A Review of Social Media and Implications for the Sales Process

Questions: 1. Critically assess the main approaches to social media marketing strategies. 2. Identify and critically evaluate effective social media marketing strategies, tools and development approaches for building brand awareness, increasing market share and entering new markets. 3. Critically evaluate the relationship between the design, deployment and implementing of effective social media marketing strategies and the achievement of organisations marketing strategies and objectives. 4. Evaluate the current social media marketing best practices in a global organisation and identify and critically appraise suggestions for improvement of these practices to allow for better performance and building an organisation of the 21st century. 5. Analyse current developments in social media and evaluate their potential impact on the marketing strategies of a chosen organisation.? Answers: Introduction: Social Media Communication means the communication through electronics like - micro blogging websites, social networking websites, through which the users can create online communities for communicating with other, like - to share ideas, information, personal messages and others like videos (Couldry, 2012). SMC is the acronym for Social Media Communication, and it is popularly known by its acronym. Now a day, Social Media Communication is very important for the growth of any company, especially ecommerce business. The reasons for the importance of SMC in ecommerce business are to recognize and to act upon trends more faster, to promote the followers for free, by word-of-mouth customers can be attracted, more stronger relationships can be developed, brand awareness can be increased, two-way communication can be easily created, consumer survey can be easily done, thus questions can be asked to the customers and in return, their answers can also be listen and appropriate measure can ta ke place for consumer concerns (Fuller and Goffey, 2012). Thus, by assuming as a new marketing manager of the ecommerce company Amazon, the objective is to implement the social media marketing strategy for the growth of the company. Background of the industry: Electronic commerce is very popular in U.K. The population of the country is 63.7 million, among which about 82 % people are internet users in the country. Thus, according to the market researchers, the online sales took place in U.K. of about 110.5 billion, in the year 2013. Most of the internet users in U.K., about 40 %, pay the purchase amount through credit cards, 35 % through debit cards, 21 % through PayPal and the remaining 4 % through other (Shandan et al., 2012). The biggest ecommerce companies, occupying the largest portion of the share market in U.S. are Amazon (16 %), Tesco (9 %), and eBay (8 %). Background of the company: Amazon is a public ecommerce company. It was founded on 6th July, in the year 1994 by Jeff Bezos, who is the chairman as well as the president and CEO of the company. It is an America based company with headquarters at Seattle, in Washington. Amazon is the largest internet based retailer and consumer merchandise in the United States. The company started as an online bookstore. But then it diversified its business by started selling online Blu-rays, DVDs, CDs, MP3 downloads or streaming, video downloads or streaming, electronics, toys, food, jewelry, apparel, software, furniture, and video games. Amazon also produces different consumer electronics like Fire Tablets, Fire Phone, Fire TV, and Amazon Kindle e-book readers. The company also sells some low-ended products like USB cables under its in-house brand, that is, Amazon Basics. Amazon is the worlds largest provider of cloud computing services (SHARMA, 2012). The other main services provided by the company besides online shopping, are web hosting and content distribution. The total revenue of the company is $ 88.988 billion, having total assets of $ 54.505 billion and total equity of $ 10.741 billion, according to record of the year 2014. Around 154100 numbers of employees are working in Amazon, according to the report of December 2014. The subsidiaries of the company are Amazon web services, A9.com, a2z, Audible.com, Alexa Internet, Internet Movie Database, Zappos, and Junglee.com. The reason for choosing this particular electronic commerce company related to Social Media Communication is that, since 2010, the social media communication is playing an increasing role in the business of ecommerce. The researchers found it that, about 47 % to 58 % of the small business owners are using social networking sites for the development and growth of their business (Huijsman et al., 2012). Though the company Amazon is quiet larger, still for its higher growth and to reach out to new customers at every corner of the world and to maintain the existing customers by providing more facilities but with cheaper cost of the company is the main objective of the marketing department of the company. 