Today’s use of social media has been a great help to Marketer’s, because you can

promote your products without paying it. Companies use social media to promote their products
because they know that many people are active in using social media platforms this day. In this
way it is easier for people to see the promotion of a business. And your customers can reach
easily when they have complications in your product. But using social media you also need to
think a better strategies and make sure that your promotion are well organize to make it more
attractive to get the attention of the people and it will be the reason that the people will buy to
your product and to be the best marketer in the market place.
Marketing In Social Media

As of now we are invaded by the new technology wherein the social media networks are
involved here, almost of us using various types of it because of its trend and popularity, the
marketers see this as an opportunity and they tend to use this as a tool that may lead them to
communicate easily and quickly with their possible and potential customers, marketing in
social media social networking websites allow individuals, businesses and other organizations to
interact with one other and build relationships and communities online. This may also help them
to gain a competitive edge in the market place. From the company perspective, their mere
participation on social media generates positive effects to the same extent as traditional
advertisements. So the traditional marketing channels ( direct-to-direct/DTC, communications or
even print/tv advertisements) were decline by most of the marketers because of the benefit of
using social media in marketing for the companies and businesses.

While marketing in social media interest is continuously rising the money that is being
spent in advertising in social media is also increasing. According to eMarketer spending on
advertisements on social networking sites has increased from $ 1.40 billion in 2009 to a
projected $ 3 billion in 2011, a nearly 50% increase.

Marketing in Social Media not only requires money, because money is only a small part
of investments. The most important part of marketing in social media requires holistic approach
and a significant effort to be invested in brand activities that will help the companies present
their ads in a unique and engaging manner.

In order for the marketers to attract more customers, some brands do some techniques
and other tactics wherein they can fully engage their customer by making and providing some
creative campaigns. Oreo brand is one of the good example of these creative campaign, they
promote a ‘fan of the week’ as they select random photo from their fans and post it in their status
update. Their campaign caught many people in social media to become part of their features as
their fan of the week. They’ve known as an excellent social media marketer for their remarkable
creative campaign. The brand nt on listens but also acts on what it hears from is target audience.

If in the past years until now we can see that this kind of marketing is very huge in our
industry toward increased involvement of marketers in social networks this is maybe the vision
that it is possible that the number of the users of this kind of medium for marketing will be
greater in the immediate future. According to the 2011 Digital Marketing Outlook, more than
95% of a sample pool of brand marketers, Marketing Agencies etc., plan to use some form of
social media in 2011.

Facebook 76% 96%

Twitter 69% 89%
MySpace 5% 9%
blogs 57% 75%
Other SM sites 29% 40%
Corporate Websites 80% 81%

Case Studies of Successful use of Social Media

In the recent years, social networking sites has been a crucial platform for large scale
organizations to promote their brands, support customers and increase business. Facebook and
Twitter are two of the hospitable platforms that these organizations are using to advertise their
marketing campaigns.

Let us look for the several companies who have used Social Media to advertise their
brands and products using:

YouTube:

1. Ford. The Fiesta Movement was launched by Ford in April 2009 to promote its Fiesta
model. As a strategy, the company selected 100 top bloggers and gave each of them a
Fiesta model to use for 6 months. These bloggers then uploaded a video on YouTube
regarding the car and wrote their experiences using the model in their own blogs.
Results:
 The campaign was a tremendous success.
 Over 700 videos were created and uploaded by the agents.
 The videos generated 6.5 million views on YouTube.
 Created 3.4 million impressions on Twitter.
 Photos of the car that was uploaded on Flickr were viewed more than 670,000
times.\
 50,000 US consumers were become curious about the car and wanted more
information about it.
 Ford sold 10,000 units in the first six days of sales.

Facebook:

1. Clorox. In 2010, the company hosted a Green Work Webpage that was initially for
females aged 25-34. Its goal was to increase the awareness of the Green Works brand of
environmentally friendly products. Clorox targeted Facebook users who had listed ‘clean’
and ‘green’ on their profiles.
 Results:
 The ‘intent to purchase’ the Green Works detergent among Facebook users
increased by 7%.
 The campaign resulted in a significant 12% increase in awareness of the brand.

2. Bob Evans. In July 2010, the company announced in their Facebook page that they will
give away its Sweet Potato Fries during the National French Fries Day.

Results:
 The campaign generated nearly 85million digital impressions of which 6 million
were social.
 The number of people who liked their Facebook page rose from 22,000 to over
40,000 within the two-week period.
 The campaign reproduced a return in investment of between 200% and 300%.

3. Starbucks. The company often provides discounts and promotional offers through
several platforms such as Facebook. Its goal is to create a Starbucks community feeling
that promotes open community oriented discussion. In accordance to this they also used
YouTube to upload videos not only about their commercials but also educational videos
regarding the origins of coffee and their charitable works.
Result:
 The company gained estimated 20+ million followers on Facebook and about 1.5
million followers on Twitter.

