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Name:

Social media marketing

Date:

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Table of contents

Abstract………………………………………………………………………page 3

Introduction…………………………………………………………………..page 4

Reasons for the success of social media

marketing…………………………...page 4

Impacts of social media………………………………………………………..page 6

Impact of social media on customers…………………………………………page 6

Impact of social media on companies…………………………………………page 9

Advantages of social media marketing………………………………………..page 10

Disadvantages of social media marketing……………………………………..page 11

Case study on Kuwait social media marketing and

entrepreneurship…………page 12

Case study on French social media marketing and

entrepreneurship………….page 13

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Challenges facing social media marketing……………………………………..page

14

Planning and evaluating for social media marketing…………………..

……….page 15

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………page 16.

Abstract

Purpose- This paper aims at explaining marketing and the

development of social media marketing. In relation to this, it

will explain the effects of social media marketing to firms

ranging from big corporations to small entrepreneurships.

Design- This paper uses information from different sources

merged into one paper. It captures social media aspects in

Kuwait and France as case studies on the topic. It relies on

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the viral nature of social media market to explain, in

summary, its nature and relevance to entrepreneurships

globally.

Findings- It is established that social media is an important

aspect in marketing today. This can be attributed to the

popularity of social media today. Companies have taken

advantage of this to create a larger customer base for their

products.

Originality- This paper relies on the fact that social media

are one of the most popular aspects of the internet globally.

Since many people are in one social media or the other, it

easier to market products via the same.

Key Words- Marketing, Social media, Social media marketing,

entrepreneurship

Paper type- Research paper

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Introduction

The success of any company relies on its ability to get and

maintain its customer base for its product. This aspect of

business refers to marketing. In essence, marketing refers to

the business aspect of managing the sales of a product, price

determination and product promotion. Marketing is considered

both an art and a science. As an art, marketing requires skill

to be efficient. As a science, it relies on established facts

obtained from sufficient research on the market structure. It

is not possible to ignore the importance of marketing to any

entrepreneurship.

Market research enables a company to determine the best method

of product promotion. This method is based on facts regarding

technology and the customers’ preferences. In this

technological era, the internet is identified as the most

popular invention and in relation, social media. Most firms

have taken advantage of this to market their products via the

internet and specifically, social media. This has led to the

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development of a new type of marketing identified as social

media marketing.

The fact that there are several social media sites and that

they have become a popular internet package has made social

media marketing an important and efficient method of

marketing. Social media marketing is considered the most

common marketing strategy of this era and age. Companies

ranging from blue-chip companies to start up companies are

using social media tools to popularise themselves and their

products. The fact that this is the cheapest means of

marketing makes it ideal for start up entrepreneurships as

they do not have a high income yield yet.

Social media hangs on the aspect of creating way for accompany

to interact with its customers via social media. It aims at

creating a social interface for a company’s customers via the

internet, thus generating more sales, exposure and opportunity

for a company through social communities such as twitter and

Facebook (Zerella p1).

Reasons for the success of social media marketing

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Social media marketing is considered less of an option and

more of a requirement for any company. This can be attributed

to various aspects that this type of marketing brings to the

table: (Stelzner p 3)

a) Popularity- Social media have become a popular aspect of

life with majority of the people being member to one

social media or the other. Use of this to advertise and

interact with customers provides a sure marketing

strategy for any given company. Companies now days have

personnel who are responsible of managing the various

company accounts in these social media to ensure that

they can tap into this aspect.

b) Cost- This type of marketing is considered a lot cheaper

than the other forms of advertisement. This provides

companies with an efficient but relatively cheaper means

of sales promotion for their products.

c) Coverage- Social media marketing is considered to have a

much higher coverage than the other types of marketing.