3: Importance of social media marketing: Now a day to just have a website for a business is not enough. For extension of the business capitalization should be started through social media marketing sites like Twitter, Face book, Linked In, Instagram and many more (McCorkle and McCorkle, 2012). In 21st century these social media are the main street of our daily life, thus we use these media for communicating with people, to get information quickly, and to shop for products. According to market researchers, presently most of the business houses invest only 9 per cent of their total budget, but in near future it should be increased to near about 22 per cent of their total budget (Lazaroiu, 2012). Social media is a way to connect with the audiences. Effective social marketing indicates the real value of the e-commerce businesses because social networks are the only network which helps the company to reach afresh customers, to maintain and reward existing consumers and introduce the new dimension of a particular brand (Laudon and Traver, 2012). There are various reasons for an e-commerce company like Amazon to follow social media marketing: For speeding up the program of the company to reduce the risk of the competition in the market. The tweets and status updated by the customer in the face book page of the company, help the company to get insights and understand the daily lives of the consumers. Therefore, the company can adjust its market strategies in need. Social media marketing helps the company to get the feedback early, thus they can immediately respond to any type of problem regarding any products or services (Noor Al-Deen and Hendricks, 2012). There is a proverb that early bird gets the worm. Similarly by following this company should also start Facebook and Twiter pages as early as possible because these will start earning tons of fans and followers on behalf of the company. According to the people, Twitter and Facebook are social networks only, but the company can use these tools as the marketing machine (Porterfield and Carnes, 2012). Social media marketing provides opportunity to the people to get constantly some incentives to purchase, and also to keep the name of the company in front of its potential buyers. If the company follows the process of marketing through Facebook, then it can join a number of groups related to the company and can post various links there, which will help to influence the customers and thus sales will increase. There are both Micro and Macro Theories regarding Social Media. These are Micro Theories: Word of mouth According to market researchers, people generally prefer to buy products according to the advice of their friends, relatives, peers, as this word of mouth seemed to be more reliable, trustworthy and honest to them (Stocchetti and Kukkonen, 2012). Social Exchange Theory this is a cost benefit theory, and mainly focuses on the relationships and bonds of the people and the formation of communities through exchanges of communication. Social Penetration Theory this theory highlights on the individual and dyadic levels. Macro Theories: Social Network Analysis This theory helps to study the development, structure and evolution of the individual community (White, 2012). Here, mathematical models are used to evaluate. Social networks can be formed by individuals to families, nations and communities. McLuhans Media Theory According to McLuhan, the actual content of media should transform society and people. Thus, it can be said that, according to the importance of all the theories of media, social media marketing is valuable to various marketers. Marketing Objectives Of Incorporation Of Smc: Under the surveyors supervision for marketers across the industry sectors for insight into the improvement of social media marketing strategy integration it is understand as follows: Choosing of correct strategies - Social media marketing is in infancy stage, thus there is lack of any constant tool. At lightening motion new tools come into the role but by using latest technology the company should concentrate on its target market which includes the new generation and more internet savvy consumer, and accordingly the company should apply the new tool or discard it (Mason, 2013). Implementation of proper social media - The objective of the targeted customer should be cleared to the company, such that proper tactics of social media may be implemented for the growth expansion of the company. Be forward looking - This media is generally used to promote product, brand and company awareness. The marketers should understand the need of the customer and accordingly they should use the evangelists to augment the companys message and amplify the loyalty of the customer (Bernhardt, Mays and Hall, 2012). Amalgamation of social media channel to marketing strategy - There are various types of social media but the company should choose that platform which perfectly fits the target audience and brand positioning of the company. Convert to purchase through social media, the company can engage its customers in personal, ongoing and real time manner by providing him/ her personalized discounts, or detailed information or promotion of any particular product. Champion integration For better integration, the leader of the companies should share their stories of success throughout the firm (Dorenda-Zaborowicz, 2012). This will become the ethos of the company and can influence the integration of social media marketing strategies. Learn from failures Generally the execution cost of social media is lesser than the traditional media. Thus for the companies to perform experiment with social media is easy and simple, and in need they can change any strategy if a particular one fails. Sort out attribution the company should calculate the sales revenue in both the option, that is, quantity of sales revenue during implementation of only social media marketing strategies and in conjunction with other tactics. According to the result, the company should put their foot forward. Features of social media: Social media is generally defined as a group of different forms of online media, which increases the interaction and connectivity between the people, specifically the internet users. Social media is mainly characterized by the following features: Participation social media is open to all, thus, anyone who is interested can contribute and provide feedback, which reduces the gap between the customers and the media. Openness here openness indicates