Social Media Marketing Strategy

This assignment delves into the realm of social media marketing strategy. It examines various aspects of this dynamic field, drawing upon a comprehensive collection of academic research articles. The analysis explores effective strategies for utilizing social media platforms like Facebook for marketing purposes, particularly within educational institutions. The document also investigates the impact of social media on consumer behavior and marketing effectiveness in industries such as hospitality. Furthermore, it highlights key trends and best practices in social media marketing, emphasizing the importance of value co-creation and audience engagement.

Running head: RESEARCH PROJECT
Research project
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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Abstract:
The report mentions the several popular social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter,
LinkedIn, YouTube and Google + and the differences between them. The report involves
detailed research on how these social networking sites differ from one another. The report
mentions the advantages of each of the social networking sites and the situations in which they
are more effective than the others. The organizations nowadays are emphasizing more on online
marketing tools in order to attract a larger number of customers while reducing the advertisement
costs. This is because these online networking sites enable the organizations to advertise their
products almost free of cost. The report involves research on the differences among these social
networking sites based upon their advantages and reach.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Facebook..........................................................................................................................................4
Twitter..............................................................................................................................................6
LinkedIn...........................................................................................................................................8
Google..............................................................................................................................................9
YouTube........................................................................................................................................10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction:
Social media has become vital marketing tool for organizations across the globe. In the
hospitality industry, the customers are largely dependent upon the information provided to them
via online media or offline medium, which enables them to determine and analyze the product or
service alternatives. A majority of the customers nowadays choose their desired product or
services on the basis reviews and comments provided by the previous customers both online and
offline. Internet technologies have played a vital role in providing appropriate information to the
users across the globe (Tuten & Solomon, 2017). Any person who has access to Internet can
simply tweet, comment, review, and update their Facebook status and blog.
Social media marketing has gained huge importance in the recent years and the
organizations have used social media networking sites in order to attract the customers. The
social networking sites have enabled the customers to use them as a search tool for obtaining and
sharing information about their experiences regarding some products, services, destinations, and
several others (Patrick et al., 2014). Some of the most popularly known social networking
websites are Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and MySpace. The report shall emphasize
upon the importance of these networking websites and the differences between them. This
research shall enable New Way to improve its profits and attract new customers.

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Figure 1: Leading social media networking sites
(Source: Hyder, 2016)
Facebook:
Facebook is the most widely used social networking site with more than 1.65 million
monthly active users. People across the globe use Facebook for sharing their activities, pictures,
music, videos, news with others. Facebook is a completely personal networking website, which
is usually used for personal use (Scott, 2015). However, several organizations nowadays use
Facebook for establishing personal relationships with the current and potential customers. The
organizations create their official pages over Facebook and the Facebook users who like the
pages get all information regarding the organization, as soon as the organization updates its
status.

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Facebook aims at connecting people like the other popular social networking sites such as
Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google, and several others. The major difference between
Facebook and the other social networking websites is that it is equally popular in every country
across the globe. Facebook is different from Twitter as Facebook enables the individuals to
become friends and like each other’s posts whereas Twitter enables the individuals to follow
others in order to read their tweets (Kolev & Stanev, 2016). Facebook enables the individuals to
share and like posts whereas Twitter only enables the individuals to tweet thoughts and re tweet
something. Twitter only enables people to write 140 characters whereas Facebook imposes wall
post limit up to 420 characters (Chaffey, 2016).
Similarly, Facebook and LinkedIn differ from each other as LinkedIn has been designed
basically for business and professional networking and enables the users to create contacts with
other business professionals whereas, Facebook has been designed for establishing connections
with friends and families. Similarly, Facebook differs from Google Plus as Google plus enables
the users to access several additional features as compared to Facebook (Leung, Bai & Stahura,
2015). Google plus has evolved as the greatest competitor of Facebook. On the other hand,
YouTube enables the users to stream videos, download or upload videos, like or dislike videos
and comment on the videos (Stephen, 2016).
Facebook has also been termed as the most suitable social networking site for
conducting research. Facebook contains detailed personal information about the users, which
enables the organizations to conduct appropriate surveys and attract the customers. Facebook
enables the organizations to establish personal relations with a large number of individuals and
publicize their products and services. The availability of wide data enables the organizations to
discover patterns, which would be otherwise impossible for them to detect using the traditional

