CHAPTER 11 SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING Learning Objectives: After studying this unit, you should be able to understand: • Concept of social media • Consumer generated content • Impact of social media • Advantages of social media • Disadvantages of social media • Types of social media • Social networks and online communities • Community building strategies • Virtual worlds • Suggestions for designing virtual worlds • Viral world • Stages in viral world • Types of viral mechanisms • Blogging • Principles of blogging • Video marketing • Factor contributing to the popularity of videos • Social media performance metrics

Engaging customers through social media gives them a chance to interact with the brand online. Company owned websites can engage customers by offering them content downloading and uploading, web page personalisation, and one-to-one contact opportunities. All these opportunities can be increased many fold with the help of social media. Wikipedia (2008) defines Social Media as: "A term which is used to describe the type of media that is based on conversation and interaction between people online. It can take many different forms, including Internet forums, web logs, social blogs, micro-blogging, wikis, podcasts, pictures, videos, rating and social bookmarking. Technologies include: blogs, picture sharing, vlogs, wall postings, e-mail, instant messaging, music sharing, crowd sourcing and Voice over IP, to name a few." Social media can also be defined as an internet enabled tool that allows an individual or company to share, create or exchange information, career interests, pictures/videos with virtual communities and/or networks. The content is not generated as a corporate monologue rather it is a conversation with all participants having the ability to upload content and discuss, edit or rate each other's content. Famous examples of such social media sites are: Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Snap Chat, LinkedIn and the like, which thrives on the numbers of likes, shares or tweets a person or a company gets. Consumer Generated Content (CGC) Social media or consumer generated content, also known as User-Generated Content, is playing an important role in the marketing of goods and services these days. User-Generated content is the opinion expressed by consumers through videos, blogs, discussion forums or the like, which is publicly available to other consumers, like a short video clip of a dirty hotel room or unsafe swimming pool. Others can view the content, gather facts from it and comment on it. It can affect the goodwill or prestige of the company if they do not maintain the standards promised. While on the other hand, there are companies who have benefitted a lot because of positive user generated content about their goods or services. These companies used the internet to interact and inform their business customers. The most significant impact that consumer generated content has on marketers is the way that it encourages the general public to write the comments about the products and services they have consumed. Such feedbacks help marketers in delivering better satisfaction to their existing consumers and attracting more and more new customers by showing them positive reviews of their existing customers. One great example for this is the StarBucks’ White Cup Contest, which was launched in April 2014. The community of StarBucks across America were asked to doodle something on their StarBucks cups and post their picture telling their stories. Over 4,000 customers submitted their entries in a three weeks span. This was the big gesture by StarBucks to earn some publicity and earn a strong customer feedback.

Impact of Social Media Social media is potentially the most significant change in marketing since the practice was recognised as a discipline in its own right. Prior to the emergence of social media, the marketers had control over every marketing message that reached the public. But, these days the marketers have no longer control over the brand-it gets strongly affected by the opinion expressed by consumers and others on social media. As US TV executive Don S. Hewitt (2006) once commented that: "the businessman only wants two things said about his company-what he pays his public relations people to say and what he pays his advertising people to say." That age has passed now. In past, a dissatisfied customer could only tell friends and acquaintances of his experience, might submit a letter to a newspaper or magazine, but their sphere of influence was limited. Now, the Internet by way of social media, allows a single dissatisfied customer to reach hundreds, thousands or even lakhs of people at the click of a mouse. Those recipients can then replicate that message to untold other masses of people, making it viral immediately. Whether the marketers-or more accurately, the organisation-sees this loss of control as an opportunity or threat may well determine how well that organisation will prosper in this new marketing environment. There are certain advantages and disadvantages of social media marketing: Advantages of Social Media • Enhance the consumer’s experience in numerous ways- it not only allows them to voice their opinion but allows consumers to feel that their views and feedbacks are taken seriously by the company. • Brand awareness- the consumers browse through the company’s sites, they learn a great deal about the company and its product and services, which holds legitimate value if they read post by other consumers. • Serves as its own marketing tool- CGC, in itself, promotes the company’s product and or services inclusive of positive reviews by other consumers and users creating a positive word-of-mouth. • Dissemination of information- social media marketing can also be used by marketers to encourage the dissemination of a positive image about their brand, product or organisational message. • Relationship marketing- it can help marketers in building long term and healthy relationship with their customers, by looking into their grievances immediately. Disadvantages of Social Media • Customers gain control to a certain extent- the companies have lost control to the customers and that they don’t have any say over what is being discussed by their consumers through various social media platforms. whatever is said can be good for the company or can affect the company adversely. • Wrong perceptions can push other customers away- A negative comment can change other customer’s perception of the company’s product and/or service. • Manipulation of facts- offensive language, spam comments and insults are some of the common scenarios which could damage the company’s goodwill. • Immediate spread of information- the negative message spreads like fire to lakhs of people in one go resulting in a huge loss. It becomes really difficult for the company to recover from that loss. So, one thing is sure that consumers are interacting with the brand and participating in marketing on a scale that wasn't considered by most marketers just a decade ago. AIDA Moves into the Internet Age The AIDA model discussed in traditional marketing has been extended in social media marketing. In the original concept, the action-normally a purchase- is the end of the chain of events. However, in social media marketing an additional elements should be added to make the social media version: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action, and Tell (AIDAT) where the addition 'T' indicates that customers should be encouraged to 'tell someone about it'.

