media mix companies struggle to find suitable content for customer retention.

There are now many tools and tech firms which are developing various softwares as explained by Mashable to handle & quantify the traffic movement in the social sites for brands and constantly highlighting the user activities related to it which is basically not in control of the brand. The True SocialMetrics & Celum are prime example of helping brands on what is known as social media management.

But this phenomena of spreading the buzz is not that easy as it looks and certain strategies have to be implemented because there’s one fact that nobody should forget here. The social media sites and accounts of users are independent identities run by individuals unlike media houses which have some sort of corporate & political backing which clearly means individual opinions have become stronger than any forced biased information. So its utmost critical for companies to crack the social media code by understanding all its features.

How do this Measure up

                                   

There are many marketers who have adopted this platform but are confused about how effective it is. The parameters of measuring the ROI which is basically what business is all about are not yet clearly defined. There are various marketing research firms who have dwell into the details of how the maths would add up but still it has failed to convince many marketers. There is a general consensus among everybody that social platform presence has become necessary but not on how they measure up..

Caution Marketers Via Dynadot

Author, writer & social media expert Kevan Lee expresses his thoughts in his blog where he clearly says using metrics is one thing & utilizing the numbers from metrics is another

Promotional Mix Pie – Who stands where

On the flip side adoption of technology among elderly is slow as compared to youth which makes it difficult for many companies to actually recognize it as the primary channel for ads. Since still the social media users profile is majorly confined to young, there pose certain limitations on it. For many mass media TV is still a reliable choice. Although now with technology we have been seeing integration of channels and consistency in content which has helped marketers to stabilize & uniform their campaign.

One of the major reasons for adoption for social media is increase in exposure that a brand gets which further helps in gaining market insights. Since it is known that every user activity can be recorded as data which can be utilized and analysed popularly known as Analytics. This encourages markets to adopt social media because unlike other media it is the only channel where customer interaction as well simultaneous data on customer insights can be generated.

Analytical Advantage

One can see that many social media sites like Facebook, Google+ offer Analytics support for marketers & any innovative features and activities which can be quantified and analysed whenever a user uses it like Facebook Like which clearly states that if a user likes any activity, product on Facebook he likes that activity, product & it gets recorded and will give companies insight which otherwise would have been tough using traditional methodologies.

Clearly over a period of time like marketers have understood the potential of social media now vice versa also these sites have understood how by offering various features which can be dynamic, unique and totally complimenting the marketer’s requirements they can not only generate more users but also trust among marketers regarding their effectiveness.

So basically it’s a spiral of activities, wherein more the customer is attracted towards social sites, more will marketers will develop their presence there and integrate the content with other media so as to offer consistency in their campaigns.

Therefore everybody benefits & importantly it becomes apparent that irrespective of any era or time “Customer will always be the king”