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research approaches (Hyder, 2016). Therefore, Facebook has become a vital marketing tool for
the organizations to increase their brand awareness and improve long- term relationships with the
customers.
Twitter:
Twitter is one of the popular social networking websites, which enables the users to tweet
their thoughts within a limit of 140 characters. Twitter currently has more than 310 million
registered users. Twitter enables individuals to follow others, read their tweets and share their
views. Twitter is the most popular micro blogging site, which enables the users to post and send
concise messages to other users. Twitter has been widely used by the organizations to publicize
their products and services by creating a hash tag, which is unique for the organization in order
to make it easier for the individuals to identify an organization and the conversations associated
with it. Twitter hash tags have been very successful in providing customer service and help to the
customers (Assimakopoulos et al., 2017). Twitter has been an excellent platform for promoting
businesses, sharing ideas and exploring business opportunities. The major benefits of using
Twitter for business purpose are as followings:
 Increase in the brand image
 Keeping up with the changes in the industry trends
 Promoting the videos and presentations of an organization
 Driving website traffic
 Obtaining quick feedback regarding an organization’s products or services
 Delivering better quality customer service

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 Reducing the costs of advertising as Twitter enables the organizations to advertise
their products and services free of cost
Twitter is different from the other social networking sites in several ways. Facebook and
Twitter differ in the ways of delivering information to the users. Twitter is a better marketing
tool among Latino and African American along with individuals between the ages of 18 and 29.
On the contrary, Facebook has a better reach among others (Baker, 2014). Twitter is mostly
suitable for viral trends, which helps the organizations in instant marketing. On the contrary,
Facebook is useful for developing long- term relationships with the customers and engaging in
deeper communication with them. According to Macarthy (2014), in the early 2012:
 Approximately 2114000 individuals in Australia used Twitter
 More than 26% of the individuals aged between 18 and 29 used Twitter
 More than 8% of the Twitter users access the site on a regular basis
As per Walker (2014), the following is the social media statistics in Australia as on August 2017:
 Australia itself has more than 3000000 twitter monthly active users
 The number of active Facebook users in Australia is approximately 15000000
 More than 4200000 people in Australia use LinkedIn
 Google plus has approximately 60000 active users of Myspace in Australia
 YouTube has more than 15000000 active users in Australia (Aichner & Jacob, 2015)
All these statistical records prove that Facebook is superior to twitter in Australia and
Facebook might prove to be more useful for marketing activities. Researchers have shown that
the twitter users check their Twitter accounts more than 20 times per week in Australia. On the
other hand, organizations are more likely to find potential customers over Twitter as compared to

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LinkedIn because LinkedIn is a more professional networking platform than a social networking
platform. A majority of the users of LinkedIn access the site in order to either find some
employers in order to seek job or find potential employees (Kuberappaa & Kumarb, 2016).
Therefore, LinkedIn is unfit for marketing products or services as the LinkedIn users are not the
potential customers instead they are the job seekers and job providers. Twitter can be very useful
in promoting a brand by initiating a viral tweet.
LinkedIn:
LinkedIn is known to be the largest professional network wherein the employees,
employers and business persons can establish connections with each other. Linked in is a
completely different social networking website as compared to the others as it is strictly used for
professional use only. Therefore, LinkedIn does not allow the organizations to establish personal
relationships with the customers. This makes it entirely different from Facebook as Facebook is
meant entirely for establishing good relationships with others. The number of Facebook users is
more than the number of LinkedIn users in every country, which makes Facebook more suitable
for marketing the products and services of an organization (Singaraju et al., 2016).
Similarly, LinkedIn is different from Twitter as LinkedIn is used strictly for professional
purpose whereas Twitter is used for sharing personal thoughts and views. Twitter can be a better
marketing tool as it enables the users to actively interact with the other users. Twitter has a wider
reach as compared to LinkedIn, which enables the organizations to advertise their products and
services more effectively (Walker, 2014). Several organizations also place their advertisements
in between videos and movies over YouTube. However, mostly the users skip those
advertisements and do not pay much attention to them, which makes advertising over YouTube

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ineffective. Therefore, the organizations must analyze the effectiveness of LinkedIn before
opting it as a marketing tool.
Google +:
Google + is an ultimate solution to all the business requirements and is the best social
networking site for marketing a product. Although, its reach is lower as compared to other social
networking sites, it provides all the possible solutions to the organizations to advertise their
products and services. It enables the organizations to share updates and videos and link them
with Youtube. It also enables the users to follow other users, obtain reviews, share feedbacks and
create circles. Google + enables the users to share information and choose who can view the
content in order to ensure privacy concerns. It provides share options similar to Facebook along
with the option of Hangout, which enables the users to chat in real time and initiate video chats.
Google + and Facebook compete with each other but Facebook has been able to attract more
customers and has a larger number of users as compared to Google + (Boulianne, 2015).
Similarly, Google + differs from Twitter as Google + provides better features and
controls to the users as compared to Twitter. Twitter has a limited use whereas Google + has a
wide use. Google + can become a more effective marketing tool in future but at present, the
number of Twitter users is more than the number of Google + users, which gives an opportunity
to the organizations to convey the information regarding their products and services to a larger
number of individuals. When compared with LinkedIn, Google + offers a greater range of
features and opportunities to the organizations to advertise their brand. LinkedIn helps spreading
awareness about a brand among people who either looking for recruiters or are are looking for
potential employees (Walker, 2015). The LinkedIn users might not turn out to be the ultimate

