Using social media for marketing

Web 2.0 is a technology that is currently used to make robust website that allows both clients and sellers to engage in a discussing concerning the products in sales. This is well elaborated via a blog website which allows sellers to engage in a forum with clients located at various geographic locations. This is essential because current marketing strategies have started to implement this feature of web 2.0 in social marketing which is guarantee of accessing a wide market by the seller. 

Web 2.0 features allow the creations of websites which are dynamic and robust since it allows all the users to make update to the contents or add contents to the article and publish them. This feature has become very useful in the current lifestyle so that several social media have been setups and purely designated as social websites. These websites include facebook websites, MySpace websites, twitter websites and LinkedIn website all designated as social website. Businessmen have discovered that these websites can be used to create awareness of the existence of their products to the potential market reachable via social media.

The evaluation of a marketing campaign that engages social network marketing entails the evaluation of several aspects. These aspects include analyzing the traffic on the website or the number of bloggers posting to a particular blog or forum, the rate of changes to the profit or sales that is made by the company as a result of that social network marketing.

This article reviews the role of social network as a marketing strategy of the product by a particular company. It also reviews the term web 2.0 as used by the social network marketing strategy because of its flexibility in making robust websites.  Web 2.0 has completely transformed how people perceived application development with regard to website designing and future trends of robust websites. This article also identifies that web 2.0 compliant websites must provide the facility of allowing the user to modify, add or delete contents of a published article and also to come up with the application that suits the current environment and lifestyles. In addition, this essay reveals that web 2.0 compliant website must give the facility of all participants to participate.

This article also illustrates how web 2.0 is related to social network marketing because of its ability to support common forum initiated by the seller with new or existing clients. This essay also finds that the current marketing strategy utilizes the abilities to draw conversation with the client using social media such as Blogs, Twitter, Facebook and MySpace fun pages which provide links of communication directly with the clients.  These pages allow the sellers to perform extensive marketing by taking advantages of the social networks available. This allows increase of the viral marketing campaign apart from raising the customer satisfactions by answering queries in the same blogs. Web 2.0 is an application that enable the functionalities of social networking which can be harnessed to social marketing.

Web 2.0 and its importance in social network marketing

The inception of the term Web 2.0 took place in a brainstorming session between the Media Live International and O’relly in the year 2004. The term has completely transformed the way people perceived the application development and future trends of developments. Web 2.0 products and services should posses common elements such as fresh and useful stores in the core, provide other members with the ability to modify the data stored in the core, ability to come up with the application that can adapt to a given environment, display and utilize collectivity in experiences, use web in its platform,  focus on collective participatory ability of members and parties to manipulate that data, application trust on the user and allowing them to publish contents for the purpose of sharing. As an example, the Bookmark sharing, RSS feeds, Google ad sense, Wikipedia are some of the examples using web 2.0 applications for the purpose of social networking.

Despite the notion that web 2.0 is a recent technology, its idea existed in the early seventies when boffin underwent trying moments of trying to migrate from mainframe infrastructure so as to achieve flexibility.

Relationship social network marketing

The relationship between Web 2.0 applications and Social Networking may not be clear if viewed from a layman point of view. However, when the two are combined, we have a very powerful technology that is able to transform the world. The benefit of implementing the two concepts simultaneously is gradual but has a major impact to the in the development of marketing strategy.

The two forms of concepts is gaining popularity as a result of its main focus to the customers’ interactions. This is attributed to the fact that web 2.0 applications allows the user to participate in the contents publishing and also allows the customers to interact with the publisher or owners of the website. This forms a social media that can in turn be used to allow both the client and the seller to interact via discussion of a product by allowing both the seller and the client to publish their ideas in the website that can be read by all the participants. In addition, the client is in a position to respond to the post that was published by the sellers thus creating a good rapport between the seller and the client.  Social network allow the socialization of different group of people accessing the web contents by giving them a chance to contribute to the discussion or make comments about a product. This is facilitated by web 2.0 which allows for the publication by different user (clients and customers) participation in a conversion.