Source: Alan Charles Worth, Internet Marketing-A Practical Approach, (Butterworth- Heinemann: Oxford, UK, 2009) Types of Social Media Use of social media is very common these days by various business houses. As consumers research brands online, learn about products from other customers through various social networking sites, it becomes important for business houses to be present on those social networks. Use of Facebook, Instagram and Snap Chat is very effective technique used by majority of businesses. Besides these, there are other social media platforms also being used commonly by marketers, but before they narrow down to specific social media options, it is important for marketers to clearly list out the objectives and ROI requirements. The social media options are really useful for building brand awareness and creating a buzz, but they can also be effective in generating sales when customers read about the brand and purchase at the specific website or off-line. So marketers have to be very clear about what objectives they want to realise through social media networks and choose a specific medium accordingly. Some of the commonly used social media options are discussed as under: Social media and e-mail- generally marketers use 'follow us' links in e-mail messages so that recipients can click on them and be transported to the Facebook, Twitter or other social media pages. Though this method is successful to some extent in raising certain enquiries and discussions online, but most of the time these mails end up in SPAM filters and unseen by customers and prospects. So some of the marketers prefer undertaking social media campaigns instead of email campaigns. Brand perception management- brand perception is the image created by people about the brand, site or individual online. This is the image created by people, not by what the company wants people to think. This has been made possible because of the consumers expressing their feelings freely on various social networking sites. So it becomes important for companies to monitor various social networks and participate in between to maintain their brand reputation. There are various examples of brand failures because users uploaded negative reviews about such brands on their social networking sites. Companies need to proactively manage their brand image online and become an authentic participant in the online conversation about them. Whenever companies make mistakes they need to admit fault, apologise, and report back the corrective actions taken while communicating online with bloggers and others who are discussing the crisis. It is now about authenticity, transparency, consistency, and two-way dialogue with customers. 15 Fundamental Truths about Social Media Marketing Practitioner and writer on the subject, Glen Allsopp (2009), has suggested that there are 15 fundamental truths about social media marketing. They are: 1. You must get involved in the top social media sites to understand them thoroughly. 2. You must be a real user, 3. Not everything you try will work. 4. Failure doesn't mean campaign failure. 5. Results can't be guaranteed. 6. Going niche is often better. 7. Don't try to game the systems. 8. Respect client brands in the process. 9. Go light on selling or promotional messaging. 10.Engage in communities. 11. Offer people value. 12. Create something that is honest. 13. Understand the benefits. 14. Keep track of what is going on. 15. Social media marketing is only one strategy.