the freedom of participation of the customers and to provide feedback, which encourage the customers to share any information, and to comment on it. Conversation traditional media was one-way conversation, where the broadcast was distributed to all people. But the modern media, i.e. social media is better than traditional one, as it is two-way conversation (Wirtz and Elser, 2012). Community communities are formed quickly through the help of social media and thus also help in communication both effectively and efficiently. Connectedness the main feature of the social media is to connect people from one corner of the world to other, through the help of internet like use of different links, people, resources. Importance of branded content strategies: The word content literally means the digital body language. Thus, good content is necessary for any business, as it useful and attractive for those customers, who usually purchase through digital media and social media (Caywood, 2012). The afresh customers have to first believe the company Amazon, then according to their thought or view point, they would start supporting the brand and finally they become loyal to the brand or company and act as the ambassador of the company. Again, customer-centric content helps the company to develop trust among the customers, and earn credibility, which helps the company to gain authority. Content strategies help the companies to build audience, attract consumers and create advocates on behalf of the company. Future of social media marketing: In the field of ecommerce, social media marketing is the best option, and it will help to expand the business. If social media marketing is introduced within the company Amazon, it will help to the company to earn more sales revenue, as this social media helps people to buy their required products from a smart phone only. Even the post, pins, follow, like options of various social media insist people to buy those products, which are not the targeted requirement of the customers (Wirtz and Elser, 2012). These help to increase the popularity of the company, and to increase the revenue as well as the profit of the company. This is also the best way for advertising at cheaper rate. Commerce is a huge matter; similarly ecommerce is also, on the other hand social media is also a vast area, thus combination of all these is an enormous factor, thus the future of Amazon would also be very bright, if social media marketing is implemented within the marketing department of the company (Martino, 2012). Internal capability of the company for implementation of smc: Measurement of capabilities of any company is possible through SWOT Analysis. SWOT Analysis is defined as the analysis of the internal strengths, internal weaknesses, external opportunities and external threats of a company (Bertelsen, 2012). Similarly, to evaluate the internal capability of the company, Amazon, for implementation of the social media marketing strategy in their marketing department to earn more profit and for expansion of the company, SWOT analysis has to be performed. From the following chart of SWOT Analysis, the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities of Amazon can be explained: The company is having the internal strengths of customer service, which means the company is already close to the customers, and by implementing social media marketing strategies, Amazon should come more closer to the heart of the customers, and thus the company can serve well and at every moment of the need of the customers. Amazon generally provides various offers like offer of the day, offer of the week, weekend sales and many more. All these offers are for various products and various brands. If the company provides advertisements of these offers through social media, then people would come to know about various offers faster, as they mostly use smart phones, and can shop from their smart phones in bus, road, anywhere they get free time. Thus, this also indicates the positivity of implementing the social media marking strategy in the company (Laudon and Traver, 2012). The company is constantly evolving from the very first day, thus, it has expanded in a vast way. For further growth of the company social media marketing is necessary, as by implementing this strategy, other industries have also expanded (Zorc et al., 2012). From the following graph, the expansion of various companies like IAB can be understood: At present the growth of the company Amazon is as follows: From the above graph the total profit and revenue of Amazon can be understood easily, which indicates that the company is amazingly expanding and is running smoothly. This growth can be maximized, if the marketing department implements the social media marketing strategy (Klasen, 2012). Social generated e-commerce sells has constantly increased in the country (Molloy, Scott and Naomi, 2013). Even the media which helped the most to generate sales can be easily recognized from the following graph: From the above graph, it can be said that different social media like Facebook, E-mail, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and Tumblr helps in e-commerce to a large extent. Thus in each quarter of a year, the sales through social media have increased successively (Daniel and Anca, 2012). These graphs of high sells through social media marketing strategy and high income of Amazon, indicates that if the marketing department of the company implements the new marketing strategy of social media, then it would bring more profit, more sales revenue, at low cost. Thus the company would grow efficiently and effectively. There is a weakness of the company, that is, Amazon makes profit losses due to free shipping. Free shipping is an essential