Current marketing strategies take full advantage of these abilities to draw collaboration with the customers via social media such as Blogs, Facebook, twitter, a MySpace page which allows them to communicate directly with the clients.  These pages allow the sellers to increase the Product awareness in the market. This allows increase the Viral Marketing campaign and also increase customers’ satisfactions by answering queries to customers. Web 2.0 applications enable the functionalities of social networking which can be harnessed to social marketing. This is because Web 2.0 allows the use of modern technology such as Ajax which makes the page to load automatically and refresh instantly without the user intervention.

How to evaluate successful in social marketing

While embarking on the social media marketing, it is necessary to note the following aspect that may impact heavily on the plan. These aspects include bench marking the starting point of the social media marketing.  A good strategy will first consider the major social network media that are popularly among the potential clients by listing them in order of priority. It is also important to bear in mind the skills of SEO (search engine optimizations) so as to increase traffic into the website of your product.

Once you are sure of the social network media, the next item that follows is the strategy to examine the success of the marketing strategy using the social media. There exist several companies and websites that are devoted to the task of accessing the performance and success of any social media marketing campaigns. This includes Google analytic that give the traffic analysis from you website.

Steps by step evaluations

While evaluating a social media campaign, website traffic cannot be ignored. Traffic forms the major component that is used in the evaluation process by counting the number of visitors whose activities have been influence by the campaigns. The increase of traffic into your social page implies that the campaign is bearing fruits as intended.

A successful social media campaign must depict higher member participation which indicates that your product is attractive and is exciting a lot of people. Participation has a hand in the traffic to your social page which in turn indicates that the campaign is gaining popularity and leading to success. Participation is very important since the participant will also be interested parties. Participation means leaving comments and posting suggestions.

Another very useful and very easily aspect used to evaluate the success on the campaign is the increase in the sale of goods or services. In spite of the sales being gradual and takes time, it is definite the core goal of the campaign and if careful done, then increase in sale will automatically imply a success in the campaign. PR is the ability of the seller to convince the customers. PR is associated with customer services and eloquent communication skills both in written and spoken language. Through the blog or any social media, good communication skills will definitely attract very many bloggers and customers who would like to know more about the company. Increased contribution in the social page or blog from clients participation is associated with good PR. Currently, Majority of the clients have a blog page where they can reach potential sellers for further details about an existing product. Therefore, the PR can be used to anticipate success of the campaign.

Most customers are delicate and should be handled with great care. It is true that a single minute of reason can completely influence decisions of the client to shift attention to another service or product. Clients’ engagement is one of the strategies used to hold and encourage customer’s choice to a product by allowing them to engage in decisions and contribution to the making of it. The ability of the firm to engage customers fully and maintain their confidence can be used to determine the success of the social media marketing strategy.  Customers must be offered with the best package of the after sale service which is exclusively elaborated to them through the social media to encourage their participation.

The ability of the social media campaign to retain its number of fans in the social media is an indication that a successful campaign is underway. The endeavors of all the campaign is to ensure that their fan page visits by the clients increases on daily basis and at no time should it experience drop out of fans which will indicate that a campaign is not faring well as intended and correction to the errors must be done promptly to avoid dropping out of fans. A large number of fans visiting a blog or a social media page determine the profits to be achieved at the end of the financial year.
Profit is another element that can be used to determine the success the campaign. The profit margin increase often means that the social media marketing campaign was a successful venture and should be encouraged.

How to launch own social network marketing campaign

When launching a social network marketing campaign, I will conclusively study the products and services at hand that are supposed to be subjected to the campaign against the attributes and forces in the market. I will conduct a critical analysis and examination of both market and product or service on sale. The first aspect to consider is whether the product can be subjected to online sales and if yes does it also offers shipping to the clients or instant payments.

