Social Media Marketing

including digital marketing (JURAN, 2017). In short, digital marketing is the 21^st century tool of marketing. It has many benefits over the traditional marketing, for instance, it is more interactive for reaching both local and global audience, the data is available immediately and results are much easier to measure, social media enable companies to communicate directly with consumers and build a good relationship with them, it allows 24/7 marketing and captures the most energetic crowd, etc.

(Santanu & Dr. Gouri, 2016). So, all these benefits make digital marketing a very attractive and important part of marketing for any company.

interact with the existing ones (Harrysson, 2012). For reaching their target audience and potential customers, businesses use a wide range of marketing strategies and tactics. These strategies and tactics allow them to reach their potential customers in a more personalized way (Hays, 2013). Through social media marketing companies are able to interact with their audience by choosing the demographics, geography and other personal information that allows them to reach the audience with specific characteristics. Also, by practicing segmentation of the obtained data, the company can make sure they have reached their target audience (Hays, 2013).

Social media marketing is one of the most powerful type of marketing on the internet at the moment (Gruber, 2014). One of the many reasons for a business to be marketing through social media is that your customers are spending time on these channels. According to Statista, 77% of US population has at least one social media profile (Statista, 2019). With so many consumers using social media every day, this presents a great opportunity for small businesses who want to reach their online audience. Another reason why consumers may be more receptive to your brand message on social media is because social media allows a two-way communication and show a different side of your brand. On social media, you are able to make authentic connections with your leads and customers, rather than just delivering direct marketing messages. (Gruber, 2014). Social media is a great tool to influence, attract and engage customers efficiently. Engagement is the most important part of social media marketing as it turns strangers into friends (Eid and El-Gohary, 2013).

The term “engagement” is very beneficial for marketing as the customers do not just click to read a message, rather they react by commenting, sharing and liking those messages (Agresta, 2010). Marketers should understand that it is very important to make a virtual community where the consumers have freedom to give feedback, spread our information, marketing messages and promotional advertisements rather than just reading and listening passively without the ability to give some input (Agresta, 2010). Social media is based on the modern concept of “social interactions”, that means the community is built on multiway conversations; between brand and customers and significantly between customers and customers. This

“social interaction” concept has proved to be more productive than the traditional concept of “word of mouth” (Bock, 2016). Mass communication has also been replaced by “person-to-person” communication as people tend to hear and believe whom they know well (Agresta, 2010). Some of most important components of social

media marketing as mentioned above are the use of social media platforms for encouraging users to spread social media marketing content via social media marketing activities such as interaction, personalization, sharing, etc. (Rahman, 2017). Social media marketing is an effective process by which companies build a strong relationship with customers, communicate with them and deliver online marketing offering via social media platforms (Rahman, 2017). Another unique thing about social media marketing is that it focuses on people, not product (Diamond, 2008). Products or services can be presented with many qualitative features and promotional tools but what really matters are the comments and appreciations left by the customers about the product or service, and this is the reason social media marketing is so different and challenging for marketers. It is not the marketers or the company that controls the marketing, it‟s the customers and users who do it through social media. Both negative and positive word of mouth can be spread across the globe in just a matter of minutes through social media. That is why marketers needs to recognize the power of the critical nature of the conversations being hold by consumers using social media. As a consequence, the ability of influencing the crowd effectively is what is required from the marketers in the current era (Evans, 2008).

A company can benefit from social media marketing in a lot of ways. By arranging marketing campaigns, a company can reach a bulk audience. The bulk audience is not limited to customers only, rather it can include stakeholders, employees, bloggers and potential customers (Shaik, 2012). Another benefit of social media marketing is the wider reach. The resources on social media channels are larger and wider as compared to offline sources. Social media also brings transparency in the company. The company associated with social media marketing is forced to be transparent as the social media attracts a huge audience that is directly or indirectly linked or associated with the company (Sánchez Abril , 2012).

Also, the people associated with the company wants to know each and everything about the company (Lacoste, 2016). Another important thing about social media marketing is the marketers can listen, track and measure what is being shared on social media sites and use this data for improving the product or services and tuning everything according to customer‟s needs. Using the social media analytics and metrics, the impact of social media on a company‟s marketing strategy, can be measured relatively easily.

Another important type of social media marketing is Influencer marketing.

Influencer is not a new phenomenon, people are being influenced by other people since the beginning of humanity. Whether it has been for religious, political or way of life, there have always been leaders that directed and affected the decisions, way of thinking and opinions of others. Katz and Lazarsfeld stated within their two-step flow communication theory, that these are the people who have the ability to spread information to others and thus gives more meaning and value to the information (Katz. E., 2005). Therefore, influencers are „people who possess greater than average potential to influence others due to attributes as frequency of communication, personal persuasiveness or size of a social network (Non Business Advisor, 2015). Keller and Berry define influencers according to the number of followers and their reach. For them „influencers are well connected (and) have a significantly larger number of groups than the average‟ (Jonathan & Edward, 2003).

De Veirman defines social media influencers as „content creators‟, which involves them sharing personal information, opinions, experiences and inviting others into their everyday life through online communities (De Veirman, et al., 2017).