The fact that it is a global marketing tool enables it to

reach more people in a very short time. This can be

attributed to the fact that there exist several social

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media sites. This provides the possibility of reaching

more people.

d) Response rate- Companies are able to get immediate

response from their customers and potential customers

from the use of social media marketing. It also provides

a means of attaining response from many people in a much

shorter time. Social media provide the option of real

time conversing. Thus, customers can communicate to the

company personnel and vice versa easily and faster.

e) Social nature- Social media marketing provides a social

interface between accompany and the general public. This

increases the chance of receiving factual responses from

the customers. This is attributed to the fact that it

provides customers a chance to interact with the company

at a more social level in contrast to the official nature

of other means of marketing.

f) Diversity- Social media provide companies with the option

of reaching a variety of people. The various social media

network make it possible to reach most of the target

groups in relation to the company’s products. This can be

done through careful monitoring of posts to ensure that

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there is a boundary between just normal talk and

marketing.

Marketing is supposed to provide the best option in terms of

both product promotion and sales. Social media marketing has

managed to provide this aspect and still managed to cover

public relation roles in the process. This makes social

media marketing a better option as compared to marketing

before social media marketing was developed. The various

tools of social media provide a variety of options to

marketing in comparison to other forms of marketing. As

such, the company can develop a variety of uses for social

media in order to benefit the company. Social media

marketing, specifically, has an impact on both companies and

their customers.

Impacts of social media marketing

The viral nature of social media marketing today has caused

a variety of impacts on companies that rely on it and

customers (AT&T p 2).

Impact of social media marketing on customers

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Due to the fact that customers can find information

regarding most of the products and companies they have taken

interest on, they have become more informed on the same. It

is essential to net ignore the fact that customers will talk

to others when it comes to social media. They are now able

to research and ask around to get information on products.

Social media marketing has caused increased customer

awareness and product knowledge among customers. In the past

marketers held the power to influence product awareness and

thus influencing product sales. The marketers based on the

purchase funnel. This divided product purchase into three

stages. The first stage involved product awareness, followed

by a mental note to purchase the product and finally,

purchasing of the product (Evans p5).

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This has greatly changed due to the impact of the social

media. This change involves the effect of comments from other

users regarding the subject question. People will tend to use

the product that has been proposed to them by others. Social

media marketing has taken the role of creating consumer

awareness from the marketer and entrusted the role to the

consumer himself (Evans p5).

Awareness

Marketer generated buying

behaviour

Awareness

Consideration

Purchase

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Consideration

Purchasing

Impact of

Social media Use

Form option

Talk

The effects of social media marketing on consumers cannot be

ignored because it has a direct impact on the marketer, who in

turn represents the company. The modern day consumer has the

ability to research on a commodity instead of relying on the

marketer to inform him or her about it.

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Effects of social media marketing on companies

There are various effects of social media observed in modern

day companies. Companies have become aware of the power of

social media and for this reason they have to adjust in order

to utilize this powerful tool to strengthen them. These

effects are seen in terms of organizational structures,

organization personnel and organization performance (AT&T p2).

Within the companies, we can see a change in the

organizational structures. Whereby, companies are creating

positions of employees to handle issues involving the social

media. With this comes a change in the marketing strategies.

This involves, employing new personnel who can specialize in

this or training the current employees so that they can be

equipped on matters regarding social media marketing. There

has also been a change in the administration structure where

by the IT department is linked to the Marketing department.

These organizational changes are aimed at making the

organization more equipped to handle social media marketing

(AT&T p2).

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Noticeable is the change in the communication structures in

companies. The fact that social media provide asocial

interface for the company and the public to communicate, has

caused a change in the communication structure between the

two. Social media provides a less official means of

communication between the two parties. This change simplifies

communication between the two as it brings them to a level

ground where both parties can be comfortable to talk to each

other and address issues concerning them.

For big corporate companies, it becomes easier to advertise

themselves and create awareness worldwide. This implies that

the companies will be able to grow much faster thus

simplifying the process of globalization. Social media

marketing gives the promise of a cheaper way to marketing

globally. These causes a change in the marketing structures

and possibly, push for the option of globalization (AT&T p2).

Social media marketing also causes a change in the company’s

customer care policy. The fact that the role of influencing

customer awareness of a product does not rely solemnly on the

marketer, calls upon the organization to develop policies on

public relations for the company. The company at this point

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requires policies that will build the company’s image. Social

media marketing calls for companies to create a good social

image in front of its customers. This is because at these

point customers can influence each other’s decisions when it

comes to purchasing and thus, they require more sensible

corporate policies and decisions on the companies’ side.