Other Social Media for Business Use There are many other ways to use social media for business. Companies upload videos to YouTube and then embed them in their company websites. Small businesses make videos about the business and super impose a phone number over it and run it online. Company upload photos in Flicker and import the photo stream into the blog. It helps them in bringing variety to the blog images. Wikipedia is also an important site to add material and convey it to masses. Yahoo and Google are other sites to be used for carrying product reviews or other important information. Social bookmarking sites allow users to share their favourite websites and comments on them online. Online forums, also called bulletin boards, are areas where users can post e-mail messages on selected topics for other users to read. Online gaming creates huge special interest communities. Finally, marketers can purchase advertising space and build applications and then get them installed in various social networks. Social Networks and Online Communities As discussed earlier, social media is an important phenomenon and is here to stay for a long time. These days most of the companies prefer spreading news about their products and services first on the social media and then on broadcast and print media. The marketing budget of this media is increasing day by day. Everybody, whether it's business executives or professional or college graduates or homemakers, everyone is too involved in the social media and spreading the word around, so it becomes essential to understand the two important types of social media in detail: social Networks and online communities. According to Larry Weber (2007), in his book Marketing to the Social Web, states that social networks are 'members-based communities that enable users to link to one another based on common interests and through invite'. While e-communities are 'sites where people aggregate around a common interest and often includes professional content'. Social Networks These are "social structures made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organisations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, idea, financial exchange, friends, kinship, dislike, conflict, trade, web links...... disease transmission (epidemiology) or airline routes," according to Wikipedia (2008). They are based on the idea of six degrees of separation- that each individual is connected to every other individual in the network by up to six other people. All it takes is introduction from the individuals between you and him. Social networks come in both business and personal varieties, but the lines are blurring as businesses go where consumers hang out. Examples include: Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Google groups etc. These days marketers have started using social networks by creating profiles and pages, advertising on user pages or providing applications to network users- such as games and virtual postcards. The Starbucks coffee company currently has the largest corporate Facebook page with over 8 million fans who have connected to the brand and discussed its merit. This is good for brand building, learning about customer opinions and it is more content that builds credibility and statue on Google. Facebook's has also emerged as an important social networking platform for people of all age groups. They express their opinions openly, give product reviews and initiate discussions on various important issues on Facebook pages. Twitter and other social networking sites are also becoming equally important in giving expression to people's voice. So it becomes important for marketers to keep a regular check on these social networking sites and make efforts to ensure that nothing negative goes about their brand online. Online Communities The biggest difference between social networks and online communities is that communities comprise of different people from different ethnicities and histories. From a sociological standpoint, these are the most interesting to study because they consist of people who have probably not aquatinted before but are in the same community because they hold similar interests. There are two important reasons that brings group of people together: 1. The notion of contributing something to the community 2. The selfish reason of being a benefactor of these communities. In short, Online Communities are characterised by a more elaborate overlying and “deep-seated” structure, examples include, Wikipedia, YouTube, Instagram, and Zomato. People hungry for diverse information on Napoleon Bonaparte or our Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will go to search engines of Wikipedia. Those who find solace in making videos of themselves and/or other things, will be happy to join the family of YouTubers. Those who want to have a bit of an overview of different restaurant or cafes before dining there, will check for reviews on Zomato posted by strangers they don’t know. In short, the biggest difference between the two terms is the commencement of the connection. In case of social network it can be made offline while in the case of online communities it would be made online. Social network connects people with their peers, while communities allows its members to connect with people who hold the same interests and opinions as theirs. Social network holds a batch of people with nothing in common while communities are more of a close- knitted group with common interest. Social networks usually control the member/user experience, while at the same time communities provide a more flexible environment.

Reasons for people to join social networks and online communities According to a survey conducted by Completeinc (2006), there are four reasons for people to join social networks and online communities, they are: 1. To meet people 2. Entertain themselves 3. Learn something new 4. Influence others They suggested that there are four kinds of online communities which people want to join: 1. Communities of interest 2. Communities of relationship 3. Communities of transaction 4. Communities of practice There is also a gender issue included in social media participation. According to extensive research conducted in 2008 from online reputation management facilitators, Rapleaf (www.rapleaf.com), the time women spend on social media sites is less transactional and more relationship driven. They spend more time than men on social networks building relationships, communicating with, and making new friends.

