About My Own Social Media Marketing Campaign Plan

Social Media Marketing

Importance of Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing is now considered as one of the most important function of any business. Large companies and programs focus on improving their function of marketing on social sites and blogs like Face book, Twitter, Pinterest and so on. Since, there are examples of many big and small businesses that made huge benefits via social media marketing. Coca-Cola has about 35,000,000 fans and this number increases by 9,000 on average a day. Disney and Starbucks have also made great progress but they still need to make efforts to reach up to the level of Coca-Cola.

When developing a social media marketing strategy, a company first has to choose suitable sites for the business since all of the social sites do not work out. Therefore, the marketing team has to make an analysis and then devise a suitable plan. Once the sites have been selected then the team needs to decide on the target market. Later, the strategies for fitting into the sites are planned so that to ensure the success of the campaign.

Social Media Marketing Strategies

Social media marketing strategies requires careful planning and implementation. It requires focus on economic value, number of likes, conversion rates and shares per post. Economic value calculates the return on investment that is been collected through social media sites. Conversion rates are applied on number of visits that are converted in to sales. However, over social sites these conversion rates are used for the number of comments and posts. Company can determine the monetary value of social media marketing campaign by using Google Analytics. This program traces the traffic on social media pages and determines the conversion rates.

Number of followers or likes in social media marketing campaign has the maximum importance since it determines how viral your content went over the internet. Moreover, the number and kinds of public comments decides what the product image has been created in minds of customers. The number of shares also decides the importance of product or service. Sharing is one of the important concepts of the social media marketing and so the companies develop such outlooks that may fascinate maximum customers. Higher the shares, higher will be the hype of the business. Though, social media marketing has brought great results for the companies but one should not expect unrealistically from the plan.

Social Media Marketing Plan

Social media marketing has taken number of businesses up to new level of heights and so it is now considered as one of powerful resources of the company. In near future, the importance of social media will grow higher and higher, since it is an inexpensive and extremely effective means of get in touch with the customers and promote the product or service. It is therefore important to plan your social media marketing and write up the plan so to make the path clear.

Social Media Statistics

Before you start making social media marketing plan, it is important to gather some of the statistics and identify the opportunities that you believe would help you in increasing the profits of business. For example, there are 4 top social media sites that catch the highest traffic i.e. Facebook, YouTube, Blogger and Wikipedia. More than two third populations of the world visit social site networks. More than half of the population in America has an account on social sites. Facebook has more than 400 million users and Twitter has 110 million users. The number is rapidly increasing per day.

Social Media Marketing Goals

It is highly important to first set the social media goals before you go to make a marketing plan. Social Media goals must also match up with the business goals so that top management supports the marketing plan. The marketing team must show how the social media plan can contribute in for the well-being of the business. The team may set goals to build brand awareness, improve relationships with customers and clients, generate high sales, drive heavy web traffic for the business, new product ideas identification or improve search engine rankings by means of social media activities. But the marketing team must set attainable goals and also devise a measurement plan. The measurement plan must be capable of measuring quantifiable as well as qualitative results.

Once the marketers set goals then there is a need to define goals, objectives and strategies to implement them. Familiarize with the social media functions and set up an account on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

The next important step for the marketers is to find the existing clients community over social media sites and blogger sites. Once clients are identified then the team needs to set up blog, define the social sites that the marketers will focus on and develop following.

Social Media Marketing Resources

Social Media Marketing requires training, time, budget to pay team members and for other web applications. Though, social media marketing is inexpensive as compared to other traditional methods of marketing but it requires constant consideration, support from the management team and time for successful implementation.

Above all resources that are budget, support and time, there is a need of trained marketing team capable of developing suitable plans for the business. The company may choose to internally market the social media or hire a consultant or make a combination of both. However, it is always a good option to hire someone who has good knowledge of the customers, products, industry and company. (Thimmesch, 2010)

Social Media Marketing Campaigns

Social Media Marketing Campaign is an attempt to attract customers and persuade them to try the specific company's products and services. The process aims to gain website traffic and attention by means of social sites. The messages introduced by the campaigns are developed so that the customers share it with other people and thus receive brand awareness and increase sales.

Companies keep introducing marketing campaigns to keep the customers and clients involved in the process of brand awareness and image building. Currently, companies majorly use the medium of social media for this purpose; whether it is big or small business, now look for the effective social media marketing campaigns to establish themselves. Since, it is more effective and inexpensive approach to market the business. Moreover, there are better chances for the company to interact with the customers, making offers to the clients in a better way and community building.

Examples of Social Media Marketing Campaigns

There are several examples of the companies who used social media campaigns and made high return on investments. For example, Pixar and Disney streamed number of videos, ads and tie-ins to promote the movie Toy Story 3. Disney created viral videos and launched them over social sites instead of only focusing on the traditional methods of publicity like ads and billboards. It also introduced iAd feature for iPhone 4 and also created a Facebook page.