4. Budweiser. In 2010, the company launched its Bud United Show Your True Colors
Campaign on Facebook that enabled its followers to paint their faces virtually with the
colors of their favourite team during the World Cup soccer tournament.
Results:
 Estimated 2.7 million people opted to paint their faces virtually.
 Almost 1,000,000 people had clicked to like Budweiser’s Bud United Page by the
end of the campaign.

5. Nokia. The company launched a campaign that allowed users to watch the video to
explore the feature of its Ovi Maps, a navigational application on Nokia Phones.
 Results:
 It resulted in more than 408 million impressions.
 Over 104,330 connections to Nokia’s Facebook page were generated.
 175,805 people watched the videos of Ovi Maps.
 The company was able to reach users in 12 countries within a very short span of
time.

6. Mars. In the spring of 2010, Mars Chocolate launched M&M Pretzel and used Facebook
to advertise their new product.
Results:
 They were able to distribute 120,000 samples within 48 hours directly to
consumers.
 The number of people connected to the company’s home page increased by at
least 9%.
 They gained more than 1.2 million followers at the end of the campaign.

7. ‘Go Nuts with Donuts. Even small companies are also using Facebook as a marketing
platform. This Sri Lanka-based company successfully advertised on Facebook in 2008.
Results:
 The Company managed to open seven additional stores.
 Gained 10,000 followers.
 Regularly offers sales promotions through Facebook.

Even entertainment companies have been benefited in the use of Facebook to promote
movies and theatre production.

8. Sony Pictures. In February 2010, Sony Pictures publicized the movie Dear John using
Facebook.
Results:
 More than 1 million people connected to its Facebook page.
 The campaign was responsible for 16% increase in overall audience awareness for
the film.
 Because of this success, the Sony Pictures started using polling feature to gauge
audience interest in upcoming titles.
 9. 20th Century Fox. Fox launched a highly visible campaign on Facebook to publicize the
movie Wall Street 2 a month before its release in September 2010.
Results:
 26% people who watched the movie were reported seeing the advertisement that
was posted on Facebook.
 1.1 million People on Facebook were persuaded to see the movie after being
exposed to the ads.

Twitter:

1. JetBlue. JetBlue joined Twitter in 2007 to disseminate important information as well as

obtaining feedback from users of the airline. Currently, they have over 1.6 million
followers.
Result:
The airline company claims that their social media interaction has had a salutary impact
on its image as a customer friendly organization.

2. Best Buy. Best Buy created their own account which is @twelpforce to respond to
customer queries. On April 2011, the company provided over 45,000 answers to customer
inquiries and more than 2,900 employees have joined to answer some.
Result:
The direct employee-customer interaction via Twitter has been a source of significant
customer satisfaction.

3. Comcast. Comcast joined Twitter as a means to resolve customer grievance. Comcast’s

Frank Eliason discovered that by searching the word “Comcast”, he could find tweets that
mention service complaints relating to the company.
Result:
The company has till date, addressed literally thousands of service complaints.

4. Whole Foods. Whole Foods used Twitter primarily as a customer service tool and
responds to people who have questions about the company’s relevant information. Their
innovative strategy on creating niche accounts in their categories gained nearly 2 million
followers.
 5. Dell Computer. Dell distributes discount coupons through Twitter and uses propriety
software to track sales. In June 2009, they earned $3 million from 1.5 million Twitter
customers who have clicked through its posts to make purchases.

Overall, Social Media platforms could be useful not just for students in doing their own
homework, but as well as for businesses, either small or large, to promote and advertise their
product and their brand. Social Media is not just a place for communication and recreation; it
can also be a place for successful Social Media Marketing.

FUTURE TRENDS IN SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Lee Dung-Hun four distinct social media trends:

First, Social media networks are the preferred channel for customer care because of its
reach and immediacy.
Second, Social media can be used as Sales Channel. It saves the company from having to
go through intermediaries and will increase its popularity in the future.
Third, Social media acts as an amplifier of word-to-mouth publicity. It can disseminate
information to a very large segment of the population, directly and very fast.
Lastly, social media is a platform for social commerce. They can easily buy and sell their
product through social media.

Conclusion
From our brief overview of social media marketing, it is apparent that in the past two
years there has been a dramatic shift towards user driven social media sites. These developments
have far reaching consequences for marketing professionals. The empowerment of consumers
makes it necessary for companies not only to listen but also to be proactive. However, while
getting in is easy, being successful in the social media realm requires a significant amount of
planning and effort. Instead a proper appreciation of the medium and how it can be tailored to fit
the requirement of the organization is needed. Social media are the highway to the future and
organizations need to devise appropriate strategies to successfully navigate.