The higher customer base created by social media marketing can

lead to increased sales, thus causing an increase in revenue

for the company. As explained earlier, social media marketing

has a wider coverage in comparison to other forms of

marketing. The company can use this to create more awareness.

This will in turn create a larger customer base for the

company’s products. A larger customer based means more sales,

which then translates to more income. In the event that the

company is a start up company, social media networking is

considered a cost effective method of creating awareness for

the company’s products. The company in this event enjoys a

higher market pool at a low cost of marketing.

It is important to note that this effect cut across the

corporate world in that, they affect companies ranging from

big corporate companies to small entrepreneurship. Also, there

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are improvements brought about by social media marketing to

all forms of entrepreneurship in the event that this form of

marketing is used.

Advantages of social media marketing

The effects of social media market are based the social media

tool available for use in social media marketing. The

advantages of social media marketing are based on the reasons

behind its success and its impact on companies.

a) Cost of advertising- Social media marketing is considered

the cheaper marketing option in relation to other forms

of marketing. It is thus a suitable means of increasing

company income through reducing marketing expenses

(Nadaraja and Yazdanifard p3).

b) Coverage- The fact that social media provide a global

connection makes social media marketing a means of

creating global awareness of a company’s products. This

means that social media marketing enables the company to

reach more customers easily.

c) Speed in customer response- Companies can interact with

its customers in real time. This means that the responses

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from the customers will in real time this making social

media marketing a fast means of interacting with

customers (Ndaraja and Yazdanifard p4).

d) Improved interaction between customer and companies- As

mentioned earlier, social media marketing provides the

option of creating. This can help build brand loyalty by

boosting the company’s reputation and relationship with

the customers.

e) Increase in sales- The fact that social media marketing

provides access to a large pool of customers can lead to

increased sales. This in turn will lead to an increased

income flow from the sales (Nadaraja and Yazdanifard p5).

Disadvantages of social media marketing

Everything in marketing or any other field of life has its

pros and cons. The decision on whether to follow a certain

path depends on the nature of these two aspects and what

impacts they have. In the case of social media marketing,

there exist several disadvantages.

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a) Time aspect- Social media marketing depends on the aspect

of time. This is because it takes time to build trust

between the customer and the company involved. The

success of any social media marketing strategy requires

time. Before the project is in full swing, time aspect is

usually a big issue (Nadaraje and Yazdanifard p5).

b) Issues on copyright and trademark- There is usually a

threat of third party interference in social media

marketing. This tasks the company with monitoring their

social media accounts to ensure there are no copyright

and trademark abuse by third parties (Nadaraja and

Yazdanifard p6).

c) Security- Social media marketing faces the threat of

security, privacy and security issues. For these reason

companies are required it take extra care on how much it

needs to be public (Nadaraja and Yazdanifard p7).

Companies can respond appropriately to rectify these issues

on social media marketing that come up. This will ensure

effective use of social media tools to benefit themselves

and their customers. The benefits in social media marketing

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are cleat and have been seen to work as in the case of

Kuwait.

Case study on Kuwait social media marketing and

entrepreneurship

Kuwait is seen to be one of the countries that try to use

the full power of the social media to benefit businesses and

help the growth of start-ups. Entrepreneurs are using social

media to market their products and companies to increase

sales and build awareness for their products. Notable, is

the use of Instagram to market products. This trade is

quite common with Kuwaiti people using Instagram to sell

nearly everything (Allen para3).

In terms of entrepreneurship we learn to think beyond the

obvious. The Kuwaiti people have found a way of making ends

meet through social media. This is a classic means of

marketing and, specifically, social media marketing. The

Kuwaiti people have shown that social media marketing is not

limited to companies but to individual entrepreneurs too.

Majority of the users of this art of marketing are seen to

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be individuals with business ideas they need to build on

(Allen para5).

There might some cons in relation to social media marketing.

However, it is quite clear that it offers many other

benefits that we can maximise on to cover the damage caused

by the cons.

In some countries, social media marketing has grown

astonishingly since the introduction of social media. These

countries have a well-developed social network, which

usually has a number of social media sites. A good example

of such countries is France.