part of any e-commerce company, so to compete with the competitors of the market, Amazon has to also provide free shipping, and otherwise it might lose its market. Thus to compensate this loss making, at cheaper cost through social media, the company can make promotion and advertisement of its products in the whole world (Andzulis, Panagopoulos and Rapp, 2012). Conclusions: Based on the above analysis, it can be concluded regarding the implementation of social media marketing strategy in the company, Amazon is that, the company should implement the new social media strategy of marketing for betterment of the organization. As at the present global scenario, every sector of the industry is using social media to earn popularity worldwide within a short period of time and at low cost (Grossberg, 2014). Due to this strategy many new companies even have become popular and successful within a short period of time. In this competitive market, to compete with the competitors, Amazon should apply the new strategy and put its feet forward to adapt the new technologies for its survival. The company should hire engineers and developers for appropriate planning and implementation of the social media marketing strategy (Grewal and Levy, 2012). Amazon should hire a director of social media, for perfectly looking after the strategy and the adaptation of the strategy by the company. Amazon is a pioneer in electronic commerce, electronic reading devices, electronic books, and cloud computing. But it has lagged in social media and social networking. In social media and social networking, Facebook and Zynga are the leaders. Thus, Amazon should add Twitter and Facebook as features of social networking to its popular product Kindle electronic book, such that e-book readers could send the public notes about the different sections of the book, which they are reading. Recommendations: Now a day, spending for social media is only a small fraction of most of the business budgets of marketing. According to market researchers, at present, about 9 % of the total budget is spent for social media, but later on, it may rise up to 22%. There are mainly three ways by which the ecommerce companies should use social media strategies for marketing. They are as follows: To find and engage customers: Finding customer in this huge worldwide market is not simple. But to maximize the profit of the company, it has to search its customers and to engage them by making them loyal to the company, by providing appropriate products of their needs. For these the followings should be done by the company: Customer research - social media is real time function, thus, marketers can directly know about the interest, conversations of their targeted customers, and accordingly, they can optimize their campaigns and can deliver more messages to customers. Customer service now a day, people are fast moving and thus they want immediate response. Immediate service can be provided through social media only. They help the business to respond quickly to any type of queries or inquiries of the customers. On the other, social media also helps company to identify easily and to respond to unpleasant consumers experiences. Through social media strategy, inquiries of the customers are responded. Customer acquisition social profile in social networking is the storefront of the customers. Research of the various companies, various products are done by the customers through the help of the social networks (Kotler and Armstrong, 2012). Thus, the social profile of the customers in LinkedIn, Facebook and other pages provide various information regarding the likings and disliking of the customers. Social media helps to optimize the customer profile and therefore helps the company to find information about the customer, easily. This also encourages the existing consumers of the company to review the specified company on Google, Yelp, or Facebook. Customer engagement social media is not a way for generating sales and driving traffic. Instead, it is a platform to validate and demonstrate the value of efforts of marketing. Paid advertising optimization: Paid advertising on social sites like - Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter is the new type of business, which has become mandatory for the e-commerce marketers. But there are some advantages for the e-commerce companies for investing in these social network advertisements. They are as follows: Effective segmentation the social pages like Facebook, LinkedIn have made it easier for the companies to target market segments, according to the age of the customers, location and interest of the customers, and many more. Thus social network is also an important segmenting tool. Video advertising to showcase the product of the company, video is the most amazing way. As customers research thoroughly before purchasing any product online and video is the best way to represent the use of the product and to interact perfectly with the customers. On the other hand, videos are much engaging, thus can engage more number of customers. Accurate social data analysis The Tech companies enable the marketers to measure all corners of social campaigns e.g. top performing networks and types of social content and at the same time customers actionsin this respect. Staying ahead of the curve In the field of marketing, it may be in locality or nationally or globally, to find and reach target customers are quiet tough. Thus for more targeted customers, much smarter social marketing strategies are needed. Staying ahead of the curve represents the way companies interact with its consumers, publish content and advertise. References Andzulis, J., Panagopoulos, N. and Rapp, A. (2012). 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