AOL also introduced its own social site that is Lifestream to advertise and so promote its services. Similarly, when Mountain Dew wanted to promote its new flavor, it took help of the social media. It launched a campaign that is known as Dewmocracy according to which the fans were asked to suggest the new flavor and be the winner. The company promoted the campaign by introducing viral videos, professional commercials and promotion through Twitter. The selected fans were rewarded on choosing the right flavor.

Starbucks is another big company that has already used number of social media marketing campaigns to popularize its business. Starbucks recently introduced bunch of campaigns on different networks. For example it offered mayorship deals on Foursquare, Free Goodies on Twitter and Free Pastry Day by means of Facebook and Twitter.

The main purpose of the Starbucks Social Media Campaigns was to increase their sales in areas where it is experiencing low sales. The mayorship deal became successful for offering discounts on new products, Free Pastry Day received admiration for non-coffee offerings and the Free Goodies on Tax Day promoted recycling. (Sniderman, 2010)

Starbucks Social Media Marketing Campaigns

It is definite that the companies who prioritize their customers over earnings and business experiences better performance and success. Starbucks is excellent example of such business. The best thing about Starbucks is that it involves customers when developing and introducing new products. There are different marketing strategies that companies use to include clients in the process of new product development. Starbucks frequently use social media to promote products and services and make clients feel being the part of the company. It is due to company's strategic decisions that it is ruling the market.

My Starbucks Idea

Starbucks is always ready to receive the positive as well as negative comments of its clients. Since, customers are the foremost priority for the company therefore; it maintains a consumer portal known as The Starbucks Idea. At this portal, the customers are allowed to share their experience with Starbucks and give feedback whether it is positive or negative. This confident step of the company has made it extremely popular over the social media market. The Starbucks provides the original experience and feeling to its customers and that's the reason why its clients circle is increasing day by day.

Recently, Starbucks and Foursquare teamed up with RED, the non-profit organization and started a campaign to fight against AIDS. Other big companies like Coca-Cola and Gap also contributed with RED. This year in June, the Starbucks also offered its clients to donate the organization by just checking in to Foursquare and donate $1 to Global Fund. Though, in actual the company itself pays for the charity however the higher website traffic improves the sales of the company. This campaign not only provides benefit to the non-profit organization but it also helps the company in developing brand awareness, fair image among the customers and higher sales. This campaign is yet another best example of social media marketing. (Makker, 2012)

My Starbucks Idea

My Starbucks idea campaign aims to provide freedom to its customers to share their feelings and experiences at Starbucks. The campaign lets the company get aware of its weaknesses and strengths. The company can go through the comments by the clients and improve the coffee quality and anything that requires improvement. Moreover, the Starbucks value the opinion of customers and offers what they need therefore it has enabled customer comments.

Starbucks manages social media so well that it has now achieved the top position among all top companies. As according to statistics, Starbucks has 7,418,108 fans on Facebook, 901,925 followers on Twitter, 6,509 subscribers on YouTube and has fame count of 69.7%. (Hitz, 2011)

Another advantage that the company receives through My Starbucks Idea is that the company freely receives number of business ideas. Moreover, the company experience customer engagement and brand awareness. The company also acknowledges its customers if their ideas are impressive and even they are implemented if the management approves it.

Messaging and Branding Content

My Starbucks Idea is basically an extension of the original website and is simple to understand and use. Anyone can access the page and leave comments about its experience at Starbucks and suggest a better idea in his or her point-of-view. The websites applies 5 objectives to social media that are listening, energizing, talking, supporting and embracing. The Starbucks Idea listens to the customers that what they want at the store, talks by posting on the page that on what projects and ideas the team is working on, energize the customers by allowing them to comment on the campaign ideas and discuss on the issues, support every customer by allowing to vote on each other idea and comments and lastly Starbucks embrace its customers by asking them what they want and implementing their ideas. (Julmos, 2012)

Starbucks has almost quit traditional ways of marketing that are billboards, ad space, newspaper and posters but now mainly focuses only on social media marketing. This means of marketing perfectly matches with the company's concept and goals.

Starbucks also introduces different campaigns for specific area in order to focus on particular need of customers. For example, if at some location the sales are going down then the company would start an advantageous campaign for the customers so that to attract them. The Starbucks Idea also collects information about the specific area's customers and act on their feedback.

The Starbucks Idea campaign is originally known as the crowd-sourcing. This method of social media marketing is now been implemented by majority of the companies since it results in great profits. This marketing campaign suggests companies to keep its customers happy by careful listening to their views and value their feedback. Frito Lays also tried the same strategy during the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 by inquiring the customers to give their feedback regarding new flavors of chips. They received thousands of ideas; however the company chose 6 of them and launched the flavor as according to their taste. Similarly, Starbucks collects third party or the customers' views regarding the new product development and improvement. Whenever the local manager of the Starbucks store wants to introduce something new or bring improvements then he/she asks the customers about their opinion over the web page. The managers also organize voting and discussions to know better about the customers' need and demand.