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consumers of a product or service. This makes Google + more effective than LinkedIn however,
the number of LinkedIn users in Australia is much larger than the number of Google + users in
Australia.
YouTube:
YouTube is the world’s top- most platform for sharing videos. YouTube enables the users
to stream, download and upload videos and movies. This has enabled several organizations to
use this platform to advertise their products and services. Youtube has approximately 1 million
regular users. More than 50% of the YouTube users access the site from their smartphones. It
enables the customers to stream videos, like them, share comments and also share the videos
over other social networking sites. Currently, YouTube has more than 15000000 active users in
Australia, which provides an opportunity to the organizations to enhance their brand image.
Unlike Facebook, Google + and Twitter, YouTube does not offer the feature of sharing ideas and
views over the timeline, which makes it different from the other sites (Miles, 2014).
Conclusion:
Therefore, it can be concluded that with the increase in the use and popularity of Internet,
the social networking sites have gained huge popularity. The organizations nowadays are
emphasizing more on online marketing tools in order to attract a larger number of customers
while reducing the advertisement costs (Armstrong et al., 2015). There are several social
networking websites available and the type of product or service determines the choice of the
appropriate social networking site. Each of them offer some unique feature and are also similar
to each other in several ways but the choice of the appropriate social networking site depends
upon the organizations themselves.

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References:
Aichner, T., & Jacob, F. (2015). Measuring the degree of corporate social media
use. International Journal of Market Research, 57(2), 257-276.
Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M., & Brennan, R. (2015). Marketing: an introduction.
Pearson Education.
Assimakopoulos, C., Antoniadis, I., Kayas, O. G., & Dvizac, D. (2017). Effective social media
marketing strategy: Facebook as an opportunity for universities. International Journal of
Retail & Distribution Management, 45(5), 532-549.
Baker, M. J. (2014). Marketing strategy and management. Palgrave Macmillan.
Boulianne, S. (2015). Social media use and participation: A meta-analysis of current
research. Information, Communication & Society, 18(5), 524-538.
Chaffey, D. (2016). Global social media research summary 2016. Smart Insights, 8.
Hyder, S. (2016). The zen of social media marketing: An easier way to build credibility, generate
buzz, and increase revenue. BenBella Books, Inc..
Kolev, D., & Stanev, E. (2016). FACEBOOK AS A TOOL FOR MARKETING
MESUREMENTS (By the example oftelecommunication operators in
Bulgaria). month, 3(18), 3-41.
Kuberappaa, Y. V., & Kumarb, A. H. (2016). A case study on practical approaches to adopting
digital market-ing strategy. Biology, Engineering, Medicine and Science, 2(2).

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Leung, X. Y., Bai, B., & Stahura, K. A. (2015). The marketing effectiveness of social media in
the hotel industry: A comparison of Facebook and Twitter. Journal of Hospitality &
Tourism Research, 39(2), 147-169.
Macarthy, A. (2014). 500 Social Media Marketing Tips: Essential Advice, Hints and Strategy for
Business: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, YouTube, Instagram, Linkedin, and
More!. CreateSpace.
Miles, J. (2014). YouTube marketing power: How to use video to find more prospects, launch
your products, and reach a massive audience. McGraw-Hill.
Patrick, K. J., Snyder, R., Margolis, M., Alahverdian, M., & Barbera, S. (2014). U.S. Patent
Application No. 13/670,238.
Scott, D. M. (2015). The new rules of marketing and PR: How to use social media, online video,
mobile applications, blogs, news releases, and viral marketing to reach buyers directly.
John Wiley & Sons.
Singaraju, S. P., Nguyen, Q. A., Niininen, O., & Sullivan-Mort, G. (2016). Social media and
value co-creation in multi-stakeholder systems: A resource integration
approach. Industrial Marketing Management, 54, 44-55.
Stephen, A. T. (2016). Consumer behavior in digital and social media marketing: A review of
recent findings and directions for future research. Current opinion in psychology: Special
Issue on Consumer Behavior, forthcoming.
Tuten, T. L., & Solomon, M. R. (2017). Social media marketing. Sage.

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Walker, S. (2014). Social Media Marketing Tips: Essential Strategy Advice and Tips for
Business Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram and Much More!.
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.