Community Building Principles Building successful online community is not a simple task as marketers are competing with the other pages, groups or events for viewer attention. Larry Weber (2007) suggested a seven step program to be followed in order to build strong community as depicted in Figure 11.1:

Figure 11.1: Community Building Principles 1. Observe-before starting a social media community, it is important for marketers to observe and visit social media hangouts for Web users on the topics of interest in the industry of the company. 2. Recruit-find Internet users who want to talk about the industry and recruit them for joining the new social media property. 3. Evaluate platforms- decide whether the format should be a blog, vertical search site, pure online community, or social network. 4. Engage- engage community members to talk and upload content. 5. Measure- identify criteria that will measure the success of the effort. For example, number of comments posted on the blog, or number of people visiting their Facebook page. 6. Promote- work out ways to advertise and build a buzz in the social media and with reputation aggregators so that the new community will attract users. 7. Improve-use the metrics to continuously improve the community. It is important for the companies to first ask permission to use the profile information in social network ads and be authentic, honest, and transparent in all their posts, otherwise they will be found out and it will create lots of negative conversation in the social media. Virtual Worlds Before getting into the discussion of how virtual world help marketers, let us first understand what a virtual world is all about. “A virtual world is a computer-based online community that is designed and shared by individuals so that they could interact in a custom-built, simulated world.” Although some people might disagree, virtual worlds are essentially online games played in 3-D environments in which players create virtual characters- avatars- for themselves and use them to inhibit the virtual world and interact with other residents. Perhaps the most famous and visited example is Second Life (www.secondlife.com), which opened to the public in 2003 as a futuristic version of Earth. Becoming a basic resident of second life is free- you simply have to register, download some software and then create an avatar, give it a name and choose its physical appearance. Once you are there, you can wander around, read the Second Life newspaper, watch the Second Life TV station or visit museums and cinemas. Chatting to other residents is facilitated by a dialogue box at the bottom of the screen. There are even tech-savy residents who are virtual entrepreneurs - making real money by selling land or items they have created to other residents. The virtual dollars can be converted to real dollars where they can be spent in the real world-once the real tax has been paid on it. Although there is evidence of some successful use of virtual worlds as a medium for a marketing message, the opportunity would seem to be limited. The most successful branded virtual worlds, however, and those targeted at children. Fashion doll makers Barbie (www.barbiegirls.com) and Bratz (www.be-bratz.com) are the two most popular virtual worlds for girls. Suggestions for Designing Effective Virtual Worlds There are many key points to be kept in mind before designing effective virtual worlds. Some of the suggestions given by the virtual guru Wayne Porter are mentioned below: ➢ A well-thought marketing plan has to be sought out well before the development of the campaign for the Virtual world. It is important to first understand the brand's values, and their target audience clearly. The next step is to draw a time line while keeping in mind that campaigns for the virtual world takes months and not weeks, so it is always better to start the work as soon as the marketing plan is drawn out. ➢ Each and every company, using a Virtual world to market their brand/product/services , should realise that metaverse are for global population, which means that they are not simply targeting traditional market segments. They will have people of all age groups and religion from all over the world. This creates a huge challenge for the marketers for targeting audience and this means that the avatars, language and forms of communication will vary from country to country. ➢ Marketers should not mistake Second life as a gaming platform. There are no set goals or dragons to slay. It is a social platform and an outlet where people can socialise, travel and engage in many activities. Viral Marketing Viral marketing is an emerging concept which makes compulsive viewing of a shocking idea or informative idea possible. It can be a video clip, a TV ad, a cartoon film, a funny picture, a poem, song, political message, or a news item which can catch the attention of millions of people overnight. It is generally so interesting that it makes people want to pass it on and on to others for viewing. Viral marketing takes the advantage of the network effect of the Internet and can be effective in reaching out to a large number of people rapidly. It generally creates a buzz to be successful. The two forms of viral marketing are known as word-of-mouth and word of mouse. Both rely on networks of people to spread the word. It is very much like the viral fever, which can spread and be passed from one person to another. The objective is to affect a lot of people in one go. Viral marketing is used in all the spheres of life, Whether in political arena, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign using Internet to a great extent and engaging in a dialogue with the public through Radio every Sunday. For businesses, blogs provide a great insight on what the consumer thinks and promotes through their blog. For advertisers, customer sentiments on blogs and other networking sites provide a much better read on the immediate impact of the advertisements that any standard market research day-after recall survey can ever accomplish. To make a viral campaigns happen, Justin Kirby (2003) of viral marketing specialists DMC (www.dmc.co.uk) suggested that there are three things that are needed to make viral marketing a success: 1. Creative material-the viral agent. The viral message has to be creative and interesting so that it should spread like fire. 2. Seeding-identifying websites, blogs or people to send e-mail to start the virus spreading. 