The Impact of Social Media on Marketing Strategy and Plan

This article explores the benefits of social media marketing, including personalized marketing, direct communication with customers, and the ability to change marketing campaigns based on customer demand.

MARKETING STRATEGY
AND
PLAN

1
Increasing use of social media platforms has led to new behaviour among customers and
creates opportunities for marketers
In the technological era, use of social media has become very much crucial especially in
terms of using it as tool for marketing. Marketers use it as a tool that is highly flexible in
nature and the place where different multimedia tools can be used to promote their products
and services. In the recent years it is proving to be one of the best tools using which
companies are targeting their customers at the global level (Smith and Zook, 2011). It is
capable of attracting the larger market base on both local and global levels. It is found that
people that are from the international and local level are also becoming the part of the social
media campaigns run by various companies. It is beneficial for the marketers as it gives them
with new opportunities. At the same time it affects the purchasing behaviour of people.
The most crucial benefit of using social media platforms is that it enables marketers to reach
to larger population at the lowest of cost. It gives an opportunity to the firms to make their
marketing campaign going at the global level. This particularly benefits companies that are
smaller in size or having lesser amount of resources to go for aggressive marketing campaign
on other types of marketing especially the traditional marketing (Erdoğmuş and Cicek, 2012).
Since the social media marketing can be done with the help of lesser numbers of people in the
marketing team hence it increases the effectiveness of the company’s campaign. Since
billions of people are active on these platforms on regular basis. In this some of the people
are hyper active on these platforms hence targeting such people becomes easier. This is an
excellent platform where targeting of the people is very easier to make that too with limited
efforts. In this regards the fan pages or the official pages of the brands always helps the
company to communicate messages quickly among the large numbers of people.
Company uses platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchats to increase the visibility
of their brands. The new launches are promoted through these sites and hence creating buzz
in the market. There is significant increase in the numbers of people that are affected by the
marketing that is done on these social media platforms. It is found that these social media
sites are not only capable enough to change the perception about the product but also attracts
people to make purchase (Ashley and Tuten, 2015). It gives opportunities to the marketer to
make sure that they convert potential customers into the ones that actually makes a purchase.
This is one of the best platforms where different types of multimedia can be used for
improving the quality of the promotional campaigns. The events that are launched by

2
different companies are also promoted at these platforms with the help of their own pages or
other supporting pages. Since the news on the social media sites spreads like wildfire hence it
act as an excellent platform where different sorts of multimedia tools can be used to highlight
the characteristics and attributes of the products and services. It is actually the attributes of
the products that attract people towards it. It was also found that the company that is capable
of making long term investment in their social media campaign are more likely to win the
social media war (Hajli, 2014). Social media is a platform where the perceptions are built and
used for improving the sales and profit margins.
Social media platforms also help the companies to change their marketing campaign as per
the demand of the people as well as after seeing the reviews of the people. Companies use
these reviews as a data for analysing the sort of changes that are required as well as to
improve the strategies that they have made for their future. Social media is an excellent
platform to collect data about different customers and hence after analysing the data
companies shows the advertisements related to those products to the customers. These types
of personalised marketing are highly effective in increasing the curiosity about the products
and hence they are more likely to make purchase. With the data that is collected by the profile
of the customers, companies show only those products that are likely to be purchased by the
customers (Saravanakumar and SuganthaLakshmi, 2012). This helps the company to
improvise their efforts and not necessarily waste it on the people that might not purchase the
products. With the use of data management software and the artificial intelligence it has
become easier for the companies to target their customers effectively. This also reduces the
problems which companies might face in the traditional marketing. For example the
restaurant companies might face problems related to showcasing their taste experience of
other customers in other type of marketing strategies (Bruhn, Schoenmueller and Schäfer,
2012). But, this can be easily showcased with the help of videos that contains the taste
experience of people who have enjoyed their food. This makes the advertisements more
attractive and attracts people to see it more than once.
Social media is also a platform where different types of products from different vendors can
be compared. These comparisons have become very much common these days and are
playing a role in the purchasing intention of then people. Many of the companies provides
link of their website on these platforms from where sales can be made. This has influenced
the way in which purchase has been made by the people in the last few years. Providing link
is very much essential in the today’s business (Weinberg and Pehlivan, 2011). This is because

