The Role of Digital Marketing and Social Media Marketing

This report discusses the role of digital marketing and social media marketing in promoting and selling goods and services. It covers the importance of marketing and communication mix, as well as the strategies and examples of successful social media campaigns. The report highlights the #Showus Campaign by Dove and the #WhatsYourName Campaign by Starbucks as examples of effective social media marketing.

The role of Digital Marketing
and Social Media Marketing

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
PART 1............................................................................................................................................3
Marketing...............................................................................................................................3
Marketing Mix and Communication Mix...............................................................................3
Digital Marketing...................................................................................................................4
Social Media Marketing.........................................................................................................4
Importance of Digital Marketing and Social Media Marketing to Businesses......................5
PART 2............................................................................................................................................5
Two Examples of Social Media Contents..............................................................................5
Example 1: #Showus Campaign by Dove 5
Example 2: #WhatsYourName by Starbucks 8
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Digital Marketing refers to an activity that helps in promoting and selling of goods and
services by using some online marketing tools like email, search and social media marketing.
Through digital marketing, companies advertise their business and product by using electronic
devices, digital technologies and online channels. Digital Marketing plays a vital role in reaching
maximum number of people that is measurable ad cost effective (Nahili and Rezeg, 2018). Social
media marketing includes various social media platforms through which businesses can connect
with people to increase sales, brand value and drive website traffic. Social media marketing helps
Organisation to stay connected with existing customers and reach new people (Kumar and et. al.,
2019). This report is based on the role of digital marketing and social media marketing. The
project covers the importance of marketing function and marketing mix including the elements
of communication mix. The project also includes using of social media marketing in
Communication strategies.
PART 1
Marketing
Marketing is a process of delivering, creating, communicating and exchanging products
and services that offers value to customers, society and partners. Marketing is a technique
through which organisation can make people interested in their goods and services. Marketing
includes, promoting, distributing, researching and selling products and services. With the help of
marketing process, businesses can identify, satisfy and anticipate customer needs and
requirements through which they can earn profit and increase their productivity (Mandal, 2019).
Marketing is important for the Companies as it helps in maintaining ever present and long lasting
relationship with people. Through marketing process, businesses can inform to their customer
related to the products and services which they are going to offer and people can also get to
know about value of products, features, usage and additional information related to goods. Thus,
activities of marketing create brand awareness and makes the Organisation stand out different
from its Competitors.
Marketing Mix and Communication Mix
Marketing mix includes the tactics through which businesses can promote its product and
brand in Market. Marketing mix is a combination of product, price, place and promotion. But in

theoretical terms, marketing mix is broader which includes additional P’s they are process,
people and physical evidence. Marketing mix is a tool which helps in achieving goals and
objective of Company such as market share and profit. The product includes the items which are
designed by Firm to satisfy the needs and wants of people. The price reflects what customers
have to pay for products and services. It is important for the Organisation to identify the place
where they can easily distribute the products and services. Promotion includes the activities
through which businesses can promote their goods and services. Communication mix carries a
ways through which Organisation can communicate with their target audience by using various
tools. The Communication mix fits in Marketing mix when Company use communication
mechanism to provide information of products, price, place and promotion to their customers.
The Communication can be through social media, direct marketing, advertising, websites,
product packaging and events.
Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is a tool through which businesses can promote their business activities
and its products and services by using various platforms that helps in reaching maximum number
of people. With the help of digital marketing, Organisation can connect with customers by using
internet and various other types of digital communication. It is also known by other name i.e.
online marketing (Gaur, 2019). Digital Marketing is a broad field which includes social media
marketing, email marketing, content marketing, search platforms and more. The digital
marketing is successful as it focuses on retargeting, when customer interacts with advertisement
of Organisation on Facebook, Google, Twitter and Instagram, they can easily track the move of
people and use that data to retarget in Future. Digital Marketing helps Businesses to know how
to build, sustain and scale up brand’s online reputation across digital platforms. It is important
for the Organisation as this tool is affordable than traditional marketing (Perker, 2020).
Social Media Marketing
It is an activity that promotes goods and services by using various social media platform
through which businesses can reach to large number of people. The Social media marketing
includes publishing great content on social media platforms, engaging and listening to customers,
analysing results and running advertisements on social media profiles. It includes Facebook,
Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. In beginning, Social media was
started with publishing; Organisations share their content to generate sales and traffic on social