3. Tracking-to monitor the effect and to assess the return from the cost of developing the viral agent and seeding. Stages in Viral Marketing As have been said earlier, Viral Marketing can be referred to as “word-of-mouth”, “leveraging the media”, or “network marketing”. The three main strategies for viral marketing are: 1. Promoting valuable products or services- “Free” is the most attractive word in a marketer’s vocabulary. “Cheap” or “Inexpensive” too attracts attention but “Free” usually makes your marketing efforts viral and spreads faster comparatively. Viral marketers usually make use of such expressions along with conveying the product information. This might not result in immediate profits but they can assure themselves of profit “soon or maybe for the rest of their lives”. Drawing attention brings valuable email addresses, advertising revenue and e-commerce sales opportunities. 2. Easy to transmit- viral marketing makes sure that your marketing messages is easy to transmit and replicate: email, website, graphics, software download. This kind of marketing works best on the Internet because it is easy and inexpensive and fast from marketer’s point of view. The digital message should be short and easy to transmit. The classic example is : “Get your private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com//“ at the end of every email message that is sent out. 3. Utilises existing social communication network- now there are so many social media options available on the Internet so it becomes easier for marketers to viral their marketing messages. Everyone has to just pass on the message to 8 to 12 people on their social network- most of them being their friends, family, or acquaintances and the message goes viral. Types of Viral Mechanisms There have various types of viral e-mail mechanisms, some of the important ones are listed as under: 1. Pass along e-mail viral-in this case e-mails are used to spread the message. It is an e-mail with a link to a site such as a video or an attachment. Towards the end of a commercial email it does no harm to prompt the first recipient to forward the e-mail along to interested friends or colleagues. The message has to be creative and interesting so that people should feel like sharing it with others. Even if one out of hundred respondents pass along e-mail message, it helps in building a huge network. Word-of- mouth also helps in spreading the awareness about the email message. 2. Web facilitated viral (e-mail prompt)-in this case the e-mail contains a link/graphic to a web page with 'e-mail a friend' or 'e-mail a colleague'. A web form is used to collect data of the e-mail address to which the e-mail should be forwarded, sometimes with an optional message. The company then sends a separate message to the friend or colleague. 3. Web facilitated viral (web prompt)-in this case, a web page such as a product catalogue or a white paper which contains a link/graphic to 'e-mail a colleague' or a friend. A web-from is again used to collect data and an e-mail is subsequently sent. 4. Incentivised viral-this is a distinct form since in this case e-mail address is not given freely. This is what we need to make viral really take-off. By offering some reward for providing someone else's address we can dramatically increase referrals. With the right offer, this can more than double the response. The incentive is offered either by e-mail or on a web-page. In this case, there is a risk of breaking privacy laws since the consent of the e-mail recipient may not be freely given. Usually only a single follow-up e-mail by the brand is permitted. So you should check with the lawyers if considering this. 5. Web-link viral- online viral isn't just limited to e-mail. Links in discussion group postings or blogs that are from an individual are also in this category. Either way, it's important when seeding the campaign to try to get as many targeted online and offline mentions of the viral agent as you can. To conclude, with viral techniques, traffic is built either through using e-mail (virtual word-of- mouth) or real-world word-of-mouth to spread the message from one person to the next. Blogging In commercial terms, blogs are normally used as a voice of an organisation, an individual within the organisation, or as an outlet for people who are promoting themselves. With all these, the writer is looking to exhibit their skills and experience within the topic on which they are writing and so develop an affinity between the brand and the reader. Blogs are websites where entries are listed in reverse chronological order and readers can comment on any entry. Blogging has become a favourite hobby of most of the people. They do not hesitate in expressing their opinion, being critical or writing good or bad reviews through their blogs. Blogs are social media because of all the commenting done by blog readers. Some blogs allow posts by multiple authors as well. Many CEOs blog to put a personal face on their companies. Consultants and thought leaders also create blogs to disseminate their views and gain clients, promote books and more. Marketers use blogs to draw users to their websites. But before they all start blogging it is important for them to consider as to which platform to use, who will do the writing, how often will they be posting blogs and what is going to be the purpose of the blog. At times, instead of starting their own blogs, companies can find influential bloggers in their industry and follow their post using RSS feeds, and add occasional comments. The company gets engaged in important conversations and projects them as experts in the industry. Microblogs-a recent trend in blogs is the emergence of microblogs. These are very small posts, short sentence fragments, such as a hyperlink, image, or a one sentence comment. To make a simple anology, 'if blogs are journals microblogs are scrapbooks'. Twitter is an even smaller mini blog, where members can send text messages of up to 140 characters. Their friends follow each other's tweets either on computers or through incoming text messages to cell phones or smart phones. Company can use Twitter by talking about what is happening in their company and gains feedback and ideas from followers.