3
people have numerous options to select from and they generally choose products that are
easily available. It also has a psychological aspect that any advertisement sticks into the mind
of the people for very short period of time and companies need to ensure that till that time
companies are able to convert them either into the potential customer or actually make a
purchase.
Marketers also have the opportunity to directly communicate with the customers with the
help of these sites so as to recognise their problems and give effective solution to it. This is
very much crucial in the modern day marketing. Some of the companies use these sites to
bring new advertisements on the daily basis. Instagram and Snapchat are very much effective
for such type of marketing. One of the examples in this regards are the companies that are
from the travel and tourism industry. Along with this travel and tourism industry also uses the
platform for showing the customer’s experience (Castronovo and Huang, 2012). This is done
with the help of videos or photos. Such use of multimedia marketing plays an essential role in
transforming the minds of the people. People are also selecting the companies or travel
agencies whose reviews are excellent. This is because they wanted tested companies by their
previous customers. Showcasing the pictures of the exotic locations also helps the companies
to transform the viewers into a traveller.
In the mass marketing, these platforms provide an opportunity to the marketers to make a
close relation with their customers. Company usually shares the glimpse of the projects or the
innovations they are carrying or want to bring in the future. This helps them in creating an
excitement in the market. This excitement plays a crucial role in improving the outcomes of
the marketing. When compared with other digital marketing strategies these social media
strategies are relatively simpler and reduces the complexity in the way marketing can be done
(Powers, et al. 2012). One of the greatest opportunities is provided to the marketers of the
small scale industries as the marketing that is done on these platform does not tends to go in
race of reaching at the top like in the case of search engine optimisation. Rather the social
media is a platform where the company creates its own space for doing marketing.
In the modern time, flexible pricing have become very much essential in order to improve
their position in the market. It is crucial that company conveys this daily changing price to
the customers. Since the people are highly active on these platforms hence they can easily
convey the prices to the consumers (Andzulis, Panagopoulos and Rapp, 2012). These

4
platforms are also beneficial for distributing the free bees, coupons and other promotional
tokens so as to attract customers in their stores or purchasing stations.
In the concluding remark, it can be stated that huge numbers of people are highly active on
these sites on the daily basis. This is one of the major reasons why it acts as a platform that is
capable of targeting people on daily basis with different methods of marketing. This one of
the most excellent marketing platform as it helps the company in every step of the marketing
i.e. from research to reaching out to the customers (Durkin, McGowan and McKeown, 2013).
Customers are also checking the reviews about the products and services given by the
company before actually making the purchase. In future, use of this strategy is going to
increase.

5
REFERENCES
Andzulis, J.M., Panagopoulos, N.G. and Rapp, A., 2012. A review of social media and
implications for the sales process. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 32(3),
pp.305-316.
Ashley, C. and Tuten, T., 2015. Creative strategies in social media marketing: An exploratory
study of branded social content and consumer engagement. Psychology & Marketing, 32(1),
pp.15-27.
Bruhn, M., Schoenmueller, V. and Schäfer, D.B., 2012. Are social media replacing traditional
media in terms of brand equity creation?. Management Research Review, 35(9), pp.770-790.
Castronovo, C. and Huang, L., 2012. Social media in an alternative marketing
communication model. Journal of Marketing Development and Competitiveness, 6(1),
pp.117-134.
Durkin, M., McGowan, P. and McKeown, N., 2013. Exploring social media adoption in small
to medium-sized enterprises in Ireland. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise
Development, 20(4), pp.716-734.
Erdoğmuş, İ.E. and Cicek, M., 2012. The impact of social media marketing on brand
loyalty. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 58, pp.1353-1360.
Hajli, M.N., 2014. A study of the impact of social media on consumers. International Journal
of Market Research, 56(3), pp.387-404.
Powers, T., Advincula, D., Austin, M.S., Graiko, S. and Snyder, J., 2012. Digital and social
media in the purchase decision process: A special report from the Advertising Research
Foundation. Journal of advertising research, 52(4), pp.479-489.
Saravanakumar, M. and SuganthaLakshmi, T., 2012. Social media marketing. Life Science
Journal, 9(4), pp.4444-4451.
Smith, P.R. and Zook, Z., 2011. Marketing communications: integrating offline and online
with social media. Kogan Page Ltd..
Wang, X., Yu, C. and Wei, Y., 2012. Social media peer communication and impacts on
purchase intentions: A consumer socialization framework. Journal of interactive
marketing, 26(4), pp.198-208.

6
Weinberg, B.D. and Pehlivan, E., 2011. Social spending: Managing the social media
mix. Business horizons, 54(3), pp.275-282.