Campaign involves the sale of birthday card over the internet because it is not restricted to a specific region but can be performed globally. The sale of birthday cards is a campaign that can be launched globally to attract a vast market and allows clients from all over the world to purchases it online via payment gateways. The advantage of the sale of the birthday card is not limited to boundaries and can be bought by anybody who can utilize the online payments gateways which are now picking up as a global buying and selling gateway.         

It is essential to note that before I initiate any process of selling the birthday cards, I ought to understand the nature of business and how the whole campaign will be useful to me. Finally it is important that I have a clearly set of goals that will act as the guidelines and measurement of the magnitude of success I intend to achieve through this campaign.

Objective of the social marketing with regard to birthday cards

The main objectives and goal of this campaign is to increase awareness of the existence of product which is a birthday cards that I intend to sell via the website. Once the goal is achieved, I anticipate that the sale of business and gain will automatically have good returns. Other than increasing awareness, I also intend to identify the type and clientele of the each customer with regard to birthday cards so that I can plan to improve the design of the cards. I also intend to establish a good relationship with customers by collecting their view using a very fast means of social network marketing that reaches a wide range of clients. In addition I also wish to increase the traffic flow into a website through an intensive campaign via the social network marketing.

Basic steps of social networking via channels

The establishing of a social networking embedded into new website to have checkout and shopping cart for clients to buy product will be a wise idea. This is because doubting client can connect to social media and pose queries pertaining to the buying and selling of the birthday cards together with getting assurance of quality. The following stages are handy in helping me to keep track of our campaign strategy that geared toward the increase of sale for our birthday cards.

Establish workable and realistic Goals

The main goal of this campaign is to increase traffic into websites and the number of traffic referral from the social media that translate to a successful checkout. I also intend to create customers confidence with our product to guarantee them money back in case I offer them poor services

Design a Plan

Such a goal will be achieved through sticking to the plan to its entirety without any attempt of ignorance. The first phase of the plan entails services which must be designed to meet the customers’ standard. This is important before any other phase start because you may not start selling low quality cards to the customer as these will kill the plan before it even start. The second step is to identify the market and the popular social networking media that will undertake fully reach the clients effectively.

For the case of cards, I intend to use the two large social network media such as face book and twitter which is used globally and therefore guarantees an extensive market. The next step is to add the face book and twitter link onto website to allow visitors to follow me into the social media for further clarification and then create fan pages on both the social networking media. Once that is done I now officially launch the plan by initiating a conversional to attract the first visitors. One of the challenges encountered is the competitors who are already set and are fully operation. The strategy must include way to outperform the competitors and retain the control of the market by designing exceptional products.

Blogging

A good blog that is interactive and experience a lot of traffic is likely to ganner higher ranking from Google search engine.  A blog that is tied to a social media and has higher ranking in Google or other search engine has a potential of reaching a vast number of clients widely which I plan to have implemented on website.

Local Search and Social Networks

A SEO complaint website is a vital concept that must be associated with Blogs, websites and social media. This is important in website because a SEO compliant website would be assessable via the search result which translates to higher ranking and therefore higher flow to the social media via the links in you sites.

Web 2.0 products and services must have common elements which are fresh and useful stores in the core, give other members the ability to modify the data stored in the core, come up with the application that adapted a given environment, display and utilize collective experiences, use web in its platform, focus on collective participation ability of members and putting other parties to manipulate data, trust user and allow them to publish contents for the purpose of sharing.

The Bookmark sharing, RSS feeds, Google ad sense and Wikipedia are some of the major examples using web 2.0 applications for the purpose of social network marketing. Current marketing strategies take full advantage of these abilities of allowing different clients to modify data stored in the core to draw collaboration with the customers via social media such as Blogs, Face book, Twitter, a MySpace page which allows them to communicate directly with the clients.  These pages allow the sellers to increase the Product awareness in the market by allowing a conversion with user which utilizes the convincing power of the seller or the marketing representative. This allows increase the Viral Marketing campaign and also increase customers’ satisfactions by answering queries to customers. Web 2.0 is applications that enable the functionalities of social networking which can be harnessed to social marketing.