Ways to Use Blogs Most marketers are not yet clear about whether to use blogs or ignore them as a medium for marketing a message. Scott (2007) suggests that there are four ways to use blogs: 1. Monitor other's blogs and see what the activity is going on 2. Participate in conversations on other's blogs 3. Create and maintain their own blogs 4. Respond only to comments made about their organisation, product or brand while the first two ways can be handled with the help of a software application that requires only monitoring, while the other two are enormously time consuming and requires skill and authority. Principles of Blogging If a marketer intends to participate in blogging as a means of promotion, it is important for them to follow a number of principles. Some of the important ones are listed as under: 1. If a marketer makes observations about a subject published on another blog, it is important for them to acknowledge and link to the original blog. 2. If they are picking up on response to an original blog, it is important for them to link to the site where the argument originated, not just those blogs that have responded to the original blog. 3. If they are using an article from another blog or website, it is important for them to take the permission and add a link to the original article. 4. If they do relate to the original blog-they must make sure that they quote it correctly and get their facts right. Video Marketing In simple words, Video marketing involves incorporating videos in the marketing campaigns whether someone is promoting their company, product or services. Thought, nowadays, featuring of customer testimonials along with the marketing video campaign has been on the roll and are becoming more famous, liked and shared videos. Some of the examples of successful video marketing are given below: 1. Google Android: “Friends Forever” Android’s “Friends Forever” is the most adorable, totally curetted and has been voted as the most shared video ad of 2015. Although the curation took a while, it’s a series of clips of unlikely animals getting together, bonding over a great friendship. Who wouldn’t want to see a parrot palling with a husky or a clip of a chimpanzee resting his arms on his dog friend. This video got over 6.4 million views according to video ad tech company ‘Unruly’. A simple video can be shared if it has the correct subject matter, which is what happened here. By looking forward to the viewers emotions and what they would find appealing is effectively used here. 2.Dove: “Choose Beautiful” Dove's video marketing has always been effective. Even though they don’t focus much on their product but their mission in creating emotional-driven campaigns by encouraging their community to participate in their stories, have helped them to stay on top. It has also been observed that customers becomes loyal to the brand and spend twice as much on the brand on an average than those who are not loyal. 3. Facebook: “Tips” series In this video marketing presentation, Facebook shows 12 different functions of the social networking site that relate to real-life user scenario, such as tips on how to say more with stickers, how to unfollow an oversharing friend etc. All this is directly tied to Facebook as a product but they are not pitchy in any way. This video series is stringent to providing answers to the most asked questions and doubts which is presented comically and is entertaining. Facebook understands their audience’s concern and explains in just a few second, not dragging out the length of the video unnecessarily. 4.Intel: “Meet the makers” series This video is a five-part series. At first it looks like an inspirational story put in by a news channel or a blog post rather than by a brand. In every part they showcase the life of those who use Intel products to create something to change someone else’s life. The ingredient behind such a campaign is using macro impact in micro terms. In a sense, Intel saw how their product has a macro impact in the industry or in the world. They took that and honed in on someone’s micro experience to deliver a coercive story. Factor Contributing to the Popularity of Videos Some of the major factors that contribute to the popularity of the above discussed videos are: SEO benefits: videos have always had a great impact on search engines. The richness of the media, which includes videos, is favoured by search engines coups. Google is the icing on the cake with them owning YouTube too. To fulfil user intent, they show multiple results and not the exact matches. This, as a result provides an opportunity to stay at the top of the search result algorithms. Easy on the eye, easy on the brain: At times it becomes difficult to process everything that comes online. Videos makes it easy for the consumers to get it all in and for the company to create an impact on the consumer’s mind. Spreads like fire: Because it is a video representation, the option share and re-share is highly demanded. Once a video is up online the chance of it getting viral is always up a notch. Once that happens, it becomes easy for the company to break out an important news or announcement for maximum outreach. All these features have added to the popularity of video marketing over the years and most of the companies are following this technique successfully in building their brand presence online. Social Media Performance Metrics As there are lots of social media options available, it becomes important for marketers to find out which one is worth going in for. One of the objectives to be achieved is communication, and others can be sales. If brand engagement is a goal, then number of interactions with the branded metrics because users interact with branded media in many different ways. For example, one of the internet user might view an online video with interest, while another might stop it immediately. In some cases, the user uploads, comments on, or shares a branded video, how can this brand interaction be counted. Social media performance metrics must capture the richness of user activity online in various ways listed as under: 1. Earned media publicity- this can be measured by the number of bloggers posts about the brand or company, number of users creating a buzz by sending a video link, or Facebook widget to their friends. 