Case study on French social media marketing and

entrepreneurship

There are several social media networks in France. Each of

these plays a big role in the development of social media

marketing. Social media marketing in France is very much

developed such that, there exist a number of social media

marketing companies. The case of Kuwait social media

marketing is seen to be more develops around small companies

and entrepreneurs. The French situation, however, is seen to

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be all round. It incorporates both small businesses and

blue-chip companies (Brinley-Jones para2).

The number of social media users in France is seen to rise

with about 99% of the French people having knowledge of

social media. The numbers are astonishing with Facebook

registering as many users as 25 million. It is evident that

the social media network in France is well developed. This

makes it an appropriate tool for marketing. For this reason,

social media marketing is developing to become one of the

most used marketing strategies by firms whether big or small

(Laville para5).

Looking at the rate of growth of social media marketing and

the impacts it has made in each situation, we can establish

that social media marketing is a gold mine in the corporate

world. There are numerous possibilities when it comes to

this field. However, there are several challenges that this

field of marketing faces.

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Challenges facing the development of social media marketing

Some of the challenges faced by social media marketing

include:

a) Security- Social media marketing may pose a threat to

company data. Various application run via social media

and the internet in extension. Users share most of these

applications. Thus, it becomes quite hard to establish

boundaries and security protection to some of the data.

The companies’ accounts can also be victim to hacking and

viruses (AT&T p3).

b) Intellectual property- Companies face the risk of having

some of their intellectual properties shared. For this

reason, employees should be trained to ensure that there

is no sharing of this information via the social network

(AT&T p3).

c) Speed- The world of information technology is developing

at a much faster rate in comparison to the corporate

world. This means that companies should work hard to

ensure that they are up to date with all immerging issues

on social media networks. This will ensure that they are

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able to keep up with any changes regarding social media

marketing (AT&T p4).

d) Specification of functions- Social media networking

depends mainly on the interaction between a company and

its customers via a social media network. The firm should

however be careful to maintain the boundary between

marketing and just socializing. The line between the two

is thin as it entails socializing with the public and

selling the company as well. There should be a reasonable

balance between the two to ensure proper usage of the

service (AT&T p5).

e) Loss of marketer privileges- Social media marketing

reduces the marketer’s privileges of creating awareness.

This is because social media marketing depends mostly on

the consumers themselves to push for the awareness of the

given commodity. Consumers will tend to gather

information from other consumers in a bid to verify the

quality of the commodity. Due to this, the marketer loses

some of his control on product awareness.

Planning and evaluating for social media marketing

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Social media marketing is seen to be the future of

marketing. This can be determined from the rate at which it

is being embraced in the corporate world and the importance

accorded to it. Its popularity is rising fast such that

there are social media marketing companies on the rise.

However, it is important to note that the success of any

social media marketing project is based on proper planning

and evaluation of the target market. this can be done by

following the following steps (Stalzner p 7&8).

i) Carefully analyse the effects of social media marketing

on the business in order to determine whether the

business can handle the cons that come along with it.

ii) Analyse the social networks with the aim of finding the

most suitable one. This will help to determine which

social network used by your target market.

iii) Choose the best way to manage your social media channel

or channels in case you opt for different social media

platforms.

iv) Set up a strategy by which you will be operating by

after setting up the social media channel.

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v) Find the best way to interact with the target group.

Finding the best content through which you can keep

your target group keeping up with the social media

channel developed.

vi) Establish a means through which you can profit from the

social media channel. This means ensuring that you are

able to distinguish between socializing and marketing.

The latter should be your main target.

vii) Carefully allocate time for managing the social media

channel.

Conclusion

The success of any project requires careful analysis of all

the constraints. This calls for commitment and proper

planning. Social media marketing is considered one of the

best marketing strategies in the event that its full

potential is used. Case studies have shown a great deal of

effectiveness in this marketing method. It is applicable to

both large corporations, as in the case of France, and small

start-ups and entrepreneurs. It is undoubtedly the future of

marketing as a whole. Its advantages and effects are seen to

be important n the development of entrepreneurships. Its

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relatively cheap nature makes it ideal for start up

entrepreneurships, and its effective nature makes it

suitable for any entrepreneurship.

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