Many studies show that the purchase decisions of people are more affected by their closest surroundings and their living environment than by any classic marketing approach (Kempe, et al., 2003). People trust their friends and their recommendations for making a purchase. The Word-of-Mouth marketing association revealed that „13 percent of all consumer sales are the result of word-of-mouth sharing‟. Influencers have got the same power of persuasion as they are followed by a huge audience and trusted by them. In terms of the social media, Social media influencers are known as individuals that others view as a valid source to what to purchase (Tuten & Solomon, 2015). Influencer marketing has become essential within brands marketing strategies as customers are relying more on the opinion of others when it comes to purchase something (Veirman, et al., 2017). Also, influencer marketing, enables brands to reach a wider and targeted audience in a faster and less expensive way as compared to other forms of advertising (Evans, et al., 2017).

85 percent of the U.S. companies are implementing influencer marketing in their marketing strategy (Roy. A, 2016). According to eMarketer the most effective marketing strategy is sponsored social messages transmitted through a person with a great online audience: an influencer (Inc. C.em. and Reserved, 2015).

With the rise in the number of influencers, it is very crucial for brands to find the right influencer. De Veriman (2017) mentions how identifying influencers is a matter of reachability through the number of followers, while Araujo (2017) believes it‟s the impact and diffusion of the communicated message that matters. In De Veriman‟s views opinion leaders as the de facto influencer. Araujo (2017) considered celebrities and public figures as the high reach influencers. Khamis (2016) refers to influencers as micro-celebrities.

In the view of the earlier theories and concepts, two different types of influencers can be determined, depending on their characteristics. The below table gives an overview of how two types of influencers have been separated.

Table 1: Media consumption for US consumer

Source: (Goldenberg, et al., 2009)

The major difference between the two is not only their characteristics but also the way through which their fame is created (De Veirman, et al., 2017). A micro-celebrity is actively seeking fame by promoting their own personal brand to create a following (Kapitan & Silvera, 2016). While, an opinion leader gets famous as a result of their actions rather due to the need of being famous (De Veirman, et al., 2017).

The difference can also be seen in the type of content they choose to share. A micro celebrity will post a lot of content focused on themselves, their lifestyle, their hobbies (Khamis, et al., 2017). On the other hand, the majority of the content share by an opinion leader is not focused on themselves rather on their specific interest and knowledge (De Veirman, et al., 2017). In short, opinion leader is detached from the content, whereas for micro-celebrity, their personality is their content. So, these characters are helpful for brands in selecting the appropriate influencer.

The brands searching for influencers on Pinterest will need to remember that Pinterest has a different nature as compared to other social media platforms. It is not a place where you simply search for people who have many followers or short-term engagement. Pinterest is different in terms of the engagement and the user response. When a content is posted on Pinterest, it continues to be visited, looked at, repined well into the future and the traffic keep on coming for a long time unlike any other social media platform. On Pinterest, content lives forever. According to wisemetrics, the half-life of a tweet – that is, the time in which you get 50 percent of all the clicks and views – is approximately 24 minutes. While on Facebook, a post has only 90 minutes of half-life at best (wisemetrics, 2019). The half-life of Pinterest is 3.5 months. This means a single pin lasts approximately 1,680 times longer than a Facebook post (Kohler, 2019). As a result, for doing successful influencer marketing on Pinterest, brands should focus on somebody who is skillful in amplifying pins through their Pinterest and should not focus on short term engagement.

Like any other social media platform, Pinterest relies heavily on its micro-influencers. For Pinterest, micro-influencers are those users who have established a solid reputation for pinning relevant, eye-catching, interesting content to a board about a particular niche. They usually have small number of followers (500 – 5000) but have a strong loyalty with these followers. Other important part of Pinterest is its macro-influencer. Macro-influencers are those who have as many as 10,000 to 1,00,000 followers. They are often content producers, who have larger followings brought over from where they originate their content.

Influencer marketing on other social media, like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. focuses on people following those whom they recognize as a key influencer in a niche. The focus is mainly on the outreach of the individual influencer and their ability to engage their followers. The general thought about these influencers is the sense of trust that the followers put in them. So, if they promote a product then their fans will feel that the product must be good. So, in short, the content is less relevant for these social media platforms. With Pinterest, it is the content that is important. If an influencer creates a high-quality image, it could well be found six months later by somebody searching on Pinterest. In this situation, the person who posted this content is not important anymore, it is the content that has to stand up by itself. So, the focus of brands, engaging in influencer marketing on Pinterest, should be more on the content (influencermarketinghub, 2018). There are a number of websites that

brings the brands and influencers together. Hellosociety.com and Openininfluence.com are two of the famous influencer marketing platforms for getting in contact with Pinterest influencers.

After collaborating with an influencer, it is important to focus on measurable data to evaluate the results and the outcomes on the collaboration. The most common way to measure the results is through return-on-investment (ROI) calculations (Hoffman & Fodor, 2010). Hoffman and Fodor view ROI for social media as something different than the traditional ROI. They are of the view that social media is about long-term investment in building your brand and creating awareness. To measure the results of your influencer marketing campaigns, (Barker, 2016), recommends analyzing the reach, engagement, impressions, and conversions of the influencers‟ marketing message.