2. Company owned social media-these properties are messages sent through company owned social media channels, for example, the number of fans on Starbuck's Facebook page. 3. Paid media-these are messages on someone else's media channels not controlled by the company, just as with off-line media like television. For example, the number of people who downloaded a paid placement application in Facebook or the cost per click on a display ad on a social media site. 4. Individual engagement-determined as interactions with a brand in a way that the brand defines meaningful. It may depend on the number of video views, bookmarks, photo uploads, or creation of user generated content from content supplied by the company relating to the brand. 5. Growth of followers, fans and friends on Twitter or Facebook 6. RSS subscribers 7. Media attention/Press coverage/Buzz 8. Traffic (link-backs from newsfeed items or status updates to brand pages) number unique site visitors, cost per visitor, number of page views by visitors, number of return visits or the number of users who interact with the application, or the ad. 9. Actions taken by users- number of downloads for a white paper, music files, ring tones, coupons downloaded or other content. 10. Conversations at blogs-number of comments, tweets/retweets, conversation sentiments as positive/negative, number of visitors viewing a conversation, number of relevant conversation comments. and dates of first and last comment post. To conclude, it can be said that there are many complexities involved in social engagement measurement, and marketers are trying to find out new and better ways for collecting these inputs.

LET US SUM UP ➢ Social media can also be defined as an internet enabled tool that allows an individual or company to share, create or exchange information, career interests, pictures/videos with virtual communities and/or networks. ➢ User-Generated content is the opinion expressed by consumers through videos, blogs, discussion forums or the like, which is publicly available to other consumers. ➢ Prior to the emergence of social media, the marketers had control over every marketing message that reached the public. But, these days the marketers have no longer control over the brand-it gets strongly affected by the opinion expressed by consumers and others on social media. ➢ Social communities are members-based communities that enable users to link to one another based on common interests and through invite. ➢ Social network holds a batch of people with nothing in common while communities are more of a close-knitted group with common interest. ➢ In order to build communities, it is important to observe, evaluate, engage, measure, promote and improve the community. ➢ A virtual world is a computer-based online community that is designed and shared by individuals so that they could interact in a custom-built, simulated world. ➢ Viral marketing takes the advantage of the network effect of the Internet and can be effective in reaching out to a large number of people rapidly and spreading the message across. ➢ Blogs are normally used as a voice of an organisation, an individual within the organisation, or as an outlet for people who are promoting themselves. ➢ Video marketing involves incorporating videos in the marketing campaigns whether someone is promoting their company, product or services.

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 1. What are the various social media options? and why are they important? 2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of social media as compared to a company's own website? 3. Which would be the best social media strategy for engaging students at your university? Explain and justify your answer. 4. If your university had a reputation crisis in the social media, how would you handle it if you were the marketing communications officer. 5. How will you convince retailers in India to have their Facebook page for an effective and efficient marketing strategy? 6. If you were an entrepreneur with a new product, how you use Twitter to build awareness and increase sales? 7. Define the concept of blogging. Why are blogs important to marketers? 8. How can be blogging be used by marketers in promoting their business? 9. What is the concept of social networks and online communities? List out the various reasons as to why do people join such networks and communities. 10. Explain the various community building principles given by Larry Weber. 11. Compare and contrast social media and website performance metrics. 12. How can a company create a buzz online with the help of video marketing and viral marketing. 13. Do you think Wikipedia is a reliable source for research? Why or why not? 14. Explain the various essentials for designing virtual world. How can they be used by marketers in promoting the concept to people?