media platforms. The pillars of social media marketing are strategy, analytics and reporting,
listening and engagement, planning and publishing and advertising. Before publishing the post
on Social Media platform, company must find the goals which social media platforms can help to
achieve so, for finding this Organisation need to develop a strategy through which they can
achieve their goals and objectives. Then they have to focus on planning and publishing,
organisation can publish their content by sharing blog, video and image. When business
following on social media increases, people will start commenting on post so, it is the
responsibility of Company to listen and engage the customers (Vrontis and et. al., 2021). The
Organization must use analytical tools through which they can identify how their post is
performing on social media platforms. Then advertise the content when businesses have more
funds on social media platforms.
Importance of Digital Marketing and Social Media Marketing to Businesses
The Digital marketing process helps in reaching more and more customers by attracting
them and providing detail information of products and services. With the help of digital
marketing platforms companies can inform to people related to their goods and services,
features, price, usage and quality so that they can grab attention of people.
Social media marketing is important as it helps in providing immediate interaction with
customers and develops relationship with them. By using social media platforms, company can
connect with customers to build brand image and increase sales (Hu and Olivieri, 2020). Social
media marketing provides a great opportunity to Organisation they can establish customer
services by gathering input, listening to feedback and answering questions.
PART 2
Two Examples of Social Media Contents
Example 1: #Showus Campaign by Dove
Showus Campaign was organised for Women’s including female identifying and non binary
individuals says that they are not represented in advertising and media. The Women’s can’t wear
the clothes which they want to wear even society judge the women according to their personality,
colour and scars.

(Figure 1#Showus Campaign, 2019)
(Figure 2: #Showus from Dove, 2019)

Dove has Organised Project #Showus with an aim to tackle these problems. With the help of
this project they can redefine how females are represented in the Society and set a new standard
through which they can authentically represent across the World. For the project Company has
partnered with many women’s and non binary individuals, they collected more than 10,000
images of women’s that offers vision of beauty for advertisers and media’s to use. Dove has
formed partnership with one of the largest international stock distributor with a motive to collect
female identifying and non binary individual’s photographs.
The Company is building world’s largest stock photo library with an aim to share more
vision of beauty of females. Importance of this campaign is to highlight the photographs of the
women’s and girls who generally don’t get seen on social media and advertisement. With the
help of this campaign, Dove wants to show society authentically & helps to trigger social
changes. The Women who have taken part in global dove study says that they are not represented
in the images which they see every day. The photographs which are shown in media & ads
imposed unrealistic standards and also limits stereotypes which reflects narrow view of who
actually women’s are, what they should wear, how they should look like and what they can
achieve. This creates a great impact on their lives, relationships and health.
So, through this Campaign Dove wants to drive deep systematic change. Dove uses
Facebook and Twitter to launch its Campaign so that they can reach to maximum number of
peoples. The Social media platforms helps in targeting Women’s by representing identify and
telling that they can wear anything which they like the most and can live their life according to
their wish without the fear of Society. With the help of this Campaign Dove is creating an
awareness among women that they can break the stereotypes that affects them at local level. For
this Campaign Dove has used Social media to research beauty trends that are happening on
social media and society (Pick, 2020). The Company has used the data to create campaigns that
gives something valuable to Women’s and they can tackle the issues which people have accepted
as the norm. The Social media content is effective as it represents the women with different
colours, scars and of different age. The Campaign encourages women’s to represent themselves
on social media platforms and advertisement doesn’t matter how she is, what scars they have and
what society says.

Example 2: #WhatsYourName by Starbucks
It is being said that Name has power, as the name of the person’s is the greatest connection
to their personality and individuality. In Transgender Community, many people change their
birth name to suit their new gender identities, the names have deeper meaning. They feel
embrace with their sexuality as people call them with their birth name, they even don’t get
opportunities to use their names. This problem must need to be addressed and Starbucks did it.
(Figure 3:#What'sYourName, 2020)

(Figure 4:#What'sYourName from Starbucks, 2020)
In February, Starbucks has done collaboration with creative agency Iris. The Company
launched What’s Your Name Campaign in UK. The main motive of launching this campaign is
to represent the transgender community and make them motivate to find their voice in Society by
daring to speak their name (Yap, 2020).
The Campaign is based on real life experiences, the clip depicts the story of transgender
person’s who face difficulty to embrace his new name and with the help of famous Starbucks
tradition he finally heard its new name. In Starbucks tradition employee ask customers for their
names and write them on cup. The main focus of this campaign was identity and acceptance. The
advertisements tells that transgender people often try to show their new identity in Starbucks
store for first time and they feel welcomed with safe and open space. The ad tells the story of
James who is transitioning and not wants to identify with its birth name Jemma. Everyday people
used to call James as Jemma until the ad culminates in which he chooses his name for the first
time in Starbucks Stores. The Employee of Starbucks responds as James when ask for the name
and written on Starbucks Cup.

The advertisement was played on TV, in stores, OOH and Online. For supporting the transgender
community, Starbucks also partnered with Charity Mermaids, it is a non profit organisation that
helps and support transgender community and their families. The Company used YouTube and
Facebook. The Chosen Social media platforms have various numbers of active users, so the main
reason for choosing the social media platform is to reach large number of audience and create an
awareness among people that transgender have also a right to raise their voice and show their
true identity in Society (Ashton, 2020).

CONCLUSION
From the above information it is being concluded that Online marketing and social media
marketing are the platforms through which organisation can reach large number of people and
promote their brand easily. Online Marketing and Social Media Marketing is a cost effective tool
which can increase the brand value and sale of the Company. With the help of social media
marketing, businesses can promote their brand on various social media platforms in free of cost
by posting the valuable content that can attracts large number of people. Digital Marketing helps
in increasing the brand image by using various online tactics.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Gaur, S. S., 2019. Today's world needs graduates with digital marketing skills. The Edge
Malaysia, p.59.
Hu, L. and Olivieri, M., 2020. Social Media and omni-channel strategies in the tourism industry:
An analysis of club med. In Advances in Digital Marketing and eCommerce (pp. 47-55).
Springer, Cham.
Kumar, B and et. al., 2019. Determinants of social media marketing adoption among SMEs: A
conceptual framework. Academy of Marketing Studies Journal. 23(3). pp.1-6.
Mandal, P. C., 2019. Public policy issues in direct and digital marketing–Concerns and
initiatives: Public policy in direct and digital marketing. International Journal of Public
Administration in the Digital Age (IJPADA). 6(4). pp.54-71.
Nahili, W. and Rezeg, K., 2018, October. Digital marketing with social media: What Twitter
says!. In 2018 3rd International Conference on Pattern Analysis and Intelligent Systems
(PAIS) (pp. 1-5). IEEE.
Perker, B. C., 2020. Designing Digital Marketing Strategies for International Business: A
Comparative Analysis. In Handbook of Research on Strategic Fit and Design in Business
Ecosystems (pp. 166-192). IGI Global.
Pick, M., 2020. Psychological ownership in social media influencer marketing. European
Business Review.
Vrontis, D and et. al., 2021. Social media influencer marketing: A systematic review, integrative
framework and future research agenda. International Journal of Consumer Studies.
Online:
Ashton, I., 2020. What’s your name? How Starbucks and Iris are championing LGBTQ
representation [Online] available through <https://www.creativebrief.com/bite/whats-
your-name-how-starbucks-and-iris-are-championing-lgbtq-representation>
Yap, C., 2020. Campaign Spotlight: Starbucks asks “What’s Your Name?” with Iris Worldwide
to Celebrate the Identity of Transgender [Online] available through:
<https://adobomagazine.com/campaign-spotlight/campaign-spotlight-starbucks-asks-
whats-your-name-with-iris-worldwide-to-celebrate-the-identity-of-transgenders/>