Monday, March 14, 2016

Social Media to drive sales


How are company’s using social media to get customer engagement and more sales?  How successful are those campaigns that provide you an incentive to “Like” them on Facebook?

Are you motivated to “Like” a company or product because you truly do or because of an incentive.  As a consumer on the other end, I think it dilutes the endorsements for all of the other businesses that receive “organic” or unsolicited endorsements.

I asked several 20 somethings how they chose companies’ and from which to make purchases.   Overwhelmingly, their first response was Facebook.  I probed a bit more to understand how valuable they thought advertising on Facebook was to their engagement with a company.  They noted they would definitely pay attention and search a company that a friend liked.  They are unlikely to engage with a random advertisement not linked to a friend’s “like”

With over more than 400 million users on Facebook, the platform provides a very useful tool for  advertisers at a reasonable cost.   At a minimum companies should try to devise strategies to encourage their customers and fans to “like” their page because the content is good or the product they sell excellent.  Advertising would be more impactful l for companies that have positive, enthusiastic users that want to promote their product.

So it’s not surprising that company’s plan to increase the amount of their emarketing, online and social media investments in 2016.  A recent article published on, “Advertising Age” quoted the HP director of strategy and planning-global media and digital marketing as saying, "I would expect our spending in this area to increase considerably over the next 18 months, specifically in the area of video," said Ed McLoughlin,

The VP-engagement at Cancer Treatment Centers of America said, "We just dipped our toe into the water this year, but I would say we'll see a five- to 10-times increase over what we spent this year," Native advertising is "definitely becoming a line item in the budget that we'll have dedicated dollars to put against because I believe it's working," he added.


The Social Media Examiner found that 93% of advertisers now use Social Media as a component of their marketing budget.
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-marketers-use-paid-social-media/ 

There is a lot of opportunity out there for marketers to encourage customer engagement and get customers to engage online without investing a fortune on advertising.

 https://youtu.be/tIrS2zkWXY4?t=2    

Sources:
Redsicker, P. (2013, April 30). How Marketers Are Using Paid Social Media, New Research. Retrieved April 25, 2016, from http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-marketers-use-paid-social-media/

Sebastian, M. (2014, November 21). Native Ad Spending To Jump Despite Marketer Reservations. Retrieved April, 2016, from http://adage.com/article/digital/native-ad-spending-jumps-marketers-reservations/295956/

E. (2014, March 04). 10 Questions to Ask When Creating a Social-Media Marketing Plan. Retrieved April 25, 2016, from https://youtu.be/tIrS2